Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., "black people's skin is thicker than white people's skin"). Study 1 documented these beliefs among white laypersons and revealed that participants who more strongly endorsed false beliefs about biological differences reported lower pain ratings for a black (vs. white) target. Study 2 extended these findings to the medical context and found that half of a sample of white medical students and residents endorsed these beliefs. Moreover, participants who endorsed these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient's pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations. Participants who did not endorse these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient's pain as higher, but showed no bias in treatment recommendations. These findings suggest that individuals with at least some medical training hold and may use false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites to inform medical judgments, which may contribute to racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment.racial bias | pain perception | health care disparities | pain treatment A young man goes to the doctor complaining of severe pain in his back. He expects and trusts that a medical expert, his physician, will assess his pain and prescribe the appropriate treatment to reduce his suffering. After all, a primary goal of health care is to reduce pain and suffering. Whether he receives the standard of care that he expects, however, is likely contingent on his race/ethnicity. Prior research suggests that if he is black, then his pain will likely be underestimated and undertreated compared with if he is white (1-10). The present work investigates one potential factor associated with this racial bias. Specifically, in the present research, we provide evidence that white laypeople and medical students and residents believe that the black body is biologically different-and in many cases, stronger-than the white body. Moreover, we provide evidence that these beliefs are associated with racial bias in perceptions of others' pain, which in turn predict accuracy in pain treatment recommendations. The current work, then, addresses an important social factor that may contribute to racial bias in health and health care.Extant research has shown that, relative to white patients, black patients are less likely to be given pain medications and, if given pain medications, they receive lower quantities (1-10). For example, in a retrospective study, Todd et al. (10) found that black patients were significantly less likely than white patients to receive analgesics for extremity fractures in the emergency room (57% vs. 74%), despite having similar self-reports of pain. This disparity in pain treatment is true even among young children. For instance, a study of nearly one million children diagnosed with appendicitis revealed that, relative to white pa...

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The present work provides evidence that people assume a priori that Blacks feel less pain than do Whites. It also demonstrates that this bias is rooted in perceptions of status and the privilege (or hardship) status confers, not race per se. Archival data from the National Football League injury reports reveal that, relative to injured White players, injured Black players are deemed more likely to play in a subsequent game, possibly because people assume they feel less pain. Experiments 1–4 show that White and Black Americans–including registered nurses and nursing students–assume that Black people feel less pain than do White people. Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 provide evidence that this bias is rooted in perceptions of status, not race per se. Taken together, these data have important implications for understanding race-related biases and healthcare disparities.

A fundamental part of conducting cross-disciplinary web science research is having useful, high-quality datasets that provide value to studies across disciplines. In this paper, we introduce a large, handcoded corpus of online harassment data. A team of researchers collaboratively developed a codebook using grounded theory and labeled 35,000 tweets. Our resulting dataset has roughly 15% positive harassment examples and 85% negative examples. This data is useful for training machine learning models, identifying textual and linguistic features of online harassment, and for studying the nature of harassing comments and the culture of trolling.

The present research provides the first systematic empirical investigation into superhumanization, the attribution of supernatural, extrasensory, and magical mental and physical qualities to humans. Five studies test and support the hypothesis that White Americans superhumanize Black people relative to White people. Studies 1–2b demonstrate this phenomenon at an implicit level, showing that Whites preferentially associate Blacks versus Whites with superhuman versus human words on an implicit association test and on a categorization task. Studies 3–4 demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level, showing that Whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to Blacks versus Whites, and Study 4 specifically shows that superhumanization of Blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets. Together, these studies demonstrate a novel and potentially detrimental process through which Whites perceive Blacks.

Implicit prejudices are social preferences that exist outside of conscious awareness or conscious control. In this review, we summarize evidence for three mechanisms that influence the expression of implicit prejudice: associative change, contextual change, and change in control over implicit prejudice. We then review the evidence (or lack thereof) for answers to five open issues in implicit prejudice reduction research: 1) what shows effectiveness in real-world application; 2) what doesn't work for implicit prejudice reduction; 3) what interventions produce long-term changes in implicit prejudice; 4) measurement diversity in implicit prejudice reduction research; and 5) the relationship between implicit prejudice and behavior. Addressing these issues provide an agenda for clarifying the conditions and implications of reducing implicit prejudice. Abstract = 115 words REDUCING IMPLICIT PREJUDICE

Previous research indicates that American adults, both Black and White, assume a priori that Black people feel less pain than do White people (Trawalter, Hoffman, & Waytz, 2012, PLoS One, 7[11], 1-8). The present work investigates when in development this bias emerges. Five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds first rated the amount of pain they themselves would feel in 10 situations such as biting their tongue or hitting their head. They then rated the amount of pain they believed two other children - a Black child and a White child, matched to the child's gender - would feel in response to the same events. We found that by age 7, children show a weak racial bias and that by age 10, they show a strong and reliable racial bias. Consistent with research on adults, this bias was not moderated by race-related attitudes or interracial contact. This finding is important because knowing the age of emergence can inform the timing of interventions to prevent this bias.

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