Thinking About Others
Quirks of cognition explain why we dramatically overestimate the size of minority groups
Brian Guay et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 April 2025
Abstract:
Americans dramatically overestimate the size of African American, Latino, Muslim, Asian, Jewish, immigrant, and LGBTQ populations, leading to concerns about downstream racial attitudes and policy preferences. Such errors are common whenever the public is asked to estimate proportions relevant to political issues, from refugee crises and polarization to climate change and COVID-19. Researchers across the social sciences interpret these errors as evidence of widespread misinformation that is topic-specific and potentially harmful. Here, we show that researchers and journalists have misinterpreted the origins and meaning of these misestimates by overlooking systematic distortions introduced by the domain-general psychological processes involved in estimating proportions under uncertainty. In general, people systematically rescale estimates of proportions toward more central prior expectations, resulting in the consistent overestimation of smaller groups and underestimation of larger groups. We formalize this process and show that it explains much of the systematic error in estimates of demographic groups (N=100,170 estimates from 22 countries). This domain-general account far outperforms longstanding group-specific explanations (e.g., biases toward specific groups). We find, moreover, that people make the same errors when estimating the size of racial, nonracial, and entirely nonpolitical groups, such as the proportion of Americans who have a valid passport or own a washing machine. Our results call for researchers, journalists, and pundits alike to reconsider how to interpret misperceptions about the demographic structure of society.
Validating Whites’ Reactions to the “Racial Shift”
Andrew Engelhardt, Nicole Huffman & Veronica Oelerich
Journal of Experimental Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
A prominent paradigm demonstrates many White Americans respond negatively to information on their declining population share. But this paradigm considers this “racial shift” in a single hierarchy-challenging context that produces similar status threat responses across conceptually distinct outcomes, undercutting the ability to both explain the causes of Whites’ social and political responses and advance theorizing about native majorities’ responses to demographic change. We test whether evidence for Whites’ responses to demographic change varies across three distinct hierarchy-challenging contexts: society at large, culture, and politics. We find little evidence any racial shift information instills status threat or otherwise changes attitudes or behavioral intentions, and do not replicate evidence for reactions diverging by left- versus right-wing political attachments. We conclude with what our well-powered (n = 2100) results suggest about a paradigm and intervention used prominently, with results cited frequently, to understand native majorities’ responses to demographic change and potential challenges to multiracial democracy.
Boys are smart (and really dull and pretty average): Testing replication and validity of the Brilliance Stereotype
Yue Li & Timothy Bates
Personality and Individual Differences, June 2025
Abstract:
A Brilliance Stereotype associating high intellectual ability with men and not women with possible downstream impacts on interests or work has been reported. Here, we report five replications and extensions testing this finding (total N = 737). Studies 1 and 2 were direct replications and found no support for the male brilliance stereotype: Instead, 10-year-old boys and girls both chose own-gender targets as smartest. Study 3 tested stereotyping of the opposite of brilliance – being very dull. Contrary to the brilliance stereotype model, males were stereotyped as dull by both girls and boys (OR = 0.22, p < .001). Study 4 added additional validity checks, but no difference in brilliance stereotype was found between boys and girls (p = .517). We also tested the causal claim that brilliance stereotypes impact career interests. Large gender differences were found for occupational interests (e.g. nursing (β = 0.73 CI95 [0.48, 0.98], t = 5.68, p < .001, scientist/engineer (β = −0.61 CI95 [−0.88, −0.35], t = −4.60, p < .001). Despite this, the brilliance stereotype showed no relationship to any occupational interests (p-values 0.523 to 0.999). Brilliance stereotype, and effects of brilliance stereotype lack internal coherence and predictive validity.
“Othering” Through War: Depiction of Asians/Asian Americans in U.S. History Textbooks
Minju Choi et al.
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using computational methods, we investigate a data set of 874,125 sentences from 30 U.S. history textbooks used in California and Texas schools to consider how they discuss Asians/Asian Americans. Only 1% of all sentences in our sample has any mention of Asians. Most of these sentences focus on Chinese and Japanese, and when individuals are named, they are usually White. The most prevalent topics in which Asians appear are about war. Discussions of wars are a centerpiece of history textbooks, but the dominance of such narratives is especially high for Asians relative to other ethno-cultural groups. The sentiment of verbs used to describe Asians is strikingly negative. Asians are described more negatively than others in both war and nonwar contexts.
Accommodation to Viewer's Language: Exploring Mechanisms for Improving Intergroup Attitudes via Dubbed and Subtitled Films
Hyeonchang Gim
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Positive mediated intergroup contact improves intergroup relations. By examining such effects in the foreign-language film context with varying verbal delivery methods, the study explores outgroup characters’ language accommodation to viewers as a critical mechanism. This experiment (N = 204) investigated how different verbal delivery methods in a foreign language movie featuring Asian Americans (titled Minari) influenced attitudes toward Asian Americans. Among native English speakers in America, watching the film with a native speaker's English dubbing (vs. foreign-accented English dubbing vs. foreign language with subtitles) led to more positive attitudes toward Asian Americans, mediated by two theory-driven mechanisms: perceived similarities and processing fluency with the target Asian American character. Results indicated that exposure to the target Asian American character in the native speaker's English dubbed (vs. subtitled) condition resulted in more perceived similarities with the character and fluent processing of the character's speech. Subsequently, these factors translated into positive evaluations of the character and Asian Americans as a group. With an emphasis on the role of language accommodation to viewers, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
How prevalent is “other ethnicity blindness”? Exploring the extremes of recognition performance across categories of faces
Jeremy Tree & Alex Jones
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
The other ethnicity effect (OEE) refers to the common finding that individuals generally perform better in recognizing faces from their own ethnicity than from others. Wan et al. (2017) identified a subset of individuals with a marked difficulty in recognizing other ethnicity faces, termed other ethnicity blindness (OEB). This study further examines the prevalence of OEB in two large samples of Asian and Caucasian participants, using three analytical approaches to assess face recognition across different ethnic face categories. The first method, based on Wan’s percentile-rank approach, additionally adjusted for regression to the mean (RTM), found a 1.9% OEB prevalence, lower than their earlier estimates (8.1% [7.5, 10.6]). Moreover, those identified often displayed generally poor face recognition skills. The second approach, akin to a single-case “dissociation” method (Crawford et al., 2003), classified just one individual (0.25%) as OEB. The third method defined OEB purely as an exaggeratedly large OEE, without using traditional “cutoff” scores, but adjusted for RTM, observed 1.33% of participants exhibited this profile. Bayesian simulations supported these OEB prevalence rates. Overall, the findings highlight the critical importance of accounting for factors like own-ethnicity performance, measurement error and RTM. We also advocate for more conservative classification methods in future OEB research and emphasize that while OEB is rare, it can be observed in some individuals. Specifically, adopting the classification of OEB as a “hyper” OEE profile may provide a valuable avenue for future research exploration both with respect to those interested in individual variability in OEE and more generally variability in within-class recognition performance.
Further Evidence for the Dark-Ego-Vehicle Principle: Higher Pathological Narcissistic Grandiosity and Virtue Signaling Are Related to Greater Involvement in LGBQ and Gender Identity Activism
Ann Krispenz & Alex Bertrams
Archives of Sexual Behavior, March 2025, Pages 1271-1291
Abstract:
The dark-ego-vehicle principle (DEVP) suggests that individuals with so-called dark personalities (e.g., high narcissistic traits) are attracted to political and social activism that they can repurpose to satisfy their specific ego-focused needs (e.g., signaling moral superiority and manipulating others) instead of achieving prosocial goals. Currently, research on the DEVP is still rare. With two pre-registered studies, we sought further evidence for the DEVP by examining the associations of pathological narcissistic grandiosity with involvement in LGBQ activism (Study 1) and gender identity activism (Study 2). Socioeconomically diverse samples from the USA (Study 1; N = 446) and the UK (Study 2; N = 837) were recruited online via the research-oriented crowdsourcing platform Prolific. Individuals completed the Pathological Narcissism Inventory as well as measures of involvement in activism. Moreover, we assessed different covariates (e.g., altruism), and potential correlates within the narcissism–activism relationship (i.e., virtue signaling, dominance, and aggression). In addition, we examined potential relationships between other dark personality variables (e.g., psychopathy) and activism. In both samples, higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity was related to greater involvement in activism. As expected, virtue signaling was consistently involved in the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and activism. However, neither dominance nor aggression was related to individuals’ involvement in activism. The results did also not consistently support a relationship between higher psychopathy and greater involvement in activism. Overall, the findings help to further specify the DEVP.
Paradoxical anonymity, power relations, and appearance policing on r/instagramreality
Katherine Furl
Sociological Forum, forthcoming
Abstract:
Appearances are unequally policed in gendered, racialized, and classist systems of power. Technological affordances, or the actions possible across different technological platforms, shape how these practices transpire online. Affordances can operate in gendered, racialized ways: the same platform capabilities can produce different use patterns depending on social contexts, uniquely reinforcing inequalities. I bridge a gap in sociological research by considering how technological affordances, alongside broader social contexts, shape oppositions, reproductions, or complications of dominant appearance norms. Reddit, a platform divided into standalone communities called subreddits, affords protective anonymity to historically disempowered groups, potentially facilitating resistance toward dominant norms. Paradoxically, Reddit's anonymity can foster toxicity and morally motivated harassment maintaining powerful groups' advantages. How do users on r/instagramreality, a subreddit calling out others' supposedly disingenuous, embodied social media self-presentations, use Reddit's anonymity to challenge, complicate, or re-entrench dominant norms of appearance? Applying qualitative content analysis to r/instagramreality posts, I find that while r/instagramreality users directly challenge and indirectly complicate constraining beauty standards, subreddit conversations also uphold norms privileging dominant groups. R/instagramreality assigns default morality to Whiteness, disproportionately criticizes women, and attributes morality through classist stereotypes. This study reveals how online anonymity, embodied self-presentation, and surveillance coexist and operate across social contexts.