Keith B. Maddox

Cognitive Representations of Black Americans: Reexploring the Role of Skin Tone

Although evidence from a variety of disciplines suggests that skin tone is a basis of discrimination among Blacks, research in social psychology has virtually ignored this topic. Two experiments examined the causal role of skin tone in the perception and representations of Blacks. Paralleling the effect of race and other social category dimensions, Study 1 showed that variation in skin tone can influence the organization of social information. Study 2 demonstrated differentiation in stereotypes of Blacks based on skin tone. Results from both investigations suggest that skin tone is an important factor in both Blacks’ and Whites’ representations of Blacks.

Exhaustive and heuristic retrieval processes in person cognition: further tests of the TRAP model.

The twofold retrieval by associative pathways (TRAP) model (L. Garcia-Marques & D. L. Hamilton, 1996) proposes that two distinct modes of retrieval typically underlie recall and frequency estimation. The model accounts for the simultaneous occurrence of greater recall of incongruent information and higher frequency estimation of congruent information. Three experiments provided further tests of the TRAP model. Experiment 1 manipulated cognitive load (at encoding and at retrieval) and the selectivity of the retrieval goal. Under either high load or a selective retrieval goal, incongruent items ceased to be better recalled. Experiment 2 manipulated the accessibility of expectancy-congruent, -incongruent, or -neutral episodes and found corresponding effects in frequency estimates. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that providing part-list retrieval cues inhibits recall but increases frequency estimates. The TRAP model predicted these results.

Social influences on spatial memory

Three experiments were performed to examine the joint influences of spatial and social categories on memory for maps. Participants learned a map and descriptive information about small town businesses and, afterward, completed distance estimation and person-location matching tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that social (i.e., racial) and spatial information influenced memory, but not equivalently: Social information affected distance and matching task performance, whereas spatial information affected only distance estimates. This pattern was obtained for racially segregated and racially integrated neighborhoods and when the salience of the spatial categories was heightened. The social information influence did not generalize to political affiliation categories (Experiment 3). These results demonstrate that spatial and nonspatial information may interact to structure mental maps but that the salience of the social category is critically important. Furthermore, these findings suggest the applicability of a model of category salience (Blanz, 1999) for interactive products of spatial experiences—in this case, map learning. Norms for this article may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Essentialist Thinking Predicts Decrements in Children’s Memory for Racially-Ambiguous Faces

Past research shows that adults often display poor memory for racially ambiguous and racial outgroup faces, with both face types remembered worse than own-race faces. In the present study, the authors examined whether children also show this pattern of results. They also examined whether emerging essentialist thinking about race predicts childrens memory for faces. Seventy-four White children (ages 4-9 years) completed a face-memory task comprising White, Black, and racially ambiguous Black-White faces. Essentialist thinking about race was also assessed (i.e., thinking of race as immutable and biologically based). White children who used essentialist thinking showed the same bias as White adults: They remembered White faces significantly better than they remembered ambiguous and Black faces. However, children who did not use essentialist thinking remembered both White and racially ambiguous faces significantly better than they remembered Black faces. This finding suggests a specific shift in racial thinking wherein the boundaries between racial groups become more discrete, highlighting the importance of how race is conceptualized in judgments of racially ambiguous individuals.

Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message? Exploring Reactions to Claims of Racial Bias:

Two experiments examined aspects of the communicator, message, and audience in producing evaluative backlash toward minorities who make claims of ongoing racial bias. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated a White or Black confederate who gave a speech expressing no claim, a mild claim, or an extreme claim of racial bias. Results indicated a race-specific evaluative backlash: Participants more negatively rated Black compared with White communicators, but only when the claim was extreme. Experiment 2 found that participants more negatively rated Black (vs. White) communicators when they used low-quality arguments, but this backlash was eliminated when Black communicators used high-quality arguments. Furthermore, participants who held stronger meritocracy beliefs and who heard low-quality arguments were more likely to evaluate Black communicators harshly. These findings clarify the conditions under which people from advantaged groups are more likely to recognize claims of racial bias as legitimate and respond favorably to the communicator.

Sounding Black or White: priming identity and biracial speech

Research has shown that priming one’s racial identity can alter a biracial individuals’ social behavior, but can such priming also influence their speech? Language is often used as a marker of one’s social group membership and studies have shown that social context can affect the style of language that a person chooses to use, but this work has yet to be extended to the biracial population. Audio clips were extracted from a previous study involving biracial Black/White participants who had either their Black or White racial identity primed. Condition-blind coders rated Black-primed biracial participants as sounding significantly more Black and White-primed biracial participants as sounding significantly more White, both when listening to whole (Study 1a) and thin-sliced (Study 1b) clips. Further linguistic analyses (Studies 2a–c) were inconclusive regarding the features that differed between the two groups. Future directions regarding the need to investigate the intersections between social identity priming and language behavior with a biracial lens are discussed.

Racial Appearance Bias: Improving Evidence-Based Policies to Address Racial Disparities:

Racial disparities continue in the treatment and outcomes of individuals in an increasingly diverse society. Social psychological research suggests that racial identity–conscious interventions can be critical to address these disparities. However, recent research goes beyond racial identity categories to outcomes associated with racial phenotypicality—within-category variation in racial appearance. Phenotypicality bias complicates race-conscious strategies. Individuals whose facial characteristics are more stereotypical of their racial group experience greater discrimination and receive less favorable outcomes across a variety of domains. Thus, without considering racial phenotypicality, policies designed to address racial disparities may fail to acknowledge outcomes associated with this subtle but important element of social perception and judgment. A review of this research leads to implications for several areas of policy and practice.

The social connection in mental representations of space: explicit and implicit evidence

To understand memory of and reasoning about real-world environments, all aspects of the environment, both spatial and non-spatial need to be considered. Non-spatial information can be either integral to or associated with the spatial information. This paper reviews two lines of research conducted in our lab that explore interactions between spatial information and nonspatial information associated with it (namely social information). Based on results of numerous studies, we propose that full accounts of spatial cognition about real-world environments should consider non-spatial influences, noting that some phenomena, while seemingly spatial in nature, may have substantive nonspatial influences.

Confronting Bias Through Teaching: Insights From Social Psychology

Research in social psychology has the potential to address real-world issues involving racial stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Literature on confrontation suggests that addressing racism can be seen as a persuasive act that will allow for more effective interpersonal interactions. In this article, we explore the persuasive communication literature in the context of classroom education on the pervasiveness of racial bias. We examine some of the challenges instructors might face from students. Finally, we suggest strategies that might allow for a more effective classroom experience.