Someone else's shoes
Racial bias in driver yielding behavior at crosswalks
Tara Goddard, Kimberly Barsamian Kahn & Arlie Adkins
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, August 2015, Pages 1–6
Abstract:
Psychological and social identity-related factors have been shown to influence drivers’ behaviors toward pedestrians, but no previous studies have examined the potential for drivers’ racial bias to impact yielding behavior with pedestrians. If drivers’ yielding behavior results in differential behavior toward Black and White pedestrians, this may lead to disparate pedestrian crossing experiences based on race and potentially contribute to disproportionate safety outcomes for minorities. We tested the hypothesis that drivers’ yielding behavior is influenced by pedestrians’ race in a controlled field experiment at an unsignalized midblock marked crosswalk in downtown Portland, Oregon. Six trained male research team participants (3 White, 3 Black) simulated an individual pedestrian crossing, while trained observers cataloged the number of cars that passed and the time until a driver yielded. Results (88 pedestrian trials, 173 driver-subjects) revealed that Black pedestrians were passed by twice as many cars and experienced wait times that were 32% longer than White pedestrians. Results support the hypothesis that minority pedestrians experience discriminatory treatment by drivers at crosswalks.
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Emotions Facilitate the Communication of Ambiguous Group Memberships
Konstantin Tskhay & Nicholas Rule
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well known that emotions intersect with obvious social categories (e.g., race), influencing both how targets are categorized and the emotions that are read from their faces. Here, we examined the influence of emotional expression on the perception of less obvious group memberships for which, in the absence of obvious and stable physical markers, emotion may serve as a major avenue for group categorization and identification. Specifically, we examined whether emotions are embedded in the mental representations of sexual orientation and political affiliation, and whether people may use emotional expressions to communicate these group memberships to others. Using reverse correlation methods, we found that mental representations of gay and liberal faces were characterized by more positive facial expressions than mental representations of straight and conservative faces (Study 1). Furthermore, participants were evaluated as expressing more positive emotions when enacting self-defined “gay” and “liberal” versus “straight” and “conservative” facial expressions in the lab (Study 2). In addition, neutral faces morphed with happiness were perceived as more gay than when morphed with anger, and when compared to unmorphed controls (Study 3). Finally, we found that affect facilitated perceptions of sexual orientation and political affiliation in naturalistic settings (Study 4). Together, these studies suggest that emotion is a defining characteristic of person construal that people tend to use both when signaling their group memberships and when receiving those signals to categorize others.
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The Ascent of Man: Theoretical and Empirical Evidence for Blatant Dehumanization
Nour Kteily et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Dehumanization is a central concept in the study of intergroup relations. Yet although theoretical and methodological advances in subtle, “everyday” dehumanization have progressed rapidly, blatant dehumanization remains understudied. The present research attempts to refocus theoretical and empirical attention on blatant dehumanization, examining when and why it provides explanatory power beyond subtle dehumanization. To accomplish this, we introduce and validate a blatant measure of dehumanization based on the popular depiction of evolutionary progress in the “Ascent of Man.” We compare blatant dehumanization to established conceptualizations of subtle and implicit dehumanization, including infrahumanization, perceptions of human nature and human uniqueness, and implicit associations between ingroup–outgroup and human–animal concepts. Across 7 studies conducted in 3 countries, we demonstrate that blatant dehumanization is (a) more strongly associated with individual differences in support for hierarchy than subtle or implicit dehumanization, (b) uniquely predictive of numerous consequential attitudes and behaviors toward multiple outgroup targets, (c) predictive above prejudice, and (d) reliable over time. Finally, we show that blatant — but not subtle — dehumanization spikes immediately after incidents of real intergroup violence and strongly predicts support for aggressive actions like torture and retaliatory violence (after the Boston Marathon bombings and Woolwich attacks in England). This research extends theory on the role of dehumanization in intergroup relations and intergroup conflict and provides an intuitive, validated empirical tool to reliably measure blatant dehumanization.
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The Hard-Knock Life? Whites Claim Hardships in Response to Racial Inequity
Taylor Phillips & Brian Lowery
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2015, Pages 12–18
Abstract:
Racial inequality continues to plague America, yet many Whites still doubt the existence of racial advantages, limiting progress and cooperation. What happens when people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists. Experiments 1a and 1b show that Whites exposed to evidence of racial privilege claim to have suffered more personal life hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege. Experiment 2 shows that self-affirmation reverses the effect of exposure to evidence of privilege on hardship claims, implicating the motivated nature of hardship claims. Further, affirmed participants acknowledge more personal privilege, which is associated with increased support for inequity-reducing policies.
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Phia Salter et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present research examined the idea that people believe Black Americans think society is less fair than members of other racial groups (Study 1a), that these beliefs are out of touch with reality (Study 1b), and that Black audiences need to hear individual blame messages to bring these discrepant views more in line with reality (Study 2). We then examined a downstream consequence of these beliefs: differing third-party evaluations of speeches based on the race of the audience (Black vs. White) and the content of the message (individual vs. system blame). We found that individual blame messages were evaluated more positively when they were directed at Black audiences relative to White audiences. By comparison, evaluations did not differ for system blame messages (Studies 3a and 3b). Implications for system justification and policy endorsement are discussed.
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Threat as justification of prejudice
Angela Bahns
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
When people feel prejudice toward a group, they can justify their prejudice by perceiving the group as threatening. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that prejudice causes threat perception, using affective conditioning to create new prejudice toward unfamiliar groups. The experimentally created prejudice increased threat perception (Experiments 1–3), except when threat information was inconsistent with conditioned affect (Experiment 3). Consistency of affect and threat information is necessary in order for threat to be a plausible justification of prejudice. Mere prejudice can cause perception of threat in the absence of information about the group; this finding suggests threats are not necessarily inherent to the characteristics of the group. Threat perception can be used as a way to explain the experience of prejudice, rather than forming the source of the prejudice itself.
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People Judge Male Sexism More Leniently When Women Emasculate Men
Kenneth Michniewicz & Joseph Vandello
Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
While overt sexism has become less acceptable in recent years, sexism frequently goes unchallenged by observers for a variety of reasons. In the present investigation, we propose that people may excuse men’s sexist remarks when the remarks follow a manhood threat caused by a woman. In Study 1, we found that a man’s sexist remark buffered against the emasculating effect of a threat to his masculinity from an ex-girlfriend. In Study 2, we further show that observers excuse a man’s sexist remark following a competitive loss to a woman to the extent that they perceive him as less manly as a result. We replicate this finding in Study 3 while ruling out two competing explanations. We discuss the implication that sexism prevention efforts need to identify and address gender-related contexts where sexism is excused in order for efforts to move toward its prevention.
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Matthew Filteau
Rural Sociology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Rural economic decline in the United States has contributed to new situational conditions under which men construct masculinity. Under these conditions, men define jobs and activities that were feminized during periods of economic stability as masculine. One exception to rural economic decline for men is economic growth associated with oil and natural gas development in geographical hot spots throughout the United States and around the world. Employment opportunities in the oil and gas industry largely favor men; however, it is unclear what effect this development has on local men because itinerant extralocal male workers complete most of the labor. This article conceptualizes masculinity as a social structure, and uses economic reports and theoretically distinct literatures on natural-resource-based masculinities and energy boomtowns to illuminate how multinational energy companies and a predominantly extralocal, male itinerant workforce in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region cause adverse situational conditions for local men's constructions of masculinity. Within the new masculine structure, extralocal men's constructions of hegemonic masculinity become more important for defining the local socially dominant masculinity, which subordinates local men's constructions of nonhegemonic masculinities in their own communities. The article concludes with a discussion of how the oil and gas industry's hegemonic masculinity impedes sustainable economic development and community well-being.
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Francesca Prati, Richard Crisp & Monica Rubini
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In three experiments we investigated the impact that exposure to counter-stereotypes has on emotional reactions to outgroups. In Experiment 1, thinking about gender counter-stereotypes attenuated stereotyped emotions towards females and males. In Experiment 2, an immigrant counterstereotype attenuated stereotyped emotions towards this outgroup and reduced dehumanization tendencies. Experiment 3 replicated these results using an alternative measure of humanization. In both Experiments 2 and 3 sequential meditational analysis revealed that counter-stereotypes produced feelings of surprise which, in turn, elicited a cognitive process of expectancy violation which resulted in attenuated stereotyped emotions and an enhanced use of uniquely human characteristics to describe the outgroup. The findings extend research supporting the usefulness of counter-stereotype exposure for reducing prejudice and highlight its positive impact on intergroup emotions.
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Maartje Meijs, Joris Lammers & Kate Ratliff
Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Four studies show that gender stereotype-inconsistent behavior is seen as more acceptable than gender stereotype-consistent behavior, if it is clever. Four studies found consistently that participants rated the behavior of a man who relied on attractiveness or passiveness (stereotypically female) to be more acceptable than similar behavior by a woman. The behavior of a woman who relied on dominance or aggressiveness (stereotypically male) was sometimes seen as more (Study 1A) and sometimes equally (Study 1B, Study 2, Study 3) acceptable as the behavior of a man who acted similarly. This shows that double standards might play a role: Whereas men are benefited by gender stereotype-inconsistent behavior, this is not the case for women. Across studies, these effects were driven by the interpretation of the gender stereotype-inconsistent acts as more clever and less trashy than gender stereotype-consistent acts. These results qualify the idea that people dislike stereotype-inconsistency.
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Jesse Fox, Carlos Cruz & Ji Young Lee
Computers in Human Behavior, November 2015, Pages 436–442
Abstract:
Sexism and sexual harassment are not uncommon in online environments such as social networking sites, forums, and video games. This experiment investigated whether users’ anonymity and level of interactivity with sexist content on social media influenced sexist attitudes and offline behavior. Participants (N = 172) used a Twitter account that was anonymous or had personally identifying details. They were asked to share (i.e., retweet) or write posts incorporating a sexist hashtag. After exposure, participants completed two purportedly unrelated tasks, a survey and a job hiring simulation in which they evaluated male and female candidates’ resumés. Anonymous participants reported greater hostile sexism after tweeting than nonanonymous participants. Participants who composed sexist tweets reported greater hostile sexism and ranked female job candidates as less competent than those who retweeted, although this did not significantly affect their likelihood to hire.
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Jennifer LaCosse et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2015, Pages 1–4
Abstract:
As a result of prevalent pressure to inhibit prejudice, racial minorities may wonder whether White people’s nonprejudiced behavior is primarily motivated by personal commitments to egalitarianism (i.e., internal motivation) or superficial efforts to appear nonprejudiced (i.e., external motivation). The present work investigated whether minority group members chronically suspicious of White people’s motives (i.e., those who believe White people are more externally than internally motivated), are more accurate than those who are less suspicious in detecting the motives behind White individuals’ pleasant behavior toward minorities. Minority participants viewed four videos of White targets engaging in dyadic interracial interactions with a Black peer and evaluated the White targets’ motivations. Compared to those low in suspicion, those high in suspicion were more accurate at assessing White targets’ actual levels of external motivation. Hence, suspicion seems to carry some functional benefit as it attunes minority-group members to Whites’ externally motivated positivity.
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Luke (Lei) Zhu et al.
Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present studies examine how culturally held stereotypes about gender (that women eat more healthfully than men) implicitly influence food preferences. In Study 1, priming masculinity led both male and female participants to prefer unhealthy foods, while priming femininity led both male and female participants to prefer healthy foods. Study 2 extended these effects to gendered food packaging. When the packaging and healthiness of the food were gender schema congruent (i.e., feminine packaging for a healthy food, masculine packaging for an unhealthy food) both male and female participants rated the product as more attractive, said that they would be more likely to purchase it, and even rated it as tasting better compared to when the product was stereotype incongruent. In Study 3, packaging that explicitly appealed to gender stereotypes (“The muffin for real men”) reversed the schema congruity effect, but only among participants who scored high in psychological reactance.
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Jessica Schmidt et al.
Children and Youth Services Review, September 2015, Pages 61–67
Abstract:
While it has been well documented that racial and ethnic disparities exist for children of color in child welfare, the accuracy of the race and ethnicity information collected by agencies has not been examined, nor has the concordance of this information with youth self-report. This article addresses a major gap in the literature by examining: 1) the racial and ethnic self-identification of youth in foster care, and the rate of agreement with child welfare and school categorizations; 2) the level of concordance between different agencies (school and child welfare); and 3) the stability of racial and ethnic self-identification among youth in foster care over time. Results reveal that almost 1 in 5 youth change their racial identification over a one-year period, high rates of discordance exist between the youth self-report of Native American, Hispanic and multiracial youth and how agencies categorize them, and a greater tendency for the child welfare system to classify a youth as White, as compared to school and youth themselves. Information from the study could be used to guide agencies towards a more youth-centered and flexible approach in regards to identifying, reporting and affirming youth’s evolving racial and ethnic identity.
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Terri Conley, Joshua Rabinowitz & Jes Matsick
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the current research, we suggest that shared reality, the belief that one perceives the world the same way as another group, can predict attitudes towards that group. We tested shared reality theory in the context of American ethnic minority groups' (i.e. African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinas/os) attitudes towards White Americans. In surveys of two samples recruited from different geographical locations in the USA, we tested predictions derived from different theories of intergroup relations. Using mediational analysis, we defined models to assess the extent to which shared reality theory predicted — directly and indirectly — prejudicial attitudes towards Whites. We tested the model derived from shared reality theory against other theoretical alternatives. Taken together, the results of the research indicated that shared reality predicts attitudes towards White Americans among these three ethnic groups. Thus, shared reality is a relevant, though largely overlooked, factor in intergroup dynamics.
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Independent or ungrateful? Consequences of confronting patronizing help for people with disabilities
Katie Wang et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, July 2015, Pages 489-503
Abstract:
People with disabilities routinely face a dilemma in dealing with patronizing help: While accepting unsolicited assistance may be harmful for its recipients, confronting the helper can lead to negative interpersonal repercussions. Across two studies, participants were presented with a scenario depicting an interaction between a blind target and a sighted pedestrian and asked to evaluate the behaviors of the characters involved. Study 1 showed that, whereas blind participants considered both patronizing and hostile treatment as inappropriate responses to the blind target’s request for information, sighted participants saw patronizing help as significantly more appropriate than openly hostile treatment. Study 2 further demonstrated that, among sighted participants, blind targets were viewed as less warm and more rude when confronting benevolent versus hostile discrimination. These findings highlighted the difficulty of confronting patronizing treatment and have important implications for people with disabilities as well as other patronized minorities more generally.
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Sapna Cheryan et al.
Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current paper investigates two basic strategies that men use to recover from masculinity threats: (i) avoiding stereotypically feminine preferences and (ii) exaggerating their masculinity. In two experiments, males were either given false feedback that threatened their masculinity (i.e., underperforming on a masculinity test in Study 1, being physically weak in Study 2) or told they were average for their gender (control). Males who had their masculinity threatened expressed lower preference for stereotypically feminine products but did not express greater preference for stereotypically masculine products (Studies 1 and 2). Additionally, threatened men claimed more stereotypically masculine attributes, such as height, number of past sexual relationships, and aggressiveness (Study 2). These findings provide insight into how people react to identity threats by deploying specific strategies that most effectively restore their questioned identities.
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Sylvia Perry, Mary Murphy & John Dovidio
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three studies introduced the construct of bias awareness and examined its effect on Whites' responses to evidence of personal and others' racial biases. Contemporary theories of prejudice suggest that awareness of personal bias is a critical step in reducing one's prejudice and discrimination. When bias is a cloaked in a way that people do not recognize, they are likely to continue to perpetuate their biased behaviors and unlikely to reduce their negative attitudes. However, when people become aware of their biases, they often adjust their attitudes and behavior to be more egalitarian. The present research investigated (a) individual differences in Whites' awareness of their propensity to express subtly biased behavior against Blacks in interracial contexts (Study 1), (b) the convergent and discriminant validity of a new individual difference measure of bias awareness (Studies 1, 2, and 3), (c) whether this measure uniquely predicts Whites' responses to a difficult race-related context — receiving feedback that they are high in implicit bias from an Implicit Association Test (R-IAT; Study 2), and (d) whether this measure uniquely predicts Whites' perceptions of others' racial bias, particularly subtle expressions (Study 3). Results revealed that the Bias Awareness Scale measures a distinct construct that uniquely predicts Whites' emotional and behavioral responses to information about their own bias, and their ability to detect bias in others.