Viewing People
New OMB’s Race and Ethnicity Standards Will Affect How Americans Self-Identify
René Flores, Edward Telles & Ilana Ventura
Sociological Science, December 2024
Abstract:
In March 2024, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved major changes to the ethnic and racial self-identification questions used by all federal agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau. These modifications include merging the separate race and Hispanic ethnicity questions into a single combined question and adding a Middle Eastern and North African category. Government officials and researchers have requested evidence on how Americans might react to these changes. We conducted a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of 7,350 adult Americans. Participants were randomly assigned to answer either the existing separate race and ethnicity questions or a combined question proposed by the OMB. We find that the combined question decreases the percentage of Americans identifying as white and as some other race. We identify the key mechanism driving these effects: Hispanics decrease their identification in other categories when a Hispanic category is available in the combined question format. This results in statistically significant decreases in key minority populations, including Afro-Latinos and indigenous Latinos.
The Vietnam Draft Lottery and Whites’ Racial Attitudes: Evidence from the General Social Survey
Donald Green & Oliver Hyman-Metzger
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Vietnam Draft Lotteries, which randomly assigned men to military service, enable researchers to assess the long-term effects of interracial contact on racial attitudes. Using a new draft status indicator for respondents to the General Social Surveys 1978–2021, we show that white men who were selected for the draft subsequently expressed less negative attitudes toward Black people and toward policies designed to help them. These effects are apparent only for cohorts that were actually drafted into service, suggesting that interracial contact during military service led to attitude change. These findings have important implications for theories of political socialization and prejudice reduction.
Sugar coating cartoons for girls: Gender stereotypical themes and the use of food in toy-tied media
Eric Setten & Bettina Cornwell
Journal of Consumer Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
Toy-tied media (TTM) are promotional vehicles for toys and other merchandise depicting featured characters. Across two studies, this research finds significant differences in plot themes and the frequency and types of foods present in TTM based on target gender. Study 1 uses content analysis to understand how foods (especially sweets) are utilized to show nurturance and domesticity in girls' TTM while a focus on violence in boys' TTM minimizes the plot relevance of food. Study 2 uses automated text analysis on 1041 h of TTM transcripts to quantify the occurrence of select food categories and themes. Study 2 finds that sweets occur eight times more frequently in girls' TTM than in boys' TTM and that sweets occur five times more frequently in TTM rated appropriate for viewers six and under compared to TTM rated for older viewers. The findings suggest the need for intervention and potential interventions are discussed.
Are Multiracial Faces Perceptually Distinct?
Debbie Ma et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The explosive growth of individuals identifying as multiracial in the U.S. population has motivated significant interest in multiracial face perception. Interestingly, the literature reveals stunningly low rates of classifications of multiracial faces as multiracial. Five studies examined the possibility that this lack of correspondence is rooted in perceptual confusion. To test this, we utilized multidimensional scaling and discriminant function analysis to determine how participants mentally represent multiracial faces relative to Latinx and monoracial faces. Studies 1–3 establish that multiracial faces are perceptually discriminable from non-multiracial faces using three different sets of facial stimuli: Asian–White female (Study 1), Black–White female (Study 2), and Asian–White male faces (Study 3). Study 4 examined whether mental representation was further moderated by sample demographics by comparing U.S. participants sampled from Hawaii and California. Finally, Study 5 tests the consistency of mental representations across individuals and rules out potential statistical artifacts associated with group multidimensional scaling. These studies provide consistent evidence that multiracial faces are perceptually distinct from Latinx and monoracial faces, suggesting that the categorization patterns of multiracial faces observed in past research likely stem from downstream processes rather than perceptual confusability of multiracial faces.
Costly exploration produces stereotypes with dimensions of warmth and competence
Xuechunzi Bai, Thomas Griffiths & Susan Fiske
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Traditional explanations for stereotypes assume that they result from deficits in humans (ingroup-favoring motives, cognitive biases) or their environments (majority advantages, real group differences). An alternative explanation recently proposed that stereotypes can emerge when exploration is costly. Even optimal decision makers in an ideal environment can inadvertently form incorrect impressions from arbitrary encounters. However, all these existing theories essentially describe shortcuts that fail to explain the multidimensionality of stereotypes. Stereotypes of social groups have a canonical multidimensional structure, organized along dimensions of warmth and competence. We show that these dimensions and the associated stereotypes can result from feature-based exploration: When individuals make self-interested decisions based on past experiences in an environment where exploring new options carries an implicit cost and when these options share similar attributes, they are more likely to separate groups along multiple dimensions. We formalize this theory via the contextual multiarmed bandit problem, use the resulting model to generate testable predictions, and evaluate those predictions against human behavior. We evaluate this process in incentivized decisions involving as many as 20 real jobs and successfully recover the classic dimensions of warmth and competence. Further experiments show that intervening on the cost of exploration effectively mitigates bias, further demonstrating that exploration cost per se is the operating variable. Future diversity interventions may consider how to reduce exploration cost, in ways that parallel our manipulations.
The Aversive Racism Theory of Cultural Appropriation: Attributions of Target Intent Suppresses Evaluations of Intergroup Harm
Ariel Mosley
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research investigates whether racially dominant (White) and minoritized group members (Black) differentially evaluate intergroup harm in ambiguous (vs. overt) acts of cultural appropriation (the aversive racism hypothesis), due to attributions of positive intentions to the target (the intent as justification hypothesis). Four experiments (N = 1,020, 3 preregistered) and an internal meta-analysis converge to demonstrate that White perceivers evaluated less harm than Black perceivers in ambiguous acts of cultural appropriation. Attributions of positive intent served as a mechanism underlying this effect; naturally occurring variations in positive intent mediated the link between participant race and harm evaluations (Studies 2 and 3), and experimentally manipulating target intent altered harm evaluations as well as motivations for collective action (Study 4). Findings integrate work from multiple academic disciplines with insights from contemporary theories of prejudice to suggest that perceivers’ attributions of positive intent can obscure their evaluations of harm in acts of cultural appropriation.
Do White Saviour perceptions reduce charitable giving? Evidence from five online studies
Swee-Hoon Chuah et al.
Kyklos, forthcoming
Abstract:
International aid charities face a dilemma by virtue of the White Saviour: Appeal photos of Caucasian helpers in Global South settings can build a bridge to donors or cause donor resentment with changing social norms. We examine four resulting empirical questions using a series of online studies: What is the White Saviour? How do White Saviour perceptions arise from charitable appeals? And what is their effect on both donation intentions and behaviour? We empirically identify two factors that constitute White Saviour perceptions: entitlement and ineffectiveness, along with the photo characteristics that raise them. Findings suggest that images with high White Saviour perceptions do not raise donations but can actually lower the propensity to donate. There is therefore no case for international NGOs to use such imagery, particularly given that it risks offending the people and communities they serve.
“Our Wars Are the Same”: (Horizontal) Collectivism Is Associated With Lay Theory of Generalized Prejudice
Minh Duc Pham, Kimberly Chaney & Merrisa Lin
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present research investigated the associations of collectivism with lay theory of generalized prejudice (LTGP) endorsement and, consequently, intraminority allyship. Study 1 recruited people from Chile, Germany, Mexico, Israel, and the United States (N = 655) and found that higher levels of self-reported collectivism were associated with stronger LTGP endorsements. Study 2 replicated this collectivism-LTGP relationship among Chinese individuals in 19 countries (N = 118). In Study 3, Latinx U.S. participants (N = 334) primed with high (versus low) collectivism endorsed LTGP more strongly, which was associated with greater stigma-based solidarity and intraminority allyship. Study 4 recruited from Greece, South Africa, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States (N = 778), and found that horizontal (but not vertical) collectivism was associated with LTGP and thus allyship. Study 4 identified three mechanisms linking (horizontal) collectivism and LTGP: connecting discrimination, attention to discrimination, and empathy. Findings highlight collectivistic mindsets as a strategy to facilitate intraminority coalitions.