A Perceptual Pathway to Bias

PSSXXX10.1177/0956797615627418Freeman et al.Real-Time Race Perception and Mixed-Race Bias 627418research-article2016 Research Article Psychological Science 2016, Vol. 27(4) 502 –517 A Perceptual Pathway to Bias: © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Interracial Exposure Reduces Abrupt DOI: 10.1177/0956797615627418 Shifts in Real-Time Race Perception pss.sagepub.com That Predict Mixed-Race Bias Jonathan B. Freeman1, Kristin Pauker2, and Diana T. Sanchez3 1Department of Psychology, New York University; 2Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa; and 3Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick Abstract 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. Keywords social perception, social cognition, prejudice, face processing, visual perception Received 6/16/15; Revision accepted 12/19/15 The population of mixed-race individuals in the United affects the way they perceive racially ambiguous indi- States is growing faster than any other racial group viduals, and such studies have relied on explicit outcome- (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011), yet understanding of based measures and mostly focused on short-term how individuals resolve racial ambiguity is limited. Previ- perceptual adaptations to certain races (Halberstadt, ous studies have focused on how categorization of Sherman, & Sherman, 2011; Webster, Kaping, Mizokami, racially ambiguous faces is susceptible to cognitive and & Duhamel, 2004). Moreover, to date, no research has motivational biases, such as hypodescent (Ho, Sidanius, explored how naturalistic, long-term interracial exposure Levin, & Banaji, 2011; Peery & Bodenhausen, 2008), across the United States might affect the underlying pro- social dominance (Ho, Sidanius, Cuddy, & Banaji, 2013), cess of resolving racial ambiguity as well as its down- stereotypes (Freeman, Penner, Saperstein, Scheutz, & stream evaluative consequences. Ambady, 2011; Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2004), essen- Intergroup exposure has long been studied with tialism (Chao, Hong, & Chiu, 2013), labeling (Tskhay & respect to biased processing of racial out-group faces, as Rule, 2015), political and economic factors (Krosch & occurs in the cross-race effect (Meissner & Brigham, Amodio, 2014; Krosch, Berntsen, Amodio, Jost, & Van Bavel, 2013), and motivation to control prejudice (Chen, Corresponding Author: Moons, Gaither, Hamilton, & Sherman, 2014). However, Jonathan B. Freeman, New York University, Department of very few studies have examined how people’s exposure Psychology, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 to individuals of different races (i.e., interracial exposure) E-mail: [email protected] Downloaded from pss.sagepub.com at Bobst Library, New York University on April 13, 2016 Real-Time Race Perception and Mixed-Race Bias 503 2001). Outside the domain of face perception, decades of and Black representations are more similar (high- research on intergroup contact has consistently found exposure perceivers), coactivation of both categories that exposure to racial out-group members can decrease when a racially ambiguous face is encountered would both explicit and implicit bias (for a review, see lead to a smooth-competition process that gradually set- Pettigrew, Tropp, Wagner, & Christ, 2011). One mecha- tles into one category. However, for individuals in which nism underlying such bias reduction is the effect of inter- White and Black representations are more differentiated racial exposure on the cognitive structure of group (low-exposure perceivers), coactivation of the two cate- representations, which leads to less differentiated in- gories would result in a more unstable process because group and out-group representations. Accordingly, cen- of the dynamic conflict between bottom-up visual tral to numerous models of bias reduction is the notion processing of the face (pushing the White and Black that bias will be reduced as groups are perceived to pos- category activations closer together) and top-down con- sess greater similarity and overlapping characteristics ceptual knowledge (strongly pulling the White and (Allport, 1954; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Kawakami, 2003). Black category activations further apart). In other words, The implication is that the less differentiated “us” and a racially ambiguous face creates instability for the per- “them” become at a conceptual level, evaluative differen- ceptual system of a low-exposure perceiver because tiation should follow suit. visual processing attempts to bring together two race If representations of race categories are conceptually categories that conceptual knowledge is trying to rapidly more differentiated with less interracial exposure, such pull apart (Fig. 1). cognitive structuring could impact even the initial per- In the present work, we first confirmed the above pre- ception of another person’s race—well before any evalu- dictions of the dynamic interactive model through a com- ative biases have a chance to take place. Indeed, putational simulation study that detailed the process of neuroimaging work has shown representational patterns resolving racial ambiguity for low- and high-exposure for White and Black categories in face-perception regions perceivers (Fig. 1). Then, we used a mouse-tracking tech- to be more or less differentiated depending on social- nique with human participants to index such unstable cognitive factors, such as implicit racial bias (Brosch, Bar- categorization dynamics during perceptions of racially David, & Phelps, 2013). In the case of perceiving a racially ambiguous faces. Other methods traditionally used to ambiguous face, the amount of differentiation between index the categorization process, such as reaction time White and Black category representations could change measures, indicate only overall difficulty and how long it the process by which race is initially perceived. Accord- takes to go from stimulus to response, but they cannot ing to the dynamic interactive model (Freeman & reveal the abrupt category-shifting effects unfolding dur- Ambady, 2011), the mixture of racial cues inherent to ing categorization and unstable dynamics that we pre- racially ambiguous faces triggers a dynamic competition dicted. We tested in Study 1 whether low-exposure between simultaneously active race categories (e.g., perceivers experience uniquely unstable dynamics when White and Black) that must be resolved over hundreds of confronting racial ambiguity. milliseconds (Freeman, Pauker, Apfelbaum, & Ambady, Critically, we argue that if more unstable dynamics 2010). This is because social-category representations are manifest in the initial perception of racially ambiguous reflected by distributed patterns of neuronal activity, and targets, this may bear evaluative consequences. Past race categorization thus involves dynamic changes in a research has shown that within-category featural varia- neuronal pattern. Early in processing, representations of tion influences evaluations independent of group mem- race would reflect a rough sketch of facial information bership itself. For example, features typical of another and be partially consistent with multiple categories. As race (e.g., Afrocentric cues on a White face) trigger “hid- bottom-up processing of facial information continues, den” race-category activations (Freeman et al., 2010) that conceptual knowledge and stereotypes begin to activate, predict automatic evaluative responses (Livingston & and these exert their own top-down effects on the cate- Brewer, 2002) and criminal sentencing (Blair, Judd, & gorization process. Driven by these parallel bottom-up Chapleau, 2004). However, with respect to evaluations of and top-down forces, neuronal activity gradually sharp- genuinely ambiguous (rather than less prototypical) tar- ens into an increasingly complete White or Black repre- gets, results of prior studies have been mixed, with sentational pattern, while other coactivated representations racially ambiguous, relative to racially unambiguous, are pushed out, until a final race categorization is pro- individuals judged to be more attractive in some studies duced (Freeman & Ambady, 2011). (Halberstadt & Winkielman, 2014), while less warm and If White and Black category representations are more competent in other studies (Sanchez & Bonam, 2009). differentiated with less interracial exposure, the compe- Recent work suggests that aspects of perceptual experi- tition process needed to resolve racial

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