Racial Assumptions Color the Mental Representation of Social Class (original) (raw)
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Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2005
African American and European American 4th, 6th, and 8th graders rated the competence of rich and poor children in academics (i.e., math, science, reading, writing, school grades, smartness), sports, and music. In contrast to middle school students, 4th graders favored the rich in all 3 domains. Youth of both races reported that the rich were more competent in academics than the poor; these beliefs were especially pronounced among Black youth. White, older, and more affluent students favored the poor in sports, whereas their counterparts either favored the rich or were egalitarian. No interactions were found between grade and race or grade and family income. The implications of these beliefs for policy and identity development theory are discussed.
Racial stereotypes: The contents of their cognitive representations
1986
This research investigated the nature of contemporary racial stereotypes and their role in social cognition. A priming experiment was conducted in which racial categories (black. white) were presented as primes, and positive and negative black and white stereotypic words were presented as test stimuli. Subjects were asked to indicate (by pressing a response key) whether the test word characteristic could "ever be true" of the prime category or was "always false," and reaction time was recorded. As predicted, primes of black and white most facilitated response to traits stereotypically attributed to these social groups. Thus, there appear to be important similarities between the information processing of object categories and the representation and use of stereotypes in social categorization. In addition, responses to the positive and negative evaluative words suggest that positive traits are more strongly associated with whites than with blacks, and negative characteristics are more strongly associated with blacks than with whites. Implications of these findings for social cognition. racial attitudes, and nonreactive measurement are discussed. 0 1986 Academic Press, Inc.
Cognitive representations of Black Americans: Reexploring the role of skin tone
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2002
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 ...
The Development of Race, Gender, and Social Class Stereotypes in Black and White Adolescents
We examined race, gender, and social class stereotypes in fourth, sixth, and eighth grade European American and African American children. Participants reported their perceptions of the competence of rich, poor, Black, White, female and male children in academic domains, sports, and music. Sixth and eighth graders were more likely than fourth graders to report traditional stereotypes. Low status groups (girls and African American children) did not endorse stereotypes that reflected negatively on their own group, but were likely to report stereotypes that favored their social group. Correlations among stereotype scores indicated that children consistently favored one social group over another, and eighth graders, but not younger children, showed moderate consistency in their tendency to be traditional versus egalitarian. Our results show the importance of social status in children's endorsement of stereotypes.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2006
Three studies explored the hypothesis that implicit measures of prejudice can tap negative, yet egalitarian associations. In Study 1, automatically associating African Americans with oppression predicted greater automatic prejudice. In Studies 2 and 3, classically conditioning associations between the novel group NoYans and words like oppressed, maltreated, and victimized led to greater automatic prejudice against NoYans. Results suggest that White Americans' negative automatic associations with African Americans may partly result from associating members of low status groups with unfair circumstances. Because automatic associations predict prejudiced behaviors, the burden of proof is on those wishing to argue that egalitarian negative associations complicate the assessment of automatic attitudes rather than contribute to prejudiced responses. Discussion focuses on the implications of egalitarian negative associations for the theory and measurement of automatic prejudice.
Racial Biases in Social Perception: Fast, Unconscious, but still Surmountable
Recent evidence suggests that our perception of other people is literally, and not just figuratively influenced by knowledge about the social categories to which they belong [1,2]. As a result, even the perceived brightness of a person’s skin is said to be automatically biased by knowledge about their presumed racial group [1]. Here, for the first time, we examine the claim that such biases are automatic: do they operate quickly, are we aware of them, and can they be overcome by higher-level cognitive states? These questions play key roles in both the moral issue of where responsibility for prejudice lies – with the individual, or the society, for instance – and the practical issue of how bias, prejudice, and discrimination can be reduced in the real world. Participants compared the luminance of pairs of faces, and we independently manipulated actual luminance, and the presence of African or European morphological features. We found from participants’ mouse cursor movements that the...