Alicia Blanton, Kevin Cherian, Akhia Cobos, Shamaria Fahie, Natesha Wright

Ramifications of the Subconscious Mind

Abstract• Social categorization is a phenomena that occurs in everyday life, often times on the

subconscious level. The current study will explore this occurrence to assess how it effects racial prejudice and in-group out-group stereotypes. This study aims to ascertain if resource scarcity priming impacts social categorization and in turn, does it influence exclusionary attitudes towards out-groups by in-groups. And is this further influenced by sex. The study will be administered using participants pulled from a convenience sample, and performed on PsychData. The researchers will prime the participants with a vignette of either scarcity or prosperity, then participants will be asked to identify three male and three female biracial faces as white or as the ethnic minority (African-American, Asian, or Latino. We hypothesize that the groups primed for scarcity will identify more of the faces as the ethnic minorities, and that the groups primed for prosperity will identify more of the faces as white. For those in the scarcity group that may identify the faces as white it will be the male face more often than the female face. A MANOVA and Chi Square analysis will be used to analyze data collected.

Introduction: Priming• Priming is an inherent memory outcome where exposure

to a stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus (Twuyver and Knippenberg, 1995) .– Twuyver and Knippenberg (1995) found that if a

category is recently activated in the mind of a participant, it is more accessible in the memory than the other category.

– Participants who have been primed are more likely to process information about a person without realizing the stimulus (Twuyver and Knippenberg, 1995) .

• In-group out-group biases manifest themselves at a subconscious level. – Rodeheffer, Hill, and Lord (2012) found that people

primed for scarcity will categorize fewer biracial individuals as Caucasian in two experiments that they conducted.

– Their study used the biracial mix of both Caucasian and African-American.• For our study, we plan to take their study further and

evaluate the difference in responses to a mix of other minorities with Caucasians.

Introduction: Social Categorization

• Resource scarcity, a lack of material, financial, education, or necessary resources has been found to influence a person’s thoughts, specifically perception often leading to people making harsher judgments of certain situations (Roux & Goldsmith 2013)..

• Scarcity is a pervasive contingency, symbolic of human existence (Roux & Goldsmith 2013). Regardless of the availability of resources, or lack there of,  people have a keen awareness of how limited these resources can be (Roux & Goldsmith 2013).

Introduction: Limitations of Scarcity

– Researchers in one study chose to have participants of different ethnic backgrounds primed with resource scarcity to see the difference in their responses to harmful behavior such as cheating or lying (Pitesa & Thau, 2014). Results showed that those who were primed made harsher judgments of the behaviors in comparison to the control group that was not primed with scarcity.

Introduction: Resource Scarcity & People’s Judgments

Women’s and men’s experiences with prejudice and stereotypes can vary (Babbitt, 2011).

– African American women are theorized to experience more prejudice because they are seen as less valued because of both their gender and race group (Babbitt 2011). However, Black men are viewed as experiencing a much larger percentage of prejudice because of either resource competition among men or because they are more visible targets due to being the most represented members of the subordinate group (Babbitt 2011).

– Additionally, they are usually perceived as hostile and threatening, and elicit stereotypes and prejudice more easily, especially by whites (Babbitt 2011). Therefore, they would be more likely to face exclusionary attitudes.

– While there has been a study conducted on the effects of resource availability cues on racial categorization among black samples, sample populations of other races have not been performed in order to make generalizations across various other racial groups (Rodeheffer et al., 2012).

Introduction: Sex

– Can resource scarcity primes impact racial categorization?

–Does resource scarcity impact attitudes toward images classified as out-group members?

–Does sex further influence the effect resource scarcity has on social categorization?

Research Question(s)

• 196 participants - participants sampled from lower level undergraduate psychology courses and other available sources.

• Gender: 3.6% Male, 96.4% Female• Race/Ethnicity:

– 29.59% White, 23.47% Black, 28.57% Hispanic, 15.82% Asian, 2.55% Other

• Age: M = 19.32, SD = “X”, Range =18 to 32• Participants received research credit in their lower level

psychology courses in exchange for participation.• Our research will require an equal amount of diverse

participants.

Participants

• SPSS• Personal evaluation to determine positive/negative association with biracial faces

presented• MANOVA (for positive vs. negative evaluations)• Chi Square• Database of pictures • PsychData survey includes:

– Consent Form– Basic demographics

We plan to test our hypotheses by use of an online survey that will be made available on PsychData. –In this survey, participants will be asked at random to read one of two scenarios. One scenario will depict a “typical” affluent situation, while the other will depict a situation of hardship where resources are more likely to be scarce.

Materials & Procedure

–After reading either scenario, all participants will see a set pictures depicting biracial faces, three males and three females. There will be a male and female that are C and A-A, a male and female that are C and L, and a male and female that are C and A. –We will then ask the participants to identify if they feel each face is best described as C or as the minority group that they are mixed with. (2-choice answers for racial determination)–Additionally, we will incorporate a set of three questions for each participant to evaluate their opinion on the biracial face that they will identify, by using a Likert Scale (1-5). This will be necessary to see if the participants would rate one ethnic group more positively than the other.

1. How likely are you to initiate a friendship with the individual presented in the picture above ?

2. How likely are you to find the individual presented in the picture above as attractive?

3. How likely are you to find the individual presented in the picture above as helpful?

Materials & Procedure Continued...

1. We hypothesize that those participants who are primed with resource scarcity will be more likely to identify the faces as a racial minorities than those who are primed with prosperity, who will identify the faces as Caucasian in the following order:

• Order:– Black men (most likely)– Black women– Latino men– Latina women– Asian men– Asian women (least likely)

2. We also hypothesize that those in the scarcity group who may identify the faces as Caucasian are more likely to do so if the face is female. 3. We hypothesize that the faces that are primed with scarcity will show more negativity towards the out-group than those primed with prosperity.

Hypotheses

Analysis- Hypothesis 1- Participants who are primed with resource scarcity will be more

likely to identify the faces as the ethnic minorities than those who are primed with prosperity who will identify the faces as Caucasian. • We will be using a 2x3x2 design when analyzing the priming of the

participants.- Hypothesis 2- Participants in the scarcity group who do identify the faces as

Caucasian are more likely to identify male face as such rather than a female face.• Chi-square analysis

- Hypothesis 3- We hypothesize that the faces that are primed with scarcity will show more negativity towards the out-group than those primed with prosperity.• We will use a MANOVA (2x3x2 mixed design) to evaluate the negative

versus positive evaluation of the biracial faces. • We will use a Chi-square analysis to evaluate the percentages.

Results

Results

Discussion

Discussion• Limitations

• Future Research

References• Bobbitt, L. (2011). An intersectional approach to black/white interracial interactions:

The roles of gender and sexual orientation. Sex Roles, 68, 791-802. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0104-4

• Pitesa, M. & Thau, S. (2014). A lack of material resources causes harsher moral judgments. Psychological Science, 20 (5), 1-9. doi: 10.1177/0956797613514092

• Rodeheffer, C.D., Hill, S.E., Lord, C.G. (2012). Does This Recession Make Me Look Black? The Effect of Resource Scarcity on the Categorization of Biracial Faces. Psychological Science. 23, 1476. doi: 10.1177/0956797612450892

• Roux, C. & Goldsmith, K. (2013). Understanding the psychology of scarcity: When limited resources prompt abstract thinking. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2255636

• Van Twuyver, M., & Van Knippenberg, A. (1995). Social categorization as a function of priming. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25(6), 696-701. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420250608