Everyone wants to know about the racial bias against people of color, predominately black people. There are many studies that have tried to find if- that bias- is intentional or subconscious (implicit or explicit).
The problem is, these studies have not completely been accurate, or they were half done. They would test one idea, but not its counterpart. An example of this would be a study done by Dickter, Gagnon, Gyurowski, and Brewington in 2015. This study was meant to test if the familiarity with other racial groups was able to lower the bias for the attentional bias, the tendency for someone to pay more attention to some things while ignoring others. (Dickter, et al, 2015). But, while this study tested the attentional capture, they ability to catch someone’s attention, it did not test for attentional holding, the ability to catch someone’s attention and hold it for an amount of time (W. Finnegan, et al, 2018).
Also, the studies that were done showed bias in and of themselves. A study done by Trawalter, Todd, Baird, and Recheson in 2008 that was meant to study the negative attention that black men provoke simply for the way that they look (Trawalter, S., et al, 2008). The findings of this study were able to prove that the faces of black people are able to grab the attention of the study’s white participants as threatening. But this study’s interpretation of their results had been tied to an entirely different study done on the negative stigma on black people, and their degree of danger based on appearances (Correll, J. et al, 2006). The results show that the faces of black people had merely caught the participants’ reactions, not that they were seen as threatening.
Just think about all the times someone has caught your attention. Yes, there are bad ways to catch someone’s attention: if you were to see someone with a torn shirt, they would catch your attention. But if someone had worn an attractive outfit, they would also catch your attention. Not in the same ways, but you would look at them and glance them over.
Without the other study done by Correll, et al, the findings in the study done by Trawalter, et al, would have been inconclusive, rather than negative. It would have shown that the faces of black people caught the participants’ attention, without the researchers being able to have a clear identifier of the type of attention- good, bad, or neutral.
Now, there are two separate studies, one in 2008 and another in 2012, that show that there may be a possibility that implicit attitudes, a subconscious assumption about a person or thing, can predict attentional bias towards black faces (W. Finnegan, et al, 2018). But there are many problems with implicit measures of danger (implicit attitudes).
As shown by (W. Finnegan, et al, 2018), is that these- implicit attitudes- come from being around an influx of biased and stigmatized information and internalizing it subconsciously, and that they are often associated with conscious attitudes, which means to be aware of what you are absorbing rather than it being subconsciously ingrained. And not to mention that there is major uncertainty for whether the implicit attitude, that is subconsciously acquired, or the explicit attitude, that is acquired purposefully, that people have built will be what causes attentional bias towards the faces of other races.
Based on specifically these studies, the researchers found what they are looking for and how. This study will try to pick up the slack from the other studies to the best of its abilities. They examined the tendency for the perception that people may have in comparison to the faces of both black and asian people. They took an SOA test which takes the amount of time of attentions from two different sets of stimuli. They took a close contact SOA and compared it to the short SOA taken by Dickter, et al, 2015. The researchers in this study expected to find that black faces would be rated as more threatening, compared to asian faces, for implicit and explicit measures.
The study included 41 participants of University age who were self-identified as White. These participants were given three things to do. First, they had to take an Implicit Association Test (IAC) twice. An IAC measures someones automatic connection of their mental thoughts of the subject when seen (Greenwald, Anthony G., et al (1998), 74 ). The first test had the faces of asian people and the second, faces of black people. Both tests were had 2 images of white people. They showed four different categories of images labeled, ‘white’ ‘black/asian (depending on the test)’ ‘threatening’ and ‘non threatening’. After the participants saw the images, they were to categorize the faces under a set of words: ‘Dangerous’ ‘sinister’ ‘frighten’ ‘intimidate’ ‘distress’ ‘harmless’ ‘safe’ ‘innocent’ ‘reliable’ ‘trustworthy’. (W. Finnegan, Steve, et al. 2018).
The participants also had to do a Dot- Probe Task that has been modified from other studies. This task was to give a reaction- timed response to determine to a series of slides. A white cross was shown first for 500 milliseconds, followed by a red line at a 45 degree angle for 200ms. It then shows either the face of a black person or asian person (depending on the test) either above or below a neutral oval for 100ms, followed by another angled line either in the same or in a different position for 2s and a response. In this test, the participants response would be slower when the angled line is at a different position the second time, because there would be a shift in focus when the face is shown. After all 80 faces were shown, the participants were to rate them on a 7-point scale for the thought of threat.
Finally, the participants had to complete a survey regarding their contact with other races. They were to list the initials of up to 20 friends, then, after they wrote all the initials, to note the race of each.
The findings of this study showed a multitude of positions. But ultimately, they showed that the white undergraduate participants found black faces more threatening than asian faces in implicit measures. It was seen in this study that explicit measures, the ones that are consciously brought about, can be self-censored by the individual, as there was a no correlation between the explicit and implicit measures between black faces yet there was between the asian faces.
Greenwald, Anthony G.; McGhee, Debbie E.; Schwartz, Jordan L.K. (1998), “Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74
Al-Janabi, S., MacLeod, C., & Rhodes, G. (2012). Non-threatening other-race faces capture visual attention: Evidence from a dot-probe task. PloS one, 7(10), e46119
Correll, J., Urland, G. R., & Ito, T. A. (2006). Event-related potentials and the decision to shoot: The role of threat perception and cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(1), 120-128
Dickter, C. L., Gagnon, K. T., Gyurowski, I. I., & Brewington, B. S. (2015). Close contact with racial outgroup members moderates attentional allocation towards outgroup versus ingroup faces. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 18(1), 76-88
W.Finnegan, Steve, et al. “Implicit Rather than Explicit Threat Predicts Attentional Bias towards Black but Not Asian Faces in a White Undergraduate Population.” Strathprints, Frankfurt School Verlag, 26 May 2018, strathprints.strath.ac.uk/64736/.
Trawalter, S., Todd, A. R., Baird, A. A., & Richeson, J. A. (2008). Attending to threat: Race-based patterns of selective attention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(5), 1322-1327.