Suspicion of White people's motives relates to relative accuracy in detecting external motivation to respond without prejudice

LaCosse, Jennifer; Tuscherer, Taylor; Kunstman, Jonathan W.; Plant, E. Ashby; Trawalter, Sophie; Major, Brenda

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.06.003

Cited by 32 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Scores on the SOMI are positively but modestly correlated with expectations of being rejected or stereotyped on the basis of ethnicity and with perceptions of discrimination against ingroup members (Major et al, 2013). Ethnic minorities who score high (vs. low) on SOMI are more accurate at differentiating White people’s real (i.e., Duchenne) vs fake (non-Duchenne) smiles (Kunstman, Tuscherer, & Trawalter, 2015) and more accurate at detecting White’s actual external motivation to respond without prejudice (LaCosse, Tuscherer, Kunstman, Plant, Trawalter, & Major, 2015). In addition, they respond more negatively when minority targets (but not White targets) are the recipients of attributionally ambiguous positive treatment by Whites (Major et al, 2013).…”

Section: Within Group Differences In Suspicionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suspicion of motives predicts minorities' responses to positive feedback in interracial interactions

Major

Kunstman

Malta

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Strong social and legal norms in the United States discourage the overt expression of bias against ethnic and racial minorities, increasing the attributional ambiguity of Whites’ positive behavior to ethnic minorities. Minorities who suspect that Whites’ positive overtures toward minorities are motivated more by their fear of appearing racist than by egalitarian attitudes may regard positive feedback they receive from Whites as disingenuous. This may lead them to react to such feedback with feelings of uncertainty and threat. Three studies examined how suspicion of motives relates to ethnic minorities’ responses to receiving positive feedback from a White peer or same-ethnicity peer (Experiment 1), to receiving feedback from a White peer that was positive or negative (Experiment 2), and to receiving positive feedback from a White peer who did or did not know their ethnicity (Experiment 3). As predicted, the more suspicious Latinas were of Whites’ motives for behaving positively toward minorities in general, the more they regarded positive feedback from a White peer who knew their ethnicity as disingenuous and the more they reacted with cardiovascular reactivity characteristic of threat/avoidance, increased feelings of stress, heightened uncertainty, and decreased self-esteem. We discuss the implications for intergroup interactions of perceptions of Whites’ motives for nonprejudiced behavior.

show abstract

Section: Within Group Differences In Suspicionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suspicion of motives predicts minorities' responses to positive feedback in interracial interactions

Major

Kunstman

Malta

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, when Whites overcompensate, they are often seen as fake or patronizing by their racial minority interaction partners (Trawalter et al, 2009). Indeed, racial minorities are often suspicious of positive behaviors when they believe Whites are superficially motivated by the fear of appearing racist rather than by genuine egalitarian values (Lacosse et al, 2015; Major et al, 2016).…”

Section: Are Whites’ Performance-oriented Behaviors Seen As Evidence mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Blacks’ Perceptions of Whites’ Racial Prejudice as a Function of Intergroup Behavior and Motivational Mindsets

Simon

Shaffer

Neel

et al. 2018

Social Psychological and Personality Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When Whites believe prejudice cannot change, they often adopt a behavioral style that is intended to reduce the possibility that they are seen as racist (i.e., performance-oriented behaviors). The present research tests the possibility that these performance-oriented behaviors may be interpreted, ironically, as racist. Across two studies, Black participants viewed performance-oriented behaviors as indicating racial prejudice. Additionally, when Black participants were led to believe that Whites’ racial prejudice could not change, they perceived Whites as more prejudiced. This research highlights a potential source of misunderstanding in interracial interactions and offers implications for improving interracial interactions from target and perpetrator perspectives.

show abstract

“…As a result of this attentional primacy, it is theorized that Whites’ smiles cue vigilance among suspicious individuals that ultimately aids in relative social accuracy for White targets. Indeed, the greater minorities’ suspicion, the better their ability to accurately discriminate between Whites’ real and fake smiles and detect Whites’ self-reported external motives (Kunstman et al, 2016; LaCosse et al, 2015). These results suggest that suspicion leads POC to be vigilant of Whites’ smiles and helps POC accurately read Whites’ smiles and motives.…”

Section: Suspicion Of Whites’ Motivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…POC are termed “suspicious,” 1 when they believe Whites’ friendliness is more motivated by desires to avoid appearing prejudiced than by true egalitarianism. Although past research finds that both attributionally ambiguous positive feedback and smiling White targets elicit feelings of uncertainty, doubt, and skepticism (LaCosse et al, 2015; Major et al, 2016), it is unclear whether suspicion only shapes responses to Whites’ positivity or whether suspicion has more upstream effects on mental representations of Whites. We theorized that mentally representing Whites as untrustworthy may have functional utility in interracial interactions by cueing vigilance processes that lead to the advantages in social sensitivity previously documented among high-SOMI POC (e.g., Kunstman, Tusherer, Trawalter, & Lloyd, 2016; LaCosse et al, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We use the term suspicious to refer to perceptions that Whites’ motives may sometimes be disingenuous or suspect. To the extent that many White Americans are primarily motivated to respond without prejudice for external reasons (e.g., Plant & Devine, 1998), suspicion may reflect POC’s accurate awareness of Whites’ true interracial motives (LaCosse et al, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Face of Suspicion

Lloyd

Kunstman

Tuscherer

et al. 2017

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Because Whites use positivity to conceal bias, people of color may question whether Whites’ positivity is genuine. We predicted that those suspicious of Whites’ motives may mentally represent Whites as less trustworthy and more hostile than those low in suspicion. We tested these predictions using reverse correlation. First, we examined high- and low-suspicion Black participants’ mental representations of Whites using neutrally expressed (Study 1a) and smiling (Study 2a) White base faces. In Study 2b, we compared suspicious Black participants’ mental representations of Whites to a randomly generated control. In Study 2c, we extend these results to perceptions of smile authenticity and rule out a potential stimulus effect. The results suggest that compared to unsuspicious participants and controls, suspicious Black participants hold less trustworthy, less authentic, and sometimes more hostile representations of Whites. Suspicion’s effect on intergroup dynamics may therefore extend up the cognitive stream to the fundamental mental representations of Whites.

show abstract

Suspicion of White people's motives relates to relative accuracy in detecting external motivation to respond without prejudice

Cited by 32 publications

References 25 publications

Suspicion of motives predicts minorities' responses to positive feedback in interracial interactions

Suspicion of motives predicts minorities' responses to positive feedback in interracial interactions

Exploring Blacks’ Perceptions of Whites’ Racial Prejudice as a Function of Intergroup Behavior and Motivational Mindsets

The Face of Suspicion

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About