Making Impressions
Fear of a Black Neighborhood: Anti-Black Racism and the Health of White Americans
Patricia Louie & Reed DeAngelis
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does anti-Black racism harm White Americans? We advance hypotheses that address this question within the neighborhood context. Hypotheses are tested with neighborhood and survey data from a probability sample of White residents of Nashville, Tennessee. We find that regardless of neighborhood crime rates or socioeconomic compositions, Whites report heightened perceptions of crime and danger in their neighborhoods as the proportion of Black residents increases. Perceived neighborhood danger, in turn, predicts increased symptoms of psychophysiological distress. When stratified by socioeconomic status (SES), however, low-SES Whites also report perceptions of higher status when living near more Black neighbors, which entirely offsets their distress. We conclude that although anti-Black racism can ironically harm the health of White Americans, compensatory racist ideologies can also offset these harms, particularly for lower-status Whites. We situate our findings within broader discussions of anti-Black racism, residential segregation, and psychiatric disorders commonly observed among White Americans.
Instrumentally Inclusive: The Political Psychology of Homonationalism
Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte & Alberto López Ortega
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can nativist attitudes condition support for LGBT+ rights? The sustained advance in pro-LGBT+ attitudes in the West often contrasts with the greening of anti-immigrant sentiment propagated by nativist supply-side actors. We argue that these parallel trends are causally connected, theorizing that exposure to sexually conservative ethnic out-groups can provoke an instrumental increase in LGBT+ inclusion, particularly among those hostile toward immigration. Leveraging experiments in Britain and Spain, we provide causal evidence that citizens strategically liberalize their levels of support for LGBT+ rights when opponents of these measures are from the ethnic out-group. In a context where sexuality-based liberalism is nationalized, increasing tolerance toward LGBT+ citizens is driven by a desire among nativist citizens to socially disidentify from those out-groups perceived as inimical to these nationalized norms. Our analyses provide a critical interpretation of positive trends in LGBT+ tolerance with instrumental liberalism masking lower rates of genuine shifts in LGBT+ inclusion.
Stereotype threat contributes to poorer recall performance among undergraduate students with problematic drinking patterns
Samantha Johnstone, Kesia Courtenay & Todd Girard
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Stereotype threat occurs when individuals from stigmatized groups feel they are expected to conform to a negative stereotype associated with their group. Studies show that activating stereotype threat can impair performance on cognitive tasks in various marginalized groups. Individuals with problematic alcohol use are subject to stigmatized views related to cognitive abilities and socialization skills; thus, we examine for the first time whether eliciting stereotype threat impairs performance on a memory and a theory of mind task in undergraduate students with varying drinking patterns. We randomized 205 students to a neutral or a stereotype threat condition, which informed participants that the purpose of the study was to assess memory performance and theory of mind skills in relation to different patterns of alcohol consumption. In the stereotype threat group, individuals with problematic drinking patterns demonstrated significantly worse memory performance than nonproblematic drinkers and nondrinkers. The same was not true in the neutral condition, where memory recall did not differ significantly as a function of drinking status. Experimental group and drinking status failed to reveal significant effects on cognitive and affective theory of mind performance. Problematic alcohol use patterns were only associated with poorer memory when stereotype threat was elicited, which indicates that assessments of neurocognitive profiles may be biased, at least for memory performance, if stereotype threat is inadvertently elicited in substance users. Broader implications support the imperative to avoid stigmatization of problematic substance use in scientific communication and clinical settings.
Physical strength as a heuristic cue of political conservatism
Mitch Brown et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, December 2023
Abstract:
Physically formidable men are motivated to pursue strategies to acquire resources and status through direct competition and the promotion of hierarchical social organization. In service of these priorities, these men support social policies favoring the use of aggressive bargaining and hierarchy-maintenance strategies. Given these associations, we hypothesized physical strength may function as a heuristic cue of political conservatism. Participants in four unique U.S. samples assessed the political orientation of men who varied in physical strength and musculature, considering various facets of what constitutes conservatism. Physically strong men appeared more conservative to perceivers (Study 1; N = 203). Neither type of conservatism (social versus fiscal) nor presence of wealth cues moderated effects (Study 2; N = 302). Perceivers further regarded liberty as most central to strong men's morality (Study 3; N = 179). Similar perceptions emerged for muscularity as cue to upper body strength (Study 4; N = 210). We frame results from an affordance management framework, wherein perceivers identify the potential social opportunities and costs of social targets based on physical features that inform trait inferences.
Racial bias in perceptions of children’s pain
Kevin Summers, Shane Pitts & Paige Lloyd
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across eight experiments, we investigated whether adult perceivers (both lay perceivers and elementary school teachers) evaluate children’s pain differently depending on the child’s race. We found evidence that adults varying in racial and ethnic identities (but primarily White) believed 4- to 6-year-old Black children felt less pain than 4- to 6-year-old White children (Experiments 1–7), and this effect was not moderated by child sex (Experiments 6–7). We also examined perceptions of life hardship as a mediator of this race-to-pain effect, finding that adults evaluated Black children as having lived harder lives and thus as feeling less pain than White children (Experiments 1–3). Finally, we examined downstream consequences for hypothetical treatment recommendations among samples of both lay perceivers and elementary school teachers. We found that adults’ perceptions of pain sensitivity were linked with hypothetical pain treatment decisions (Experiments 5a–7). Thus, we consistently observed that adults’ race-based pain stereotypes biased evaluations of 4- to 6-year-old children’s pain and may influence pain care. This racial bias in evaluations of young children’s pain has implications for psychological theory and equitable treatment of children’s pain.
Oppressed Groups Engender Implicit Positivity: Seven Demonstrations Using Novel and Familiar Targets
Benedek Kurdi, Amy Krosch & Melissa Ferguson
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across seven preregistered studies in online adult volunteer samples (N = 5,323), we measured implicit evaluations of social groups following exposure to historical narratives about their oppression. Although the valence of such information is highly negative and its interpretation was left up to participants, implicit evaluations of oppressed groups shifted toward positivity, including in designs involving fictitious, well-known, and even self-relevant targets. The sole deviation from this pattern was observed in an experiment using a vignette about slavery in the United States, in response to which neither White nor Black Americans exhibited any change in implicit race attitudes. In line with propositional perspectives, these findings suggest that implicit evaluations (including, notably, implicit evaluations of well-known and self-relevant social groups) tend to change toward positivity in response to extremely negative information involving past oppression. However, macro-level phenomena, such as public awareness of histories of oppression, can modulate such updating processes.
Hypodescent or ingroup overexclusion?: Children's and adults’ racial categorization of ambiguous black/white biracial faces
Analia Albuja et al.
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two processes describe racially ambiguous Black/White Biracial categorization -- the one-drop rule, or hypodescent, whereby racially ambiguous people are categorized as members of their socially subordinated racial group (i.e., Black/White Biracial faces categorized as Black) and the ingroup overexclusion effect, whereby racially ambiguous people are categorized as members of a salient outgroup, regardless of the group's status. Without developmental research with racially diverse samples, it is unclear when these categorization patterns emerge. Study 1 included White, Black, and racially diverse Biracial children (aged 3- to 7-years) and their parents to test how racial group membership and social context influence face categorization biases. To provide the clearest test of hypodescent and ingroup overexclusion, White participants came from majority White neighborhoods and Black participants from majority Black neighborhoods (with Biracial participants from more racially diverse neighborhoods) -- two samples with prominent racial ingroups. Study 2 aimed to replicate the parent findings with a separate sample of White, Black, Black/White Biracial, and Asian adults. Results suggest the ingroup overexclusion effect is present across populations early in development and persists into adulthood. Additionally, categorization was meaningfully related to parental context, pinpointing a pathway that potentially contributes to ingroup overexclusion.
The Stigma of Diseases: Unequal Burden, Uneven Decline
Rachel Kahn Best & Alina Arseniev-Koehler
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why are some diseases more stigmatized than others? And, has disease stigma declined over time? Answers to these questions have been hampered by a lack of comparable, longitudinal data. Using word embedding methods, we analyze 4.7 million news articles to create new measures of stigma for 106 health conditions from 1980 to 2018. Using mixed-effects regressions, we find that behavioral health conditions and preventable diseases attract the strongest connotations of immorality and negative personality traits, and infectious diseases are most marked by disgust. These results lend new empirical support to theories that norm enforcement and contagion avoidance drive disease stigma. Challenging existing theories, we find no evidence for a link between medicalization and stigma, and inconclusive evidence on the relationship between advocacy and stigma. Finally, we find that stigma has declined dramatically over time, but only for chronic physical illnesses. In the past four decades, disease stigma has transformed from a sea of negative connotations surrounding most diseases into two primary conduits of meaning: infectious diseases spark disgust, and behavioral health conditions cue negative stereotypes. These results show that cultural meanings are especially durable when they are anchored by interests, and that cultural changes intertwine in ways that only become visible through large-scale research.
Do We Know How Happy Strangers Are? Accuracy in Well-Being Judgments at Zero Acquaintance
Hyewon Choi, Ed Diener & Shigehiro Oishi
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined the accuracy of well-being judgments by strangers using Brunswik’s lens model. A sample of 200 college students (targets) reported their self-perception of well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). The targets were photographed and videotaped during their self-introductions. Various physical, nonverbal, paralinguistic, and linguistic cues were measured or rated by cue coders from the photos and videotaped self-introductions. Strangers evaluated the targets’ well-being based on the videotaped self-introductions. We found significant correlations between self- and strangers’ reports of life satisfaction and positive affect but not negative affect. Loud voice and physical attractiveness mediated the correlation between self- and stranger-reports of life satisfaction. Loud voice mediated the correlation between self- and stranger reports of positive affect. These findings suggest that strangers can accurately evaluate someone’s life satisfaction and positive affect in brief self-introductions, and loud voice and physical attractiveness are the sources of the accurate well-being judgments.
Variation in Skin Red and Yellow Undertone: Reliability of Ratings and Predicted Relevance for Social Experiences
Amelia Branigan et al.
Social Psychology Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well established that skin lightness-darkness is associated with social outcomes, but little is known regarding the social salience of skin undertones (redness and yellowness). Our study addresses two related research questions on this topic: first, we ask whether red and yellow undertones are consistently perceived by observers; second, we ask whether red and yellow undertones are associated with expectations of discrimination across a range of social settings. We address these questions using novel survey data in which skin lightness-darkness and undertones are captured using CIELAB measurements and a two-dimensional categorical skin color scale. Although we find skin lightness-darkness to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of discrimination expectations, respondents also perceived skin undertones consistently, and skin yellowness was associated with a higher predicted likelihood of discrimination net of lightness-darkness in certain social settings. Our findings suggest that colorism can extend beyond a light-dark binary and emphasize the value of capturing undertones, particularly yellowness, in social surveys assessing skin color.