Kristin Pauker

Race is gendered: How covarying phenotypes and stereotypes bias sex categorization

We argue that race and sex categories are psychologically and phenotypically confounded, affecting social categorizations and their efficiency. Sex categorization of faces was facilitated when the race category shared facial phenotypes or stereotypes with the correct sex category (e.g., Asian women and Black men) but was impaired when the race category shared incompatible phenotypes or stereotypes with the correct sex category (e.g., Asian men and Black women). These patterns were evident in the disambiguation of androgynous faces (Study 1) and the efficiency of judgments (Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5). These patterns emerged due to common facial phenotypes for the categories Black and men (Studies 3 and 5) and due to shared stereotypes among the categories Black and men and the categories Asian and women (Studies 4 and 5). These findings challenge the notion that social categories are perceived independent of one another and show, instead, that race is gendered.

Not So Black and White: Memory for Ambiguous Group Members

Exponential increases in multiracial identities, expected over the next century, create a conundrum for perceivers accustomed to classifying people as their own- or other-race. The current research examines how perceivers resolve this dilemma with regard to the own-race bias. The authors hypothesized that perceivers are not motivated to include ambiguous-race individuals in the in-group and therefore have some difficulty remembering these individuals. Both racially ambiguous and other-race faces were misremembered more often than own-race faces (Study 1), though memory for ambiguous faces was improved among perceivers motivated to include biracial individuals in the in-group (Study 2). Racial labels assigned to racially ambiguous faces determined memory for these faces, suggesting that uncertainty provides the motivational context for discounting ambiguous faces in memory (Study 3). Finally, an inclusion motivation fostered cognitive associations between racially ambiguous faces and the in-group. Moreover, the extent to which perceivers associated racially ambiguous faces with the in-group predicted memory for ambiguous faces and accounted for the impact of motivation on memory (Study 4). Thus, memory for biracial individuals seems to involve a flexible person construal process shaped by motivational factors.

The Subtle Transmission of Race Bias via Televised Nonverbal Behavior

Silent Hate A great deal of information can be communicated nonverbally. Weisbuch et al. (p. 1711; see the Perspective by Dovidio) have used experimental, archival, and survey studies to find that the nonverbal communication of racial bias in popular television shows perpetuates implicit racism in viewers. A subsequent field data analysis yielded a correlation between U.S. viewer ratings and a Federal Bureau of Investigation tally of anti-black hate crimes in the same localities. Nonverbal behaviors can contribute to implicit bias in intergroup attitudes. Compared with more explicit racial slurs and statements, biased facial expressions and body language may resist conscious identification and thus produce a hidden social influence. In four studies, we show that race biases can be subtly transmitted via televised nonverbal behavior. Characters on 11 popular television shows exhibited more negative nonverbal behavior toward black than toward status-matched white characters. Critically, exposure to prowhite (versus problack) nonverbal bias increased viewers’ bias even though patterns of nonverbal behavior could not be consciously reported. These findings suggest that hidden patterns of televised nonverbal behavior influence bias among viewers.

Learning (Not) to Talk About Race: When Older Children Underperform in Social Categorization

The present research identifies an anomaly in sociocognitive development, whereby younger children (8 and 9 years) outperform their older counterparts (10 and 11 years) in a basic categorization task in which the acknowledgment of racial difference facilitates performance. Though older children exhibit superior performance on a race-neutral version of the task, their tendency to avoid acknowledging race hinders objective success when race is a relevant category. That these findings emerge in late childhood, in a pattern counter to the normal developmental trajectory of increased cognitive expertise in categorization, suggests that this anomaly indicates the onset of a critical transition in human social development.

In Blind Pursuit of Racial Equality

Despite receiving little empirical assessment, the color-blind approach to managing diversity has become a leading institutional strategy for promoting racial equality, across domains and scales of practice. We gauged the utility of color blindness as a means to eliminating future racial inequity—its central objective—by assessing its impact on a sample of elementary-school students. Results demonstrated that students exposed to a color-blind mind-set, as opposed to a value-diversity mind-set, were actually less likely both to detect overt instances of racial discrimination and to describe such events in a manner that would prompt intervention by certified teachers. Institutional messages of color blindness may therefore artificially depress formal reporting of racial injustice. Color-blind messages may thus appear to function effectively on the surface even as they allow explicit forms of bias to persist.

Race Salience and Essentialist Thinking in Racial Stereotype Development

The authors explored the emergence and antecedents of racial stereotyping in 89 children ages 3-10 years. Children completed a number of matching and sorting tasks, including a measure designed to assess their knowledge and application of both positive and negative in-group and out-group stereotypes. Results indicate that children start to apply stereotypes to the out-group starting around 6 years of age. Controlling for a number of factors, 2 predictors contributed significantly toward uniquely explaining the use of these stereotypes: race salience (i.e., seeing and organizing by race) and essentialist thinking (i.e., believing that race cannot change). These results provide insight into how and when real-world interventions aimed at altering the acquisition of racial stereotypes may be implemented.

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.

A Perceptual Pathway to Bias: Interracial Exposure Reduces Abrupt Shifts in Real-Time Race Perception That Predict Mixed-Race Bias

In two national samples, we examined the influence of interracial exposure in one’s local environment on the dynamic process underlying race perception and its evaluative consequences. Using a mouse-tracking paradigm, we found in Study 1 that White individuals with low interracial exposure exhibited a unique effect of abrupt, unstable White-Black category shifting during real-time perception of mixed-race faces, consistent with predictions from a neural-dynamic model of social categorization and computational simulations. In Study 2, this shifting effect was replicated and shown to predict a trust bias against mixed-race individuals and to mediate the effect of low interracial exposure on that trust bias. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that interracial exposure shapes the dynamics through which racial categories activate and resolve during real-time perceptions, and these initial perceptual dynamics, in turn, may help drive evaluative biases against mixed-race individuals. Thus, lower-level perceptual aspects of encounters with racial ambiguity may serve as a foundation for mixed-race prejudice.

When Societal Norms and Social Identity Collide: the Race Talk Dilemma for Racial Minority Children.

Racial minorities face a unique “race talk” dilemma in contemporary American society: Their racial background is often integral to their identity and how others perceive them, yet talk of race is taboo. This dilemma highlights the conflict between two fundamental social processes: social identity development and social norm adherence. To examine how, and with what costs, this dilemma is resolved, 9- to 12-year-old Latino, Asian, Black, and White children (N = 108) completed a photo identification task in which acknowledging racial difference is beneficial to performance. Results indicate minority children are just as likely to avoid race as White children, and such avoidance exacted a cost to performance and nonverbal comfort. Results suggest that teachers are particularly important social referents for instilling norms regarding race. Norms that equate color blindness with socially appropriate behavior appear more broadly influential than previously thought, stifling talk of race even among those for whom it may be most meaningful.

Exposure to Racial Ambiguity Influences Lay Theories of Race

Biological lay theories of race have proven to have pernicious consequences for interracial relations, yet few studies have examined how intergroup contact itself (particularly with those who naturalistically challenge these conceptions) affects beliefs about race. Three studies (a correlational study, an interaction study, and an experimental study) examine whether exposure to racially ambiguous individuals reduces Whites’ biological lay theories of race across time. Study 1 demonstrates that increased exposure to racial ambiguity across 2 weeks reduced White individuals’ biological lay theories. Study 2 shows that Whites who interacted in a laboratory setting with a racially ambiguous individual were less likely to endorse biological lay theories, an effect that sustained for 2 weeks. Study 3 finds that the reduction in biological lay theories after exposure to racial ambiguity is mediated by the tendency for Whites’ lay theories of race to conform to beliefs they presume racially ambiguous individuals hold.