Jessica D. Remedios

Thinking Outside the Box Multiple Identity Mind-Sets Affect Creative Problem Solving

Rigid thinking is associated with less creativity, suggesting that priming a flexible mind-set should boost creative thought. In three studies, we investigate whether priming multiple social identities predicts more creativity in domains unrelated to social identity. Study 1 asked monoracial and multiracial participants to write about their racial identities before assessing creativity. Priming a multiracial’s racial identity led to greater creativity compared to a no-prime control. Priming a monoracial’s racial identity did not affect creativity. Study 2 showed that reminding monoracials that they, too, have multiple identities increased creativity. Study 3 replicated this effect and demonstrated that priming a multiracial identity for monoracials did not affect creativity. These results are the first to investigate the association between flexible identities and flexible thinking, highlighting the potential for identity versatility to predict cognitive differences between individuals who have singular versus multifaceted views of their social selves.

Not all prejudices are experienced equally: Comparing experiences of racism and sexism in female minorities

Research exploring the perspectives of stigmatized people has examined general processes related to experiencing prejudice. Past work, however, has invoked the assumption that prejudices against different group memberships are experienced in a similar manner. Across three studies we directly compare experiences of racism and sexism among female minorities and show, in contrast, that people respond to different forms of prejudice in distinct ways. In Study 1 we examined the attributions invoked by Asian women to explain prejudice and discovered that participants made stronger internal attributions to explain racism than sexism. In Study 2 we investigated emotional reactions to prejudice and found that Asian women report experiencing more depression following a race-based rejection than a gender-based rejection. In Study 3 we observed that Asian women reported perceiving more racism than sexism in their environments. Implications for advancing theories of prejudice experiences are discussed.

Organizational Identity Safety Cue Transfers

Traditionally, researchers have focused on identity-congruent safety cues such as the effect of gender diversity awards on women’s sense of inclusion in organizations. The present studies investigate, for the first time, whether identity safety cues (e.g., organizational diversity structures) aimed at one stigmatized group transfer via perceptions of the organization’s ideology (social dominance orientation), resulting in identity safety for individuals with stigmatized identities incongruent with the cue. Across four studies, we demonstrate that White women experience identity safety from organizational diversity structures aimed at racial minorities (Studies 1 and 2), and men of color experience identity safety from organizational diversity structures aimed at women (Study 3). Furthermore, while White men similarly perceive the organization’s ideology, this does not promote identity safety (Study 4). Thus, we argue that individuals view organizations commended for diversity as promoting more egalitarian attitudes broadly, resulting in the transference of identity safety cues for stigmatized individuals.

Folk beliefs about genetic variation predict avoidance of biracial individuals.

People give widely varying estimates for the amount of genetic overlap that exists between humans. While some laypeople believe that humans are highly genetically similar to one another, others believe that humans share very little genetic overlap. These studies examine how beliefs about genetic overlap affect neural and evaluative reactions to racially-ambiguous and biracial targets. In Study 1, we found that lower genetic overlap estimates predicted a stronger neural avoidance response to biracial compared to monoracial targets. In Study 2, we found that lower genetic overlap estimates predicted longer response times to classify biracial (vs. monoracial) faces into racial categories. In Study 3, we manipulated genetic overlap beliefs and found that participants in the low overlap condition explicitly rated biracial targets more negatively than those in the high overlap condition. Taken together, these data suggest that genetic overlap beliefs influence perceivers’ processing fluency and evaluation of biracial and racially-ambiguous individuals.

Priming White identity elicits stereotype boost for biracial Black-White individuals:

Psychological threat experienced by students of negatively stereotyped groups impairs test performance. However, stereotype boost can also occur if a positively stereotyped identity is made salient. Biracial individuals, whose racial identities may be associated with both negative and positive testing abilities, have not been examined in this context. Sixty-four biracial Black-White individuals wrote about either their Black or White identity or a neutral topic and completed a verbal Graduate Record Examination (GRE) examination described as diagnostic of their abilities. White-primed participants performed significantly better than both Black-primed and control participants. Thus, biracial Black-White individuals experience stereotype boost only when their White identity is made salient.

Stigma by Prejudice Transfer: Racism Threatens White Women and Sexism Threatens Men of Color

In the current research, we posited the stigma-by-prejudice-transfer effect, which proposes that stigmatized group members (e.g., White women) are threatened by prejudice that is directed at other stigmatized group members (e.g., African Americans) because they believe that prejudice has monolithic qualities. While most stigma researchers assume that there is a direct correspondence between the attitude of prejudiced individuals and the targets (i.e., sexism affects women, racism affects racial minorities), the five studies reported here demonstrate that White women can be threatened by racism (Study 1, 3, 4, and 5) and men of color by sexism (Study 2). Robust to perceptions of liking and the order in which measures were administered, results showed that prejudice transfers between racism and sexism were driven by the presumed social dominance orientation of the prejudiced individual. In addition, important downstream consequences, such as the increased likelihood of anticipated stigma, expectations of unfair treatment, and the attribution of negative feedback to sexism, appeared for stigmatized individuals.

Interactive Effects of Obvious and Ambiguous Social Categories on Perceptions of Leadership: When Double-Minority Status May Be Beneficial:

Easily perceived identities (e.g., race) may interact with perceptually ambiguous identities (e.g., sexual orientation) in meaningful but elusive ways. Here, we investigated how intersecting identities impact impressions of leadership. People perceived gay Black men as better leaders than members of either single-minority group (i.e., gay or Black). Yet, different traits supported judgments of the leadership abilities of Black and White targets; for instance, warmth positively predicted leadership judgments for Black men but dominance positively predicted leadership judgments for White men. These differences partly occurred because of different perceptions of masculinity across the intersection of race and sexual orientation. Indeed, both categorical (race and sex) and noncategorical (trait) social information contributed to leadership judgments. These findings highlight differences in the traits associated with leadership in Black and White men, as well as the importance of considering how intersecting cues associated with obvious and ambiguous groups moderate perceptions.

“Unskilled” Workers: Social Skills Stereotypes Affect Evaluations of Biracial Job Applicants

Why do Black/White workers earn wages similar to Black workers (

The Ambivalent Ageism Scale: Developing and Validating a Scale to Measure Benevolent and Hostile Ageism

6.30 less per hour than White workers), despite encountering less negative, anti-Black sentiment from others? We propose that Black/White workers must contend with stereotypes suggesting that biracial people are socially unskilled. In the present study we observed that, regardless of whether job candidates were rejected for external reasons (interviewer prejudice) or whether candidates acted in undesirable ways (claimed discrimination), participants rated Black/White applicants as less socially skilled and as more likely to have demonstrated poor interview skills than Black applicants. Implications for biases against hiring biracial people are discussed.

Perceptions of women of color who claim compound discrimination: Interpersonal judgments and perceived credibility

Purpose Much like sexism, ageism is a multifaceted prejudice; it involves benevolent and hostile attitudes toward older adults. There are many scales designed to measure hostile ageism, yet none dedicated to measuring benevolent ageism. In the current studies, we developed and validated a 13-item measure: the Ambivalent Ageism Scale (AAS). Design and Methods We employed four stages of scale development and validation. In Stage 1, we created 41 benevolent ageist items adapted from existing ageism measures. In Stages 2 and 3, we further refined the pool of items through additional testing and factor analysis and retained nine items loading strongly on two factors related to benevolent ageism: cognitive assistance/physical protection and unwanted help. In order to enable researchers to contrast benevolent and hostile attitudes, we then added four hostile ageist items. In Stage 4, we assessed the test-retest reliability of the 13-item scale. Results The AAS had good test-retest reliability (r = .80) and good internal consistency (α = .91). As predicted, the benevolent and hostile ageism subscales differentially predicted attitudes toward older adults: higher scores on the hostile subscale predicted lower competence and warmth ratings, whereas higher scores on the benevolent subscale predicted higher warmth perceptions. Implications The AAS is a useful tool for researchers to assess hostile and benevolent ageism. This measure serves as an important first step in designing interventions to reduce the harmful effects of both hostile and benevolent ageism.