Laura G. Babbitt

Framing Matters Contextual Influences on Interracial Interaction Outcomes

Previous studies indicate that interracial interactions frequently have negative outcomes but have typically focused on social contexts. The current studies examined the effect of manipulating interaction context. In Study 1, Black and White participants worked together with instructions that created either a social focus or a task focus. With a task focus, interracial pairs were more consistently synchronized, Black participants showed less executive function depletion, and White participants generally showed reduced implicit bias. Follow-up studies suggested that prejudice concerns help explain these findings: White participants reported fewer concerns about appearing prejudiced when they imagined an interracial interaction with a task focus rather than a social focus (Study 2a), and Black participants reported less vigilance against prejudice in an imagined interracial interaction with a task focus rather than a social focus (Study 2b). Taken together, these studies illustrate the importance of interaction context for the experiences of both Blacks and Whites.

On the Perils of Misplaced Assumptions: Appreciating the Need for Diversity Science

The ability to support, or refute lay intuition regarding human nature is one of the calling cards of psychological—and, in particular, social psychological—research. As Victoria Plaut’s (this issue) target article demonstrates, diversity is a topic about which many such lay assumptions are problematic, if not wholly misplaced. The need for a diversity science becomes all the more pressing in light of this frequent divergence between how people typically think about diversity-related issues and how cognition and behavior actually play out in diverse contexts. In this commentary, we focus on four such questionable assumptions and their implications for theory and practice.

Mere Membership in Racially Diverse Groups Reduces Conformity

Three studies assessed the impact of White individuals’ mere membership in racially diverse or homogeneous groups on conformity. In Study 1, White participants were randomly assigned to four-person groups that were racially diverse or homogeneous in which three confederates routinely endorsed clearly inferior college applicants for admission. Participants in diverse groups were significantly less likely to conform than those in homogeneous groups. Study 2 replicated these results using an online conformity paradigm, thereby isolating the effects of racial group composition from concomitant social cues in face-to-face settings. Study 3 presented a third condition—a diverse group that included one other White member. Individuals conformed less in both types of diverse groups as compared with the homogeneous group. Evidence suggests this was because Whites in homogeneous (vs. diverse) settings were more likely to reconsider their original decision after learning how other group members responded.

Exposure to Biracial Faces Reduces Colorblindness

Across six studies, we demonstrate that exposure to biracial individuals significantly reduces endorsement of colorblindness as a racial ideology among White individuals. Real-world exposure to biracial individuals predicts lower levels of colorblindness compared with White and Black exposure (Study 1). Brief manipulated exposure to images of biracial faces reduces colorblindness compared with exposure to White faces, Black faces, a set of diverse monoracial faces, or abstract images (Studies 2-5). In addition, these effects occur only when a biracial label is paired with the face rather than resulting from the novelty of the mixed-race faces themselves (Study 4). Finally, we show that the shift in White participants’ colorblindness attitudes is driven by social tuning, based on participants’ expectations that biracial individuals are lower in colorblindness than monoracial individuals (Studies 5-6). These studies suggest that the multiracial population’s increasing size and visibility has the potential to positively shift racial attitudes.