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Racial Stereotypes and Perceptions of Representatives' Ideologies in U.S. House Elections
Matthew Jacobsmeier
Legislative Studies Quarterly, May 2014, Pages 261–291
Abstract:
I examine the hypothesis that race affects citizens' perceptions of candidates' ideologies. In the past, systematic tests of this hypothesis have relied almost entirely on data drawn from experiments. While experimental research designs have contributed much to the analysis of political stereotypes and heuristics, the extent to which experimental research on this hypothesis is externally valid is open to question. Moreover, experimental approaches are not well-suited to estimating the magnitude of the effects of stereotypes in real-world situations, especially in the context of complex political phenomena such as election campaigns. In this article, I develop a statistical model of the effects of race on perceptions of candidates' ideologies and estimate the model using data on incumbent candidates from the American National Election Studies. The results suggest that, ceteris paribus, white citizens will tend to perceive black candidates to be more liberal than ideologically similar white candidates. In contrast, the perceptions of black respondents are not affected by the race of candidates, although black respondents' perceptions are more strongly correlated with candidates' positions on issues of particular interest to minorities than the perceptions of white respondents. I discuss the implications of these findings with respect to descriptive representation in the United States, the accountability of office holders, and the study of voting behavior.
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Maureen Craig & Jennifer Richeson
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent Census Bureau projections indicate that racial/ethnic minorities will comprise over 50% of the U.S. population by 2042, effectively creating a so-called “majority–minority” nation. Across four experiments, we explore how presenting information about these changing racial demographics influences White Americans’ racial attitudes. Results reveal that exposure to the changing demographics evokes the expression of greater explicit and implicit racial bias. Specifically, Whites exposed to the racial demographic shift information preferred interactions/settings with their own ethnic group over minority ethnic groups; expressed more negative attitudes toward Latinos, Blacks, and Asian Americans; and expressed more automatic pro-White/anti-minority bias. Perceived threat to Whites’ societal status mediated the effects of the racial shift information on explicit racial attitudes. These results suggest that rather than ushering in a more tolerant future, the increasing diversity of the nation may instead yield intergroup hostility. Implications for intergroup relations and media framing of the racial shift are discussed.
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Biases in the Perception of Barack Obama's Skin Tone
Markus Kemmelmeier & Lyssette Chavez
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
White Americans higher in prejudice were less likely to vote for Barack Obama than other Americans. Recent research also demonstrated that supporters and opponents of Mr. Obama engaged in skin tone biases, i.e., they perceive Mr. Obama's skin tone as lighter or darker in line with more positive or negative views of him. Across two studies we hypothesized that skin tone biases occur as a function of two independent sources: racial prejudice, which is always related to skin tone bias, and political partisanship, which is related to skin tone bias primarily during elections. Study 1 assessed perceptions of Mr. Obama's skin tone shortly before and after the 2008 Presidential election, and shortly after the first inauguration. Study 2 assessed perceptions in the middle of his first term, immediately prior to the 2012 Presidential election, and 1 year into his second term in office. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that partisan skin tone bias was limited to the election period, whereas prejudice-based skin tone biases occurred independent from any election.
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Samer Halabi, John Dovidio & Arie Nadler
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 139–144
Abstract:
This research extended previous work on the relationship between intergroup status and helping exchanges by investigating the conditions that moderate the willingness of members of a high status group (psychology students) to seek help from a low status group (social work students). In Study 1, when participants believed that there was a threat to the stability of status relations, participants from the high status group were more willing to seek autonomy-oriented assistance, which is empowering, than dependency-oriented help, which could undermine their group’s advantaged status. Study 2 considered how reframing the nature of intergroup relations by emphasizing common superordinate group membership can influence help-seeking among members of high status groups. When separate group identities were emphasized, the results replicated. However, as predicted, when common identity as mental health professional was made salient, psychology students were as willing to seek autonomy- and dependency-oriented help across both the unstable- and stable-relations conditions. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.
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Jennifer Randall Crosby, Madeline King & Kenneth Savitsky
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across three studies, members of underrepresented groups felt that they were the center of others’ attention when topics related to their group were discussed, and this experience was accompanied by negative emotions. Black participants reported that they would feel most “in the spotlight” when they were the only Black individual in a class in which the professor drew attention to their group with a provocative comment (Study 1). Black and Latino/Latina (Study 2) and female (Study 3) participants likewise reported that two confederates looked at them more when they heard (and believed the confederates had also heard) a recording that pertained to their group than when they heard a recording on a neutral topic — despite the fact that the confederates’ gaze did not differ across conditions. We discuss these results in light of research on solo status and targeted social referencing.
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‘Be prepared’: An implemental mindset for alleviating social-identity threat
Tara Dennehy, Avi Ben-Zeev & Noriko Tanigawa
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Stereotype threat occurs when people who belong to socially devalued groups experience a fear of negative evaluation, which interferes with the goal of staying task focused. The current study was designed to examine whether priming socially devalued individuals with an implemental (vs. a deliberative) mindset, characterized by forming a priori goal-directed plans, would help these individuals to overcome threat-induced distracting states. Participants from low and high socioeconomic status backgrounds (measured by maternal education; SESm) completed a speeded mental arithmetic test, an intellectually threatening task. Low-SESm individuals performed comparably and exhibited similar confidence levels to high-SESm counterparts only when induced with an implemental mindset, suggesting that implemental mindset priming may help to create equity in the face of stereotype threat.
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Lost in the categorical shuffle: Evidence for the social non-prototypicality of black women
Erin Thomas, John Dovidio & Tessa West
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The white male norm hypothesis (Zárate & Smith, 1990) posits that White men’s race and gender go overlooked as a result of their prototypical social statuses. In contrast, the intersectional invisibility hypothesis (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) posits that people with membership in multiple subordinate social groups experience social invisibility as a result of their non-prototypical social statuses. The present research reconciles these contradictory theories and provides empirical support for the core assumption of the intersectional invisibility hypothesis — that intersectional targets are non-prototypical within their race and gender ingroups. In a speeded categorization task, participants were slower to associate Black women versus Black men with the category “Black” and slower to associate Black women versus White women with the category “woman.” We discuss the implications of this work for social categorical theory development and future intersectionality research.
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Cheryl Dickter et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some research has demonstrated that White perceivers direct more initial attention to Black relative to White target faces, while other work has failed to show this relationship. Several variables have been identified that moderate early attention to racial outgroup versus racial ingroup faces. In the current paper, two studies sought to extend this work by testing whether close contact with racial outgroup members moderates the amount of initial attention directed towards racial outgroup members relative to ingroup members using a dot-probe task. In Study 1, Whites’ attentional allocation to Black versus White faces was moderated by the amount of close and meaningful contact with Blacks. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that Whites’ attentional allocation to Asian relative to White faces was moderated by close contact with Asians. These findings identify close outgroup contact as an additional moderating variable in the attentional capture of racial outgroup versus ingroup faces, for groups both associated and not associated with threat.
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M.B. Fallin Hunzaker
Social Psychology Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
One of the most striking features of stereotypes is their extreme durability. This study focuses on the role played by cultural schemas and perceptions of low-status others’ adversities in stereotype perpetuation. Social psychological theories of legitimacy and justice point to the role of stereotypes as one means through which individuals make sense of others’ undeserved misfortunes by redefining the victim. This study connects this work with insights from cognitive cultural sociology to propose that stereotypes act as cultural schemas used to justify others’ experiences of adversity. Consistent with this hypothesis, findings from a cultural transmission experiment show that participants include more negative stereotype-consistent content when retelling narratives with undeserved negative outcomes than with positive outcomes. Cognitive cultural sociology and the cultural transmission methodology offer tools for understanding victim redefinition processes, with important implications for the reproduction of stereotype bias and social inequalities.
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Justin Pickett et al.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, forthcoming
Objectives: Informed by intergroup contact theory, this study explores the relationships between intergroup contact, perceived out-group threat, and support for conciliatory solutions to the violent conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Methods: Regression and structural equation models analyze public opinion data collected in Israel in 2011 and 2012. The analyses assess whether quantity and quality of Israeli Jews’ contact with Israeli Arabs in day-to-day encounters are associated with their support for conciliatory policies.
Results: The quality, but not the quantity, of contact is associated with lower levels of perceived Palestinian threat and, in turn, with increased support for compromise.
Conclusion: The current study provides initial evidence that everyday interactions with Israeli Arabs, when they occur under optimal conditions, may have the potential to reduce Israeli Jews’ perceptions of Palestinian threat and, in turn, increase their support for compromise.
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Nida Bikmen & Kristine Durkin
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
White Americans’ willingness to engage in dialogues about intergroup commonalities and power inequalities with Asian and African Americans were examined in two experiments. Because Whites perceive that African Americans experience greater discrimination than do Asian Americans, we predicted that they would be more willing to engage in dialogues that would interrogate injustice and inequality with them. We also explored the role of common ingroup identity (as Americans) on willingness for dialogue about inequality. In both studies, Whites were less interested in engaging in power talk with Asian Americans than with African Americans, but the difference in willingness for commonality talk was smaller. Asian Americans were perceived as experiencing lower levels of discrimination (Studies 1 and 2) and identify less with America (Study 2) both of which predicted lower willingness for power talk with them. Common ingroup identity manipulations had marginal effects on willingness for power talk with African Americans and no effect on power talk with Asian Americans. Implications for improving social disparities between various groups were discussed.
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Franziska Ehrke, Anne Berthold & Melanie Steffens
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 193–206
Abstract:
When conceiving diversity training – a popular strategy to manage prejudice within organizations and educational settings – there is little reliance on social-psychological theorizing and a lack of research on training effectiveness. In line with the ingroup projection model (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999), we postulate diversity training to improve intergroup attitudes by increasing perceived superordinate-group diversity. We tested this in two experiments with control-group designs and repeated measurement. In Experiment 1 (N = 62), a 2-hour diversity intervention (covered as get-to-know activities) increased perceived diversity of the superordinate group students and improved feelings towards the gender-outgroup. In Experiment 2 (N = 51), a 1-day diversity training increased perceived diversity of the superordinate groups adults and Germans and improved subgroup attitudes regarding gender, age, and nationality. Moreover, the training had positive long-term effects and reductions of ambivalent sexism were mediated by increased perceived diversity of the respective superordinate group adults. Our findings demonstrate that the ingroup-projection model provides a suitable theoretical foundation for real-world anti-prejudice interventions such as diversity training.
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Seeing White Men: Bias in Gender Categorization
Joshua Simpkins
Gender Issues, March 2014, Pages 21-33
Abstract:
The gender system operates to place members of US society into categories, and then allocate labor and resources to those members on the basis of their category membership. In order to better understand the gender system, this study examines the methods by which members of US society use the gender system to place other members into a gender category, and how other social systems such as age and race affect gender categorization. Full and partial facial images were shown to participants, who were asked to identify the sex and/or gender of the individual in the image, indicate how confident they were in this identification, and then write a brief explanation for why they identified the individual in the image as they did. The results of this study point towards an “assumed male” bias in gender categorization. Results suggest that while age has little effect on gender categorization, race and gender do, with respondents being the most confident and “accurate” when viewing self-categorized white males.
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Adrienne Holz Ivory et al.
Computers in Human Behavior, June 2014, Pages 148–156
Abstract:
Sex role stereotyping by players in first-person shooter games and other online gaming environments may encourage a social environment that marginalizes and alienates female players. Consistent with the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), the anonymity of online games may engender endorsement of group-consistent attitudes and amplification of social stereotyping, such as the adherence to gender norms predicted by expectations states theory. A 2 × 3 × 2 virtual field experiment (N = 520) in an online first-person shooter video game examined effects of a confederate players’ sex, communication style, and skill on players’ compliance with subsequent online friend requests. We found support for the hypothesis that, in general, women would gain more compliance with friend requests than men. We also found support for the hypothesis that women making positive utterances would gain more compliance with friend requests than women making negative utterances, whereas men making negative utterances would gain more compliance with friend requests than men making positive utterances. The hypothesis that player skill (i.e., game scores) would predict compliance with friend requests was not supported. Implications for male and female game players and computer-mediated communication in online gaming environments are discussed.
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The Influence of Target Group Status on the Perception of the Offensiveness of Group-Based Slurs
P.J. Henry, Sarah Butler & Mark Brandt
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 185–192
Abstract:
Two studies investigate the effects of target group status on perceptions of the offensiveness of group-based slurs. Using real-world groups as targets, Study 1 showed that the perception that a group is of lower status in society is associated with the perceived offensiveness of insults targeting that group. Experimental methods in Study 2 showed that people perceive slurs against a low status group as especially offensive, a pattern that was mediated by the expectation that low-status targets would be emotionally reactive to the insult. The results suggest that cultural taboos emerge surrounding insults against low-status groups that may be due in part to how those target groups are expected to respond emotionally to those insults.
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Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: A Comparative Investigation of 17 Interventions
Calvin Lai et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many methods for reducing implicit prejudice have been identified, but little is known about their relative effectiveness. We held a research contest to experimentally compare interventions for reducing the expression of implicit racial prejudice. Teams submitted 17 interventions that were tested an average of 3.70 times each in 4 studies (total N = 17,021), with rules for revising interventions between studies. Eight of 17 interventions were effective at reducing implicit preferences for Whites compared with Blacks, particularly ones that provided experience with counterstereotypical exemplars, used evaluative conditioning methods, and provided strategies to override biases. The other 9 interventions were ineffective, particularly ones that engaged participants with others’ perspectives, asked participants to consider egalitarian values, or induced a positive emotion. The most potent interventions were ones that invoked high self-involvement or linked Black people with positivity and White people with negativity. No intervention consistently reduced explicit racial preferences. Furthermore, intervention effectiveness only weakly extended to implicit preferences for Asians and Hispanics.
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Racial Identity and Intergroup Attitudes: A Multiracial Youth Analysis
Jas Sullivan & Alexandra Ghara
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objective: This article examines the racial identity attitudes of white, black, and Hispanic youth and explores how these identities shape their feelings toward various racial and ethnic groups (whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Arabs, and biracial individuals).
Methods: Using the 2005 Youth Culture Survey data set, we test our theoretical expectations using descriptive statistics and multiple regression models.
Results: The relationship between racial identification and out-group attitudes varies among racial groups; specifically, racial identity variables do not have a significant impact on whites’ out-group attitudes, but they do matter for blacks and Hispanics.
Conclusion: While American society has changed in many ways (i.e., increased number of minorities and more tolerance, or at least more discussion of acceptance, for racial groups), our research finds that race still plays a consequential role in the lives of young racial minorities.
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Boundaries of American Identity: Relations Between Ethnic Group Prototypicality and Policy Attitudes
Que-Lam Huynh, Thierry Devos & Hannah Altman
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We sought to document that the extent to which different ethnic groups are perceived as embodying the American identity is more strongly linked to antiminority policy attitudes and acculturation ideologies among majority-group members (European Americans) than among minority-group members (Asian Americans or Latino/as). Participants rated 13 attributes of the American identity as they pertain to different ethnic groups and reported their endorsement of policy attitudes and acculturation ideologies. We found a relative consensus across ethnic groups regarding defining components of the American identity. However, European Americans were perceived as more prototypical of this American identity than ethnic minorities, especially by European American raters. Moreover, for European Americans but not for ethnic minorities, relative ingroup prototypicality was related to antiminority policy attitudes and acculturation ideologies. These findings suggest that for European Americans, perceptions of ethnic group prototypicality fulfill an instrumental function linked to preserving their group interests and limiting the rights afforded to ethnic minorities.
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Leigh Wilton, Diana Sanchez & Lisa Giamo
Social Psychology, Spring 2014, Pages 127-134
Abstract:
Biracial individuals threaten the distinctiveness of racial groups because they have mixed-race ancestry, but recent findings suggest that exposure to biracial-labeled, racially ambiguous faces may positively influence intergroup perception by reducing essentialist thinking among Whites (Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013). However, biracial exposure may not lead to positive intergroup perceptions for Whites who are highly racially identified and thus motivated to preserve the social distance between racial groups. We exposed Whites to racially ambiguous Asian/White biracial faces and measured the perceived similarity between Asians and Whites. We found that exposure to racially ambiguous, biracial-labeled targets may improve perceptions of intergroup similarity, but only for Whites who are less racially identified. Results are discussed in terms of motivated intergroup perception.