NFL Quarterbacks Perceived As Representing Black Culture Are
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Celebrating While Black: NFL Quarterbacks Perceived as Representing Black Culture are Judged as More Arrogant Jonathan C. Corbin Duke University Anthony L. Burrow Cornell University Author Note Jonathan C. Corbin is a Senior Behavioral Researcher at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University Anthony L. Burrow is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University. His research explores the significance of purpose in life among youth as well as the daily experiences and adjustment of ethnic minority populations. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to [email protected]. We thank Bert Clere and Dylan T. Vavra for their assistance in editing this manuscript. 2 Running head: Celebrating While Black Abstract Prior work has shown that confident behavior from Black individuals can be unfairly interpreted as arrogance (the “hubris penalty”). In two studies, we test predictions that the more NFL quarterbacks (QBs) are seen as representing Black culture, the more arrogant they will be judged. In Study 1, Black QBs were rated as more arrogant than White QBs on average, and Black and White QBs who were judged as more representative of Black culture were rated as more arrogant. Study 2 showed that viewing a QB celebrating increased perceptions of arrogance and led participants to see celebrating as less appropriate when the QB was Black. Findings are consistent with social dominance theory, such that QBs perceived as “representing Blackness” are disproportionately penalized for behaving confidently. Data can be found at https://osf.io/6snad/. 3 Running head: Celebrating While Black After the Carolina Panthers played the Tennessee Titans in Week 10 of the 2015 National Football League (NFL) season, a mother sent a letter to a prominent Charlotte, NC newspaper complaining that the team’s Quarterback (QB), Cam Newton modeled “egotism, arrogance and poor sportsmanship” for her daughter with his dancing and celebrations after making good plays (Plorin, 2015). This letter garnered a large reaction across sports media, igniting discussions about the appropriateness of celebrating in professional sports. Two weeks later, in reference to a celebration in a Week 12 game by Travis Kelce (a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs), ESPN’s SportsCenter news anchor Robert Flores said, "I'm wondering why there's no letters to the editor or why First Take's [another ESPN Network show] not doing 'Should Travis Kelce be dancing in the end zone?’ … Oh, because he's not Black. That's probably what it is." (Popper, 2015). Research suggests that Flores’ observation is not without merit. According to social dominance theory, historically low status individuals who reach high status positions inherently increase social tension, and thus face higher levels of scrutiny as compared to those who are expected to fill such roles (Kraus & Keltner, 2009; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; examples of historically low status individuals include racial and ethnic minorities, women, gender minorities, and low-income individuals.) Hall and Livingston (2011) labeled the disproportionate punishment of Black athletes for celebrating the “hubris penalty”. These researchers found support for the hypothesis that Black football players are disproportionately punished for celebrations as compared to White players. In three experiments, they gave participants vignettes that manipulated whether a hypothetical athlete 4 Running head: Celebrating While Black celebrated after a play and the perceived race of that player. They found that when participants were asked how much of a monetary bonus to give a player for a great play, Black players who celebrated were given significantly less than Black players who did not celebrate. There was no difference between celebration conditions for White players. It is also noteworthy that, although there was no difference with respect to ratings of arrogance between Black and White players in general, compensation amount was significantly negatively correlated with arrogance ratings only for Black players. Additionally, Volz (2015) showed that Black QBs were more likely to be benched (though less so in cities with larger Black populations), despite the fact that team performance actually improved more when White QBs were benched. Whereas Hall and Livingston (2011) focused on differences between races, it might also be the case that Black individuals who are perceived as “more stereotypically Black” may face harsher judgment. Indeed, suggestive evidence for this possibility has emerged in studies conducted in legal settings. For example, when police officers were asked to judge the perceived criminality of faces, they judged Black faces as higher in criminality than White faces, but also judged faces rated as more stereotypically Black higher in criminality than faces that were rated as less stereotypically Black (Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, & Davies, 2004). Furthermore, individuals rated as having a more stereotypically Black appearance were also shown to receive harsher prison sentences (Blair, Judd, & Chapleau, 2004), and be more likely to have received the death penalty in crimes involving White victims (Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns, & Johnson, 2006). 5 Running head: Celebrating While Black Whereas the prior studies focused on how stereotypicality of appearance influences judgments, studies have also shown that attitudes can influence ratings of stereotypicality. For example, Caruso, Mead, and Balcetis (2009) found that when supporters and opponents of President Barack Obama were asked to judge pictures varying the darkness of his skin tone, supporters chose lighter pictures whereas opponents chose darker pictures. In other words, the features themselves were interpreted in light of participants’ opinions regarding the President. Similarly, priming participants with scarcity-related concepts led participants to perceive mixed-race faces as more stereotypically Black as compared to those in a control condition (Krosch & Amodio, 2014). These results suggest that there is something about perceptions of “Blackness” in general that is being expressed through responses to visual information in these studies. Stereotypical features may provide stronger cues for an individual’s stereotypes about what it means to be Black. Rather than rely on physical features, the current study uses a new item that seeks to capture individual’s stereotypes about Black individuals, which asks to what extent they see a particular individual as representing Black Culture today (Black Culture Representativeness (BCR)). The current study examines perceptions of arrogance for current White and Black NFL QBs (as of the end of the 2015 NFL season when this study was conducted), as well as how the extent to which QB’s are perceived as representing Black culture (i.e., Black Culture Representativeness) relates to perceptions of arrogance. Given the results reported by Hall and Livingston (2010), who found no 6 Running head: Celebrating While Black difference between arrogance ratings of Black and White hypothetical QBs, we expect to see similar results in Study 1. However, given prior work showing that those who matched racial stereotypes were judged more harshly (Eberhardt et al., 2004), we predict a positive dependency between arrogance ratings and ratings of BCR for Black QBs. In Study 2, we determine whether the hubris penalty influences perceptions of arrogance for Black versus White QBs who are celebrating. Here, we predict that Black QBs will be judged as more arrogant when celebrating as compared to when they are not (with no such difference for White QBs). Finally, we examine whether viewing a Black versus White QB affects beliefs regarding the appropriateness of celebrating good plays, and predict that seeing a Black QB celebrating will lead to more negative views of celebration compared to a White QB. Study 1 Method Participants A total of 180 participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and paid $0.25 (sample size allowed for detection of small effect sizes (e.g., r = .2 at alpha = .05 and power = .80) while keeping the budget at approximately $50). The sample was 67.22% male, with a mean age of 34.3 (SD = 10.36). They were 80% White; 7.8% African-American; 8.6% Asian; 1.7% Native American/Alaskan Native, and 2.2% opted to not indicate their race. A total of 10.5% of the sample was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. All participants consented to participate in this study and indicated that they were at least 18-years-old. Data for both studies can be found at https://osf.io/6snad/. 7 Running head: Celebrating While Black Materials and Procedure To begin the experiment, participants were shown eight NFL QBs’ names, one at a time, and were asked to label each QB as Black or White (with a button press) as quickly as possible while maintaining accuracy. The QBs shown were Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Teddy Bridgewater, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, and A.J. McCarron (the first four are Black, the last four are White). To maximize familiarity with the chosen QBs, only starting QBs were chosen who had also played in the playoffs during the 2014-2015 season. Next, participants rated each QB on how talented they thought they were (Talent) and how much they liked the player (Likeability) on scales ranging from 1 – Not at All to 7 – A Lot. Next, they rated each QB on how arrogant they thought the QB was (Arrogance) from 1 –Not at All to 7 – Extremely, followed by a rating of familiarity using the same scale markers as arrogance. Then, participants were asked to label which team each QB played for in the 2015-2016 National Football League (NFL) season (to assess participants’ knowledge about each QB in addition to rating familiarity), and were also asked to name their favorite team. Finally, participants rated the QBs on the following question – “In your opinion, to what degree does each football player reflect your perception of Black culture today?” (Black Culture) –on a scale from 1 – Not at all Reflective to 7 – Extremely Reflective (see Table 1 for descriptives).