Us versus them
Purpose in Life as a Resource for Increasing Comfort With Ethnic Diversity
Anthony Burrow et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Emerging demographic trends signal that White Americans will soon relinquish their majority status. As Whites’ acclimation to an increasingly diverse society is poised to figure prominently in their adjustment, identifying sources of greater comfort with diversity is important. Three studies (N = 519) revealed evidence that purpose in life bolsters comfort with ethnic diversity among White adults. Specifically, dispositional purpose was positively related to diversity attitudes and attenuated feelings of threat resulting from viewing demographic projections of greater diversity. In addition, when primed experimentally, purpose attenuated participants’ preferences for living in an ethnically homogeneous-White city, relative to a more diverse city when shown maps displaying ethno-demographic information. These effects persisted after controlling for positive affect and perceived connections to ethnic out-groups, suggesting the robust influence of purpose. Potential benefits of situating purpose as a unique resource for navigating an increasingly diverse society are discussed.
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Yiyuan Xu, Jo Ann Farver & Kristin Pauker
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three studies were conducted to examine the impact of being a numeric majority or minority in Hawai'i and U.S. mainland on the ethnic identity and self-esteem of Asian and European Americans. Results of Study 1 (N = 214, M age = 19.85 years) and Study 2 (N = 215, M age = 18.20 years) showed that Asian Americans who grew up on the U.S. mainland, where they are a numeric minority, reported higher ethnic identity than did Asian Americans who grew up in Hawai'i, where they are a numeric majority. In addition, ethnic identity was significantly associated with self-esteem for Asian Americans from the U.S. mainland and European Americans from Hawai'i (numeric minority), but not for Asian Americans from Hawai'i and European Americans from the U.S. mainland (numeric majority). Study 3 (N = 88, M age = 18.12) examined ethnic identity and self-esteem among Asian and European Americans who had moved from the U.S. mainland to attend a university in Hawai'i over a 1 year time period. The results showed significant relations between ethnic identity and self-esteem for Asian Americans when they initially moved to Hawai'i, but this relation decreased after they had lived in Hawai'i for 1 year. The findings highlight contextual variations in ethnic identity and self-esteem for members of both minority and majority groups in the U.S.
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Gendered Black Exclusion: The Persistence of Racial Stereotypes Among Daters
James Bany, Belinda Robnett & Cynthia Feliciano
Race and Social Problems, September 2014, Pages 201-213
Abstract:
Employing questionnaires of 381 college students, this study examines the reasons why Latinos, Asians, and whites choose to include or exclude blacks as potential dates. First, we find that past structural explanations for low rates of interracial intimacy explain current disparities less among young people today. Only 10 % of respondents cited a structural explanation, lack of familiarity, or contact, as the reason they excluded blacks as possible dates. Second, the reasons for black exclusion vary across racial–ethnic–gender groups. Among non-blacks, whites were the most open to dating blacks, followed by Latinos and Asians. Asians and Latinos were more likely to exclude blacks because of social disapproval, and whites were more likely to exclude blacks because of physical attraction. Black women were more highly excluded than black men and more excluded because of their perceived aggressive personalities or behavior and physical attraction. Black men were more excluded because of social disapproval. Thus, persistent racial ideology continues to drive the social distance between blacks and non-blacks, particularly toward black females.
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Thomas Craemer
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2014, Pages 413-424
Abstract:
Does pro-Black policy support require an individual to be unbiased? I distinguish two types of implicit attitudes based on whether the attitude-target is evaluated as an object (evaluative associations) or as an independent social agent (relational associations). In a series of studies (N = 3,073), a significant anti-Black evaluative association bias emerges. In contrast, relational associations are significantly pro-Black and are unrelated to evaluative associations. Relational associations predict opinions regarding affirmative action, government help for Blacks, slavery reparations, and intentions to vote for Barack Obama. Thus, minority representation based on relational associations may not require absence of anti-minority evaluative bias.
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Jaine Strauss et al.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on teens’ body dissatisfaction documents the role of proximal social influences (e.g., peers and family) and distal social influences (e.g., mass media) but largely ignores intermediate contextual factors such as school environment. Is there a link between individual body image and student body? We assessed drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalization, and body objectification in an ethnically diverse sample of 1,536 female students educated in U.S. school districts varying in the degree to which younger students (fifth and sixth graders) are educated alongside older students (seventh and eighth graders). We studied three different grade groupings: junior high (Grades K–6 housed together/Grades 7–8 housed together), middle school (K–5/6–8), and extended middle school (K–4/5–8). As predicted, fifth and sixth graders attending schools with older students reported more negative body experiences than their age peers attending schools with younger students; similar effects were evident among seventh graders who had been educated with older peers during fifth and sixth grade. Our findings highlight the importance of considering contextual factors in understanding young women’s body image.
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Erez Aharon Marantz, Alexandra Kalev & Noah Lewin-Epstein
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the labor-market incorporation of minority women. Industrial transformations and the expansion of service and retail have increased women's labor-market participation, but there remains a large variation between minority women groups, where multiple boundaries may hinder labor-market integration. Past research has explored the role of formal labor-market intermediates in overcoming social boundaries. But a precondition for labor-market intermediation is that majority employers perceive minorities as potential workers and minorities perceive the majority as potential employers. In this paper, we expand the concept of labor-market intermediation to include the social construction of groups as legitimate economic actors, and examine the role of organizational structures in this social construction. Using a comparative analysis of two Jewish malls and nearby shopping streets, and based on 190 interviews with various actors, we show that while supply of workers and demand for work are necessary factors, they are not sufficient for explaining the incorporation of Palestinian women into retail labor markets. Instead, we point to the unintended effect of the globally themed organization of the shopping malls on the erosion of social boundaries and the formation of consumption relations between Israeli-Palestinian women and Jewish employers, which turned into employment relations.
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Neighborhood linguistic diversity predicts infants’ social learning
Lauren Howard, Cristina Carrazza & Amanda Woodward
Cognition, November 2014, Pages 474–479
Abstract:
Infants’ direct interactions with caregivers have been shown to powerfully influence social and cognitive development. In contrast, little is known about the cognitive influence of social contexts beyond the infant’s immediate interactions with others, for example, the communities in which infants live. The current study addressed this issue by asking whether neighborhood linguistic diversity predicts infants’ propensity to learn from diverse social partners. Data were taken from a series of experiments in which 19-month-old infants from monolingual, English-speaking homes were tested in paradigms that assessed their tendency to imitate the actions of an adult who spoke either English or Spanish. Infants who lived in more linguistically diverse neighborhoods imitated more of the Spanish speaker’s actions. This relation was observed in two separate datasets and found to be independent from variation in infants’ general imitative abilities, age, median family income and population density. These results provide novel evidence suggesting that infants’ social learning is predicted by the diversity of the communities in which they live.
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Silent or Talking in the Classroom: Implicit Self-Stereotyping Among Asian and White Students
Thierry Devos & Yukiko Yokoyama
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2014, Pages 386-396
Abstract:
In academic settings, Asian students are often described as less talkative than White students. We provide an account of this phenomenon based on research on cultural influences on the self, self-categorization, and implicit social cognition. We hypothesized that the classroom context activates a process of implicit self-stereotyping. Asian and White participants were asked to imagine themselves in a classroom or leisure context. Next, they completed Implicit Association Tests assessing their self-concept, ethnic stereotypes, and ethnic identification. In the classroom context only, ethnic stereotypes accounted for a more reserved self-concept among Asian participants and a more talkative self-concept among White participants.
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Tessa Dover et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We assessed whether unfair treatment leads to different attributional, emotional, behavioral, and cardiovascular responses depending on whether or not the treatment is group-based. Latino and White men (N = 209) were treated fairly or unfairly by an ingroup or outgroup member. As expected, attributions to discrimination were greatest among those treated unfairly in an intergroup context. Moreover, among those treated unfairly in an intergroup context, Latinos who did not endorse the protestant work ethic (PWE) responded with more anger, had higher attributions to discrimination, and punished the offender more, compared to Whites and high-PWE Latinos. Cardiovascular responses to unfair intergroup treatment did not differ by ethnicity: unfair intergroup treatment was less threatening (more challenging) when low (vs. high) in PWE. Results suggest that for low-status group members responding to unfair intergroup treatment (i.e., discrimination), identifying the treatment as discriminatory and becoming angry may be more cardiovascularly-adaptive than not. Implications are discussed.
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Seen to Be Heard? Gender, Voice, and Body in Television Advertisements
Mark Pedelty & Morgan Kuecker
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Summer 2014, Pages 250-269
Abstract:
A quantitative content analysis of 1,055 television ads reveals that male voiceovers outnumber female voiceovers 4:1. As has been the case for decades in television, a man is much more likely to serve as the disembodied and objective voice of authority, expertise, and reason. However, a woman's voice is twice as likely to be heard if her body is also represented on screen. Based on that finding, the authors argue that scopocentric sexism influences when and how gendered voices are presented. A woman's relative agency, her recourse to “voice” in both the literal and metaphoric sense, is conditioned by her visual presence. After completing the quantitative content analysis, a qualitative textual analysis was conducted on a subsample of ads in order to explore relationships between voice and body at a finer-grained level. The study provides an important update for critical ad research concerning voiceovers and is the first that systematically compares voice and body data. The authors conclude by presenting ideas for integrating critical sound research into media literacy curricula.
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Xiaole Ma et al.
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, August 2014
Abstract:
The neuropeptide oxytocin enhances in-group favoritism and ethnocentrism in males. However, whether such effects also occur in women and extend to national symbols and companies/consumer products is unclear. In a between-subject, double-blind placebo controlled experiment we have investigated the effect of intranasal oxytocin on likeability and arousal ratings given by 51 adult Chinese males and females for pictures depicting people or national symbols/consumer products from both strong and weak in-groups (China and Taiwan) and corresponding out-groups (Japan and South Korea). To assess duration of treatment effects subjects were also re-tested after 1 week. Results showed that although oxytocin selectively increased the bias for overall liking for Chinese social stimuli and the national flag, it had no effect on the similar bias toward other Chinese cultural symbols, companies, and consumer products. This enhanced bias was maintained 1 week after treatment. No overall oxytocin effects were found for Taiwanese, Japanese, or South Korean pictures. Our findings show for the first time that oxytocin increases liking for a nation's society and flag in both men and women, but not that for other cultural symbols or companies/consumer products.
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Amber Paulk et al.
Sociological Spectrum, September/October 2014, Pages 442-452
Abstract:
Body image is a significant predictor of important psychological and physical outcomes. The current study sought to expand on previous research on cross-cultural differences in body image across countries by exploring differences in body image based on geographic region within the United States. A sample of 1,365 participants was recruited from universities in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Participants completed a survey that assessed their gender, geographic region, and body image. Women reported poorer body image than men, and young adults from the Southeast reported poorer body image than young adults from the Pacific Northwest. There were significant interaction effects for gender and geographic region with women from the Southeast reporting the poorest body image of any group. The authors suggest that sociocultural differences in standard of beauty in the Southeast as well as differences in dress related to climate may contribute to the findings.
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Nikhil Sengupta, Danny Osborne & Chris Sibley
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The status-legitimacy hypothesis, which predicts that low-status groups will legitimize inequality more than high-status groups, has received inconsistent empirical support. To resolve this inconsistency, we hypothesized that low-status groups would display enhanced legitimation only when evaluating the fairness of the specific hierarchy responsible for their disadvantage. In a New Zealand-based probability sample (N = 6,162), we found that low-status ethnic groups (Asians and Pacific Islanders) perceived ethnic-group relations to be fairer than the high-status group (Europeans). However, these groups did not justify the overall political system more than the high-status group. In fact, Māori showed the least support for the political system. These findings clarify when the controversial status-legitimacy effects predicted by System Justification Theory will – and will not – emerge.
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“Doing Race”: Latino Youth’s Identities and the Politics of Racial Exclusion
Nilda Flores-González, Elizabeth Aranda & Elizabeth Vaquera
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
For most Latino youth, Latinos constitute a separate, while diverse, racial group. Our study demonstrates that, when asked about their identities, Latino youth do not follow conventional U.S. racial categories. Although they prefer to identify by national origin or panethnicity, they consider themselves to be part of a racial group rather than an ethnic group, as the U.S. Census designates them. Using findings from in-depth semistructured interviews with two samples of young adults in Chicago and Central Florida, this research joins the long-standing debate on the conceptual division between race and ethnicity arguing that there is a mismatch between existing sociological understandings of race and ethnicity and the current racial ideas and racial practices among Latino youth. There is also a mismatch between institutional measures of “race,” such as those found in the U.S. Census, and Latinos’ self-understandings of where they belong in the U.S. racial hierarchy. We suggest that not being officially designated as a racial group leads to the erosion of perceptions of belonging among Latinos to a nation in which being a member of a racial group allows for visibility and claims-making in a multiracial society.
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Mark Rubin & Stefania Paolini
Social Psychology, Fall 2014, Pages 265-273
Abstract:
People tend to misclassify ambiguous individuals as members of the out-group rather than the in-group. This in-group overexclusion effect (IO effect) is thought to occur because people are motivated to maintain their in-group’s positivity by protecting it from potential out-group intrusions. The present research tested this explanation by asking university students (N = 122) to complete a self-esteem scale and then recall the group memberships of individuals who belonged to minimal groups. Consistent with predictions, participants misassigned significantly fewer individuals to the in-group than to the out-group when the in-group was positive and the out-group was negative but not when these valences were reversed. In addition, self-esteem negatively predicted the IO effect. Alternative explanations of the IO effect are discussed.
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Social identity modifies face perception: An ERP study of social categorization
Belle Derks, Jeffrey Stedehouder & Tiffany Ito
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies examined whether social identity processes, i.e., group identification and social identity threat, amplify the degree to which people attend to social category information in early perception (assessed with ERPs). Participants were presented with faces of Muslims and non-Muslims in an evaluative priming task while event-related brain potentials were measured and implicit evaluative bias was assessed. Study 1 revealed that non-Muslims showed stronger differentiation between ingroup and outgroup faces in both early (N200) and later processing stages (implicit evaluations) when they identified more strongly with their ethnic group. Moreover, identification effects on implicit bias were mediated by inter-group differentiation in the N200. In Study 2, social identity threat (vs. control) was manipulated among Muslims. Results revealed that high social identity threat resulted in stronger differentiation of Muslims from non-Muslims in early (N200) and late (implicit evaluations) processing stages, with N200 effects again predicting implicit bias. Combined, these studies reveal how seemingly bottom-up early social categorization processes are affected by individual and contextual variables that affect the meaning of social identity. Implication of these results for the social identity perspective as well as social cognitive theories of person perception are discussed.
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Andrew Livingstone et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In three studies, we examined the effect of intergroup status on group members' tendencies to characterize the ingroup's relationship with an outgroup as conflictual following outgroup action. Findings from all three studies supported the prediction that the intergroup relationship would be characterized as less conflictual when the ingroup had relatively high rather than low status. Consistent with the hypothesis that the effect of status reflects strategic concerns, it was moderated by the perceived relevance of the outgroup's action to intergroup status relations (study 1), it was sensitive to audience (study 2), and it was partially mediated by status management concerns (study 3). The role of strategic, status-related factors in intergroup relations is discussed.
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Measuring Sexual Dimorphism With a Race–Gender Face Space
William Hopper et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, October 2014, Pages 1779-1788
Abstract:
Faces are complex visual objects, and faces chosen to vary in 1 regard may unintentionally vary in other ways, particularly if the correlation is a property of the population of faces. Here, we present an example of a correlation that arises from differences in the degree of sexual dimorphism. In Experiment 1, paired similarity ratings were collected for a set of 40 real face images chosen to vary in terms of gender and race (Asian vs. White). Multidimensional scaling (MDS) placed these stimuli in a “face space,” with different attributes corresponding to different dimensions. Gender was found to vary more for White faces, resulting in a negative or positive correlation between gender and race when only considering male or only considering female faces. This increased sexual dimorphism for White faces may provide an alternative explanation for differences in face processing between White and Asian faces (e.g., the own-race bias, face attractiveness biases, etc.). Studies of face processing that are unconfounded by this difference in the degree of sexual dimorphism require stimuli that are decorrelated in terms of race and gender. Decorrelated faces were created using a morphing technique, spacing the morphs uniformly around a ring in the 2-dimensional (2D) race–gender plane. In Experiment 2, paired similarity ratings confirmed the 2D positions of the morph faces. In Experiment 3, race and gender category judgments varied uniformly for these decorrelated stimuli. Our results and stimuli should prove useful for studying sexual dimorphism and for the study of face processing more generally.
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Yarrow Dunham et al.
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research on the development of race-based categorization has concluded that children understand the perceptual basis of race categories from as early as age 4 (e.g. Aboud, 1988). However, such work has rarely separated the influence of skin color from other physiognomic features considered by adults to be diagnostic of race categories. In two studies focusing on Black–White race categorization judgments in children between the ages of 4 and 9, as well as in adults, we find that categorization decisions in early childhood are determined almost entirely by attention to skin color, with attention to other physiognomic features exerting only a small influence on judgments as late as middle childhood. We further find that when skin color cues are largely eliminated from the stimuli, adults readily shift almost entirely to focus on other physiognomic features. However, 6- and 8-year-old children show only a limited ability to shift attention to facial physiognomy and so perform poorly on the task. These results demonstrate that attention to ‘race’ in younger children is better conceptualized as attention to skin color, inviting a reinterpretation of past work focusing on children's race-related cognition.