No abstract
The other-race effect (ORE) is a recognition memory advantage afforded to one's racial ingroup versus outgroup.The motivational relevance of the ingroup-because of relationships, belonging and self-esteem-is central to many theoretical explanations for the ORE. However, to date, the motivational relevance of outgroups has received considerably less attention in the ORE literature. Across six experiments, Black, White, Asian and Latinx American participants consistently demonstrated better recognition memory for the faces of relatively higher-status racial/ ethnic group members than those of lower-status groups. This higher-status recognition advantage even appeared to override the ORE, such that participants better recognized members of higher-status outgroups-but not an outgroup of equivalent status-compared to members of their own ingroup. However, across a variety of self-reported perceived status measures, status differences between the high-and low-status groups generally did not moderate the documented recognition advantage. These findings provide initial evidence for the potential role of group status in the ORE and in recognition memory more broadly, but future work is needed to rule out alternative explanations.
People are better at recognizing faces from their own racial or ethic group compared to faces from other racial or ethnic groups, known as the other-'race' e ect (ORE). Several theories of the ORE assume that memory for other-race faces is impaired because people have less contact with members of other racial or ethnic groups, resulting in lower visual expertise. The present research investigates contact theories of the ORE, using self-report contact measures and objective measures of potential outgroup exposure (estimated from participants' residential location and from GPS tracking). Across six studies (total N = 2660), we observed that White American and White German participants displayed better memory for White faces compared to Black or Middle Eastern faces, whereas Black American participants displayed similarly equal or better memory for White compared to Black faces. We did not observe any relations between the ORE and objective measures of potential outgroup exposure. Only in Studies 2a and 2b, we observed very small correlations (rs = -.08 -.06) between 4 out of 30 contact measures and the ORE. We discuss methodological limitations as well as implications for theories of the ORE.
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