Race Signaling Features: Identifying Markers of Racial Prototypicality among Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and Whites

Debbie, S.; Koltai, Kolina; McManus, Ryan M.; Bernhardt, Adrian; Correll, Joshua; Wittenbrink, Bernd

doi:10.1521/soco.2018.36.6.603

“…Thus, it is clear that both perceivers and targets consider Latinx people to be relevant to Multiracial issues. While there are some studies examining perceptions of Latinx individuals' race (Ma et al, 2018;Sanchez & Chavez, 2010;Sanchez et al, 2012;Wilton et al, 2013;Young et al, 2016), we did not find any studies that examine Multiracial person perception with Latinx face stimuli. The one exception is a study that demonstrated that the perception of racially ambiguous faces was Latinx if their hairstyle was stereotypical of the category (MacLin & Malpass, 2001), but this work focused on hairstyle as a cue (showing that the same faces could be reliably categorized as Black when they had stereotypically Black hair).…”

Section: Dominance Of Black-white Multiracial Facescontrasting

confidence: 86%

“…In fact, our findings dovetail nicely with those of Chen et al (2018) and Nicolas et al (2019), who both found that the most common categorization of racially ambiguous faces was Latinx, not Multiracial, using two independent stimulus sets. This finding also helps clarify why researchers have previously struggled to identify the physical markers that underlie Latinx categorizations (Ma et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Broadening the stimulus set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

Chen

¹

,

Norman

²

,

Nam

³

2020

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Face-based perceptions form the basis for how people behave towards each other and, hence, are central to understanding human interaction. Studying face perception requires a large and diverse set of stimuli in order to make ecologically valid, generalizable conclusions. To date, there are no publicly available databases with a substantial number of Multiracial or racially ambiguous faces. Our systematic review of the literature on Multiracial person perception documented that published studies have relied on computer-generated faces (84% of stimuli), Black-White faces (74%), and male faces (63%). We sought to address these issues, and to broaden the diversity of available face stimuli, by creating the American Multiracial Faces Database (AMFD). The AMFD is a novel collection of 110 faces with mixed-race heritage and accompanying ratings of those faces by naive observers that are freely available to academic researchers. The faces (smiling and neutral expression poses) were rated on attractiveness, emotional expression, racial ambiguity, masculinity, racial group membership(s), gender group membership(s), warmth, competence, dominance, and trustworthiness. The large majority of the AMFD faces are racially ambiguous and can pass into at least two different racial categories. These faces will be useful to researchers seeking to study Multiracial person perception as well as those looking for racially ambiguous faces in order to study categorization processes in general. Consequently, the AMFD will be useful to a broad group of researchers who are studying face perception.

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“…Because many perceivers, both White and non‐White, grow up in environments in which they learn the faces of different races simultaneously, this cognitive mechanism would not apply to them. Further, there may not be any diagnostic facial features for Latinx people (Ma et al, in press), suggesting that this cognitive mechanism may not be applicable to the perception of part‐Latinx faces.…”

Section: Heuristics and Biases In Applying Monoracial Categories To Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrative review of impression formation processes for multiracial individuals

Chen

¹

2018

Social & Personality Psych

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In approximately 30 years, up to one in five Americans will be mixed race. How monoracial people perceive multiracials will become a critical aspect of race relations in the United States. This demographic shift highlights the need to broaden social psychological theories and investigations to understand multiracial person perception. This article reviews existing research on how people perceive, and remember mixed‐race people, with attention to how these findings contribute to our understanding of racial categorization, impression formation, and intergroup relations. People categorize multiracial people according to the principles of hypodescent (Black + White = Black), the minority bias (Black + White = not White), and by adopting a novel category (Black + White = Multiracial). The particular categorization of a multiracial target depends on several factors, including availability of target information (ancestry, facial appearance), the accessibility of different racial categories, perceiver motives, and the broader cultural context. Downstream implications of these categorization processes are discussed, and future directions are highlighted. Researchers are encouraged to think about race as a multifaceted concept that includes many components (appearance, identity, ancestry, and perceived) that are not necessarily one‐to‐one, especially for mixed‐race individuals.

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“…In fact, our findings dovetail nicely with those of Chen et al (2018) and Nicolas et al (2019), who both found that the most common categorization of racially ambiguous faces was Latinx, not Multiracial, using two independent stimulus sets. This finding also helps clarify why researchers have previously struggled to identify the physical markers that underlie Latinx categorizations (Ma et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Broadening the Stimulus Set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

Chen¹,

Norman²,

Nam³

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Face-based perceptions form the basis for how people behave towards each other and, hence, are central to understanding human interaction. Studying face perception requires a large and diverse set of stimuli in order to make ecologically valid, generalizable conclusions. To date, there are no publicly available databases with a substantial number of Multiracial or racially ambiguous faces. Our systematic review of the literature on Multiracial person perception documented that published studies have relied on computer-generated faces (84% of stimuli), Black-White faces (74%), and male faces (63%). We sought to address these issues, and to broaden the diversity of available face stimuli, by creating the American Multiracial Faces Database (AMFD). The AMFD is a novel collection of 110 faces with mixed-race heritage and accompanying ratings of those faces by naive observers that are freely available to academic researchers. The faces (smiling and neutral expression poses) were rated on attractiveness, emotional expression, racial ambiguity, masculinity, racial group membership(s), gender group membership(s), warmth, competence, dominance, and trustworthiness. The large majority of the AMFD faces are racially ambiguous and can pass into at least two different racial categories. These faces will be useful to researchers seeking to study Multiracial person perception as well as those looking for racially ambiguous faces in order to study categorization processes in general. Consequently, the AMFD will be useful to a broad group of researchers who are studying face perception.

show abstract

Race Signaling Features: Identifying Markers of Racial Prototypicality among Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and Whites

Cited by 18 publications

References 18 publications

Broadening the stimulus set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

Broadening the stimulus set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

An integrative review of impression formation processes for multiracial individuals

Broadening the Stimulus Set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

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