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He does not look like video games made him do it: Racial stereotypes and school shootings
Patrick Markey et al.
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite a lack of research linking school shootings to video games, video games are frequently associated with school shootings carried out by White perpetrators. Because there is a stereotypical association between racial minorities and violent crime, it is possible that people often look toward video games as a cause for school shootings committed by White perpetrators who do not fit this stereotype. Consistent with this notion, Study 1 (n = 169) found that participants who read a mock news story about a school shooting were more likely to blame video games when the shooter was White than when the shooter was Black. Study 2 examined 204,796 news stories of 204 mass shootings committed in the United States and found that, when a shooting occurred at a school, video games were 8.35 times more likely to be discussed when the shooter was White than when the shooter was Black.
Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle? Experimental Evidence That Racial Resentment and Political Ideology Condition Responses to Racially Encoded Messages
Rachel Wetts & Robb Willer
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, August 2019
Abstract:
Do appeals that subtly invoke negative racial stereotypes shift whites' political attitudes by harnessing their racial prejudice? Though widely cited in academic and popular discourse, prior work finds conflicting evidence for this "dog-whistle hypothesis." Here we test the hypothesis in two experiments (total N = 1,797) in which white Americans' racial attitudes were measured two weeks before they read political messages in which references to racial stereotypes were implicit, explicit, or not present at all. Our findings suggest that implicit racial appeals can harness racial resentment to influence policy views, though specifically among racially resentful white liberals. That dog-whistle effects would be concentrated among liberals was not predicted in advance, but this finding appears across two experiments testing effects of racial appeals in policy domains - welfare and gun control - that differ in the extent and ways they have been previously racialized. We also find evidence that the same group occasionally responded to explicit racial appeals even though these appeals were recognized as racially insensitive. We conclude by discussing implications for contemporary American politics, presenting representative survey data showing that racially resentful, white liberals were particularly likely to switch from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016.
Human caregivers perceive racial bias in their pet dogs
Carlee Beth Hawkins & Alexia Jo Vandiver
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, September 2019, Pages 901-917
Abstract:
Is there any empirical support for the popular stereotype that dogs are racist? As an initial inquiry into this question, we investigated whether human caregivers perceive racial bias in the behavior of their pet dogs. In 2 studies, caretakers completed explicit and implicit measures of racial preference and reported their dogs' behavior toward White and Black people. White caretakers reported that their dogs displayed more positive behaviors toward White than Black people, and these reports of dog behaviors were significantly correlated with caretakers' own explicit and implicit racial preferences. Increased interracial contact was associated with less reported pro-White dog behavior. Humans perceive racial biases in those around us, including our pets.
Looking like vs. acting like your race: Social activism shapes perceptions of multiracial individuals
Maria Garay et al.
Self and Identity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research shows that multiracial individuals' racial identities are often questioned because their appearances are not prototypical of their racial groups. We examined whether social activism performed by a multiracial person may bolster perceptions of that person as a legitimate representative of the racial minority group. In Studies 1 and 2, participants in a voting paradigm voted for a multiracial over a monoracial candidate if the candidate displayed social activism. In addition, Study 3 found that candidates who displayed social activism, rather than a generic racially prototypical behavior, were seen as more electable and representative of the association. Overall, our findings illuminate the power of social activism to alter perceptions of how representative multiracial individuals are of their racial minority groups.
Tat will tell: Tattoos and time preferences
Bradley Ruffle & Anne Wilson
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Survey and experimental evidence documents discrimination against tattooed individuals in the labor market and in commercial transactions. Thus, individuals' decision to get tattooed may reflect short-sighted time preferences. We show that, according to numerous measures, those with tattoos, especially visible ones, are more short-sighted and impulsive than the non-tattooed. Almost nothing mitigates these results, neither the motive for the tattoo, the time contemplated before getting tattooed nor the time elapsed since the last tattoo. Even the expressed intention to get a(nother) tattoo predicts increased short-sightedness and helps establish the direction of causality between tattoos and short-sightedness.
An examination of ingroup preferences among people with multiple socially stigmatized identities
Congjiao Jiang et al.
Self and Identity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study uses large datasets from the Project Implicit website to better understand the role of belonging to multiple stigmatized groups on ingroup attitudes. Participants from stigmatized groups completed explicit and implicit measures of attitudes in three domains - race, sexuality, and disability. Our investigation focused on whether occupying multiple stigmatized identities (compared to a single stigmatized identity) is associated with the magnitude of ingroup preferences on a single dimension. The results showed that: (1) there is considerable variation in the strength of ingroup favoritism across members of stigmatized groups, (2) Black people (particularly Black men) showed the weakest levels of ingroup preference, and (3) White women in particular showed the greatest degree of ingroup preferences.
The Negation Bias in Stereotype Maintenance: A Replication in Five Languages
Camiel Beukeboom et al.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on linguistic biases shows that stereotypic expectancies are implicitly reflected in language and thereby subtly communicated to message recipients. Research on the Negation Bias shows that the use of negations (e.g., not stupid vs. smart) is more pronounced in descriptions of stereotype-inconsistent compared with stereotype-consistent behaviors. This article reports a replication study of the original research conducted in Dutch, using newly developed materials, and in five different languages: English, Dutch, Hungarian, Finnish, and Serbian. The results validate the existence of the Negation Bias in all five languages. This suggests that negation use serves a similar stereotype-maintaining function across language families.
Countering Misperceptions to Reduce Prejudice: An Experiment on Attitudes toward Muslim Americans
Scott Williamson
Journal of Experimental Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Muslim Americans constitute one of the United States' most vulnerable minority groups, facing frequent discrimination from both the public and the government. Despite this vulnerability, few studies evaluate interventions for reducing prejudice against Muslim Americans. Building from an insightful literature on the sources of prejudice against Muslim Americans, this paper tests whether attitudes can be improved with information countering misperceptions of the community as particularly foreign, threatening, and disloyal to the United States. The experimental treatment modestly improved attitudes, including among some subgroups predisposed to prejudice against Muslim Americans. However, the treatment struggled to change policy views, and it demonstrated some vulnerability to social desirability bias and priming on terrorism threats. The findings suggest that information campaigns addressing misperceptions can help to reduce prejudice on the margins, but primarily in less politicized contexts.
Hypnotic Suggestions Can Induce Rapid Change in Implicit Attitudes
Pieter Van Dessel & Jan De Houwer
Psychological Science, September 2019, Pages 1362-1370
Abstract:
We sometimes evaluate our environment (e.g., persons, objects, situations) in an automatic fashion. These automatic or implicit evaluations are often considered to be based on qualitatively distinct mental processes compared with more controlled or explicit evaluations. Important evidence for this claim comes from studies showing that implicit evaluations do not change as the result of counterattitudinal information, in contrast to their explicit counterparts. We examined the impact of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations in two experiments (N = 60, N = 72) that included an innovative manipulation: hypnotic suggestions to participants that they would strongly process upcoming counterattitudinal information. Both experiments indicated that hypnotic suggestions facilitated effects of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations. These findings extend recent evidence for rapid revision of implicit evaluations on the basis of counterattitudinal information and support the controversial idea that belief-based processes underlie not only explicit but also implicit evaluations.
Acquiring group bias: Observing other people's nonverbal signals can create social group biases
Allison Skinner, Kristina Olson & Andrew Meltzoff
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Evidence of group bias based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and language emerges early in the life span. Although understanding the initial acquisition of group bias has critical theoretical and practical implications, precisely how group biases are acquired has been understudied. In two preregistered experiments, we tested the hypothesis that generalized social group biases can be acquired through exposure to positive nonverbal signals directed toward a novel adult from one group and more negative nonverbal signals directed toward a novel adult from another group. We sought to determine whether children would acquire global nonverbal signal-consistent social group biases that extended beyond their explicit social preferences, by measuring children's preferences, imitation, and behavioral intentions. Supporting our preregistered hypotheses, preschool-age participants favored small and large groups whose member received positive nonverbal signals, relative to groups whose member received more negative nonverbal signals. We also replicated prior work indicating that children will acquire individual target biases from the observation of biased nonverbal signals. Here we make the case that generalized social group biases can be rapidly and unintentionally transmitted on the basis of observational learning from nonverbal signals.
Are Attitudes Contagious? Exposure to Biased Nonverbal Signals Can Create Novel Social Attitudes
Allison Skinner & Sylvia Perry
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior work has established that nonverbal signals that capitalize on existing cultural biases can shift attitudes toward members of familiar social groups (e.g., racial minority group members). This research is the first to examine whether nonverbal signals can influence adults' attitudes toward unfamiliar individuals outside the context of existing cultural biases. In a series of studies, we examined whether seeing one individual receive more cold, unfriendly nonverbal signals than another individual would lead to biases in favor of the target of more positive nonverbal signals. Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, exposure to nonverbal bias in favor of one individual over another led participants to develop nonverbal signal-consistent explicit biases. Moreover, a combined analysis of the data from all four samples indicated that participants also formed nonverbal signal-consistent implicit biases. Taken together, these findings suggest that nonverbal signals have the potential to create and spread attitudes toward others.