SBP: Collaborative Research: The impact of naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated interracial contact on social cognition

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

Persistent racial tension in the US has led to renewed interest in reducing prejudice along racial lines. A prominent paradigm to address racial bias has been to create opportunities for people of different races to have contact with each other. Interracial contact can be an efficient intervention, but it is unlikely to work as intended without a firm understanding of the exact conditions that reduce racial bias. How deep must contact be? Is it sufficient for people in one group to merely see those of other groups, without any effort to recognize each person (i.e., mere exposure)? Is it necessary to see individuals frequently enough to recognize them without knowing anything else about them (i.e., perceptual individuation)? Or is it essential to interact with someone enough to acquire personal information about them (i.e., knowledge-based individuation)? This project provides a rigorous analysis of these three forms of interracial contact to test whether the extent of contact – while holding constant positivity of contact – can influence peoples' perceptions and evaluations of others, which can have downstream consequences for reducing racial prejudice. The primary aim of this project is to examine how different forms of contact shape racial bias on visual perception of faces, spontaneous judgments, evaluations, and beliefs. Study 1 tests how naturally occurring experiences of interracial contact over a lifetime account for the categorization and evaluation of racial information and for beliefs about other racial groups. Study 2 examines the same categorizations, evaluations, and beliefs, while experimentally manipulating the type of exposure to others. Study 3 utilizes pupillometry and eye-tracking methods to indicate the salience of others' faces after having different forms of contact. Together these studies stand to transform our understanding of whether, how, and why interracial contact could be an effective way to reduce racial prejudice. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.