The Usual
The Politics in White Identity: Testing a Racialized Partisan Hypothesis
Efrén Pérez et al.
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
What politicizes White identity? We consider here a racialized partisan hypothesis. Although Whites numerically prevail within each party, the variance around this central tendency varies sharply between them: Republicans are tightly organized around Whites, yet Democrats are structured around Whites who share membership with people of color. This configuration puts White Democrats in a more precarious position and can sometimes motivate them to jockey for intraparty prominence. We support this claim with survey and experimental evidence. First, we show that White identity is more strongly associated with opposition to immigration among White Democrats than White Republicans (n = 6,126). This pattern is absent on a placebo (opposition to federal spending on science). Second, we demonstrate, experimentally, that White identity (but not partisan identity) mediates the impact of racial threat on racially coded policies among White Democrats (n = 400). This pattern does not emerge among White Republicans (n = 400) and is absent on another placebo (support for infrastructure spending).
Racial Discrimination and Housing Outcomes in the United States Rental Market
Peter Christensen, Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri & Christopher Timmins
NBER Working Paper, November 2021
Abstract:
We report evidence on discriminatory behavior from the largest correspondence study conducted to date in the rental housing market. Using more than 25,000 interactions with rental property managers across the 50 largest U.S. cities, the study reveals that African American and Hispanic/LatinX renters continue to face discriminatory constraints in the majority of U.S. cities although there are important regional differences. Stronger discriminatory constraints on renters of color (particularly African Americans) are also associated with higher levels of residential segregation and larger gaps in intergenerational income mobility. Using matched evidence on the actual rental outcomes at the properties in our experiment, we show that correspondence study measurements of discrimination do indeed predict actual outcomes.
Bodies and Minds: Heavier Weight Targets Are De-Mentalized as Lacking in Mental Agency
Mattea Sim, Steven Almaraz & Kurt Hugenberg
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Five experiments investigate the hypothesis that heavier weight individuals are denied mental agency (i.e., higher order cognitive and intentional capacities), but not experience (e.g., emotional and sensory capacities), relative to average weight individuals. Across studies, we find that as targets increase in weight, they are denied mental agency; however, target weight has no reliable influence on ascriptions of experience (Studies 1a–2b). Furthermore, the de-mentalization of heavier weight targets was associated with both disgust and beliefs about targets’ physical agency (Study 3). Finally, de-mentalization affected role assignments. Heavier weight targets were rated as helpful for roles requiring experiential but not mentally agentic faculties (Study 4). Heavier weight targets were also less likely than chance to be categorized into a career when it was described as requiring mental agency (versus experience; Study 5). These findings suggest novel insights into past work on weight stigma, wherein discrimination often occurs in domains requiring mental agency.
Listening to Snitches: Race/Ethnicity, English Proficiency, and Access to Welfare Fraud Enforcement Systems
Spencer Headworth & Viridiana Ríos
Law & Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the state respond to members of the public seeking to mobilize its coercive power? Focusing on welfare fraud control units in the United States, we examine how race/ethnicity and written English proficiency affect access to systems for reporting welfare fraud suspicions. Using a correspondence audit, we assess fraud control authorities’ likelihood of taking up reports from Latinas and Whites with higher and lower English proficiency. We find that fraud units are less likely to take up lower-proficiency Whites’ reports, but that lower proficiency's uptake-dampening effect does not hold for Latinas. To explain the mechanisms underlying our experimental results, we draw on interviews with fraud investigators. The interview evidence reveals the determinations of investigative promise underlying these uptake disparities. For White reporters, English errors cue gatekeepers’ preexisting skepticism about public reporters’ reliability, decreasing enthusiasm for investing resources in these reports. Reports from lower-English proficiency Latinas offer special viability appeal, however, offsetting the negative influence on uptake probability that errors demonstrate for White reporters. Our results shed new light on contemporary racial/ethnic dynamics in the US welfare system, and advance social scientific understanding of how bureaucratic gatekeepers decide what to do — if anything — with volunteered reports of misconduct.
Diversity or representation? Sufficient factors for Black Americans’ identity safety during interracial interactions
Katlyn Lee Milless, Daryl Wout & Mary Murphy
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, forthcoming
Method:
In an experimental study (N = 301), Black adults (52.8% female, 47.2% male; Mage = 29.96) expected to interact with a White partner who had all White friends (No Diversity); Black and White friends (Diversity with Ingroup Representation); or Asian, Latinx, and White friends (Diversity without Ingroup Representation). We assessed participants’ perceptions of their White partner as prejudiced, how they expected their partner would think of them (Black metastereotypes), and their anticipated interaction challenges, rejection concerns, and friendship interest immediately prior to the anticipated interaction.
Results:
Black participants had fewer anticipated challenges, fewer rejection concerns, and more friendship interest when their White partner’s friendship networks included (vs. excluded) ingroup representation. These effects were mediated by perceived partner prejudice and Black metastereotypes.
Generalizing across behavior settings can make attitudes toward social groups more extreme in the absence of new information
Kaleigh Decker & Charles Lord
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that attitudes can become more extreme through mere thought. The present studies tested whether one specific type of thought — generalizing about a group's traits across settings — makes attitudes toward the group more extreme. We gave participants in four experiments initial information about (fictitious) foreign groups who wanted to enter the United States. The initial information concerned traits the group displayed in a specific type of setting. Participants thought it highly likely the group's traits would generalize across settings. Compared to reviewing the information given, generalizing made both negative (Experiment 1) and positive (Experiment 2) attitudes and behavioral intentions more extreme, regardless of the initial or generalized setting (Experiment 3). Individual differences in correspondence bias moderated the effects of generalizing versus reviewing on attitudes and behavioral intentions (Experiment 4). The current findings offer novel insights into how a specific type of thought can make attitudes more extreme.
Cultural reproduction of mental illness stigma and stereotypes
Susan Jacobs & Joseph Quinn
Social Science & Medicine, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigates how schemas and stereotypes about individuals with mental illness shape how information is transmitted between people. Mental illnesses are highly stigmatized identities, and prior work illustrates the persistence of mental illness stigma, despite public health efforts aimed at increasing awareness of the biological origins of mental illness (Pescosolido et al., 2010). Recent work has also demonstrated the utility of combining cultural cognition with social psychological theories of cultural meaning to investigate how stereotypes are transmitted through secondhand narratives (Hunzaker 2014, 2016). We connect this social psychological work with medical sociological literature on mental illness stigmas and propose that stereotypes function as cultural schemas that shape the way stories are remembered and retold about individuals with a mental illness. We then conduct a narrative transmission study to test this proposal, using schizophrenia as a case of interest. Consistent with prior work, we find that individuals who retell a story about a person with schizophrenia alter the narrative so that it becomes more consistent with stereotypes about individuals with schizophrenia. We also find that stereotype-inconsistent information is more likely to be transformed to align with culturally shared beliefs about schizophrenia. The findings extend prior work on how bias shapes the reproduction of mental illness stereotypes, and demonstrate how socially learned cultural beliefs can reinforce stereotypes, biases and stigma about mental illness.
Facial Impressions Are Predicted by the Structure of Group Stereotypes
Sally Xie et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Impressions of other people’s faces (e.g., trustworthiness) have long been thought to be evoked by morphological variation (e.g., upturned mouth) in a universal, fixed manner. However, recent research suggests that these impressions vary considerably across perceivers and targets’ social-group memberships. Across 4,247 U.S. adults recruited online, we investigated whether racial and gender stereotypes may be a critical factor underlying this variability in facial impressions. In Study 1, we found that not only did facial impressions vary by targets’ gender and race, but also the structure of these impressions was associated with the structure of stereotype knowledge. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that individual differences in perceivers’ own unique stereotype associations predicted the structure of their own facial impressions. Together, the findings suggest that the structure of people’s impressions of others’ faces is driven not only by the morphological variation of the face but also by learned stereotypes about social groups.
An own-race bias in the categorisation and recall of associative information
Dillon Murphy et al.
Memory, forthcoming
Abstract:
People tend to better remember same-race faces relative to other-race faces (an “own-race” bias). We examined whether the own-race bias extends to associative memory, particularly in the identification and recall of information paired with faces. In Experiment 1, we presented white participants with own- and other-race faces which either appeared alone or accompanied by a label indicating whether the face was a “criminal” or a “victim”. Results revealed an own-race facial recognition advantage regardless of the presence of associative information. In Experiment 2, we again paired same- and other-race faces with either “criminal” or “victim” labels, but rather than a recognition test, participants were asked to identify whether each face had been presented as a criminal or a victim. White criminals were better categorised than Black criminals, but race did not influence the categorisation of victims. In Experiment 3, white participants were presented with same- and other-race faces and asked to remember where the person was from, their occupation, and a crime they committed. Results revealed a recall advantage for the associative information paired with same-race faces. Collectively, these findings suggest that the own-race bias extends to the categorisation and recall of information in associative memory.
Uncle Tom’s Garden: Color, Culture, and Racialization in Garden Plants
Gabriella Smith
Sociological Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
The structure of our racial hierarchy depends on the power of color, particularly skin color, to signify racial difference and justify stratification. Color is an important element of culture, capable of communicating multivocal meanings. Dark colors have sets of cultural meanings like evil, magic, and night, but they are also associated with skin color and race. This article seeks to understand how material objects act as vehicles for ideas about color and race, particularly Blackness, in the absence of bodies or images of people, by examining the phenomenon of named varieties of dark-colored plants. My data included interviews with daylily breeders and an online database of over 90,000 named daylily varieties. Systematic analysis showed that dark plants were frequently, though not exclusively, given names referencing Blackness. White or light-colored flowers did not receive racialized names. Findings demonstrate that color carries racial connotations even in areas of activity and cultural production that appear to have little or no connection with race, human bodies, or human identities. I suggest that color plays an important and underexamined role in the process of racialization and the perpetuation of White supremacy.
Short-Term Training in Mindfulness Predicts Helping Behavior Toward Racial Ingroup and Outgroup Members
Daniel Berry et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
A randomized controlled trial tested whether mindfulness training would increase lab-based and in vivo spontaneous helping behaviors toward racial outgroup members. First, across conditions, those scoring higher in baseline trait mindfulness showed higher levels of preintervention lab-based and ecological momentary assessment (EMA)-based helping behavior. Next, short-term (4-day) training in mindfulness, relative to a well-matched sham meditation training, increased interracial helping behavior in a lab-based simulation. Finally, among people scoring lower in a basic form of trait mindfulness at baseline — that is, with greater room for improvement — mindfulness training predicted higher postintervention in vivo helping behavior reported via EMA. However, neither training condition alone attenuated preferential helping toward racial ingroup members. These findings indicate, for the first time, that mindfulness and its training fosters helping behavior toward strangers and acquaintances regardless of their racial ingroup or outgroup status, but preferential helping of racial ingroup members remains.