1
Preference is Not Color Blind:
Disentangling Implicit Race and Color Effects
Ioannis Kareklas
Washington State University
Robin A. Coulter
University of Connecticut
Frdric F. Brunel
Boston University
Author Note
Ioannis Kareklas, Department of Marketing, College of Business,
Washington State University. Robin A. Coulter, Marketing
Department, School of Business, University of Connecticut. Frdric
F. Brunel, Department of Marketing, School of Management, Boston
University.
Corresponding author: Ioannis Kareklas, Department of Marketing,
College of Business, Washington State University, Todd Addition
375, PO Box 644730, Pullman, WA 99164-4730. E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract
This research draws upon theoretical perspectives related to
in-group favoritism and color symbolism to hypothesize effects of
an individuals implicit color bias (i.e., preference for the color
white vs. the color black) and implicit racial bias (i.e.,
preference for African American vs. Caucasian racial stimuli) on
their implicit reactions to advertisements featuring endorsers of
different races. Results from Implicit Association Test (IAT)
assessments of participants color, racial, and advertising
preferences indicate that both African American and Caucasian
consumers exhibit an implicit preference for the color white (as
compared to the color black), and that implicit color preference
significantly influences both their racial preferences and
advertising evaluations. These findings document that implicit
color bias has a key role in how consumers react to endorsers of
their own and other races, thus highlighting the need to remove its
effect from evaluations of racial stimuli.
Preference is Not Color Blind: Disentangling Implicit Race and
Color Effects
The overall propensity to evaluate members of ones own group
more favorably than people belonging to other groups (a.k.a.,
in-group favoritism) is a generally prevalent and well-established
social-psychological phenomenon (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, &
Flament, 1971). In the consumer domain, one of the direct
consequences of in-group favoritism is that consumers are likely to
favor ad endorsers whom they perceive to belong to their own
in-group over endorsers from other groups. Although this appears to
be a robust finding, at least one of the possible bases for
in-group identification, race, leads to more varied results.
Race (e.g., African American or Caucasian American) is a readily
noticeable and salient characteristic of a spokesperson and can
serve as a basis for in-group identification and persuasion (Spira
& Whittler, 2004; Whittler & Spira, 2002). However, the
body of research evidence provides mixed results on the effect of
race on persuasion. On one end, research using explicit (i.e.,
self-report) measures has demonstrated that both African Americans
and Caucasian Americans tend to respond more favorably to
persuasive messages delivered by endorsers that belong to their own
racial in-group (Schlinger & Plummer, 1972; Whittler, 1989;
Simpson, Snuggs, Christiansen, & Simples, 2000). Yet, on the
other end, psychology and marketing studies utilizing implicit
measures have found that although Caucasians tend to exhibit
pro-white (in-group) preferences, African Americans tend to not
exhibit pro-black (in-group) preferences, and in some instances
might even show pro-white preferences (Ashburn-Nardo, Knowles,
& Monteith, 2003; Brunel, Tietje, and Greenwald 2004; Nosek,
Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002; Smith-McLallen, Johnson, Dovidio,
& Pearson, 2006). This lack of automatic preference for ones
in-group is perplexing, especially in the context of automatic
associations which are supposed to be free from social-desirability
response biases and tap into automatic attitudes and beliefs
(Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).
System justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994) has been
used to explain the absence of automatic in-group preference for
African American respondents. Researchers have proposed that a long
history of discrimination can lead minority individuals to
internalize negative attitudes toward their own group as a means of
justifying the status quo (Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild,
2002), and that such attitudes tend to be non-conscious (Jost and
Banaji 1994) and can be unearthed by implicit measures (Rudman,
Feinberg, & Fairchild, 2002).
Although we believe in the merits of system justification theory
and the evidence that has been offered in its support, we also
believe that there exist at least one other possible explanation
for the lack of pro-black automatic in-group preference among
African Americans. Instead of offering a historical and
sociological discrimination explanation, we propose that there is
an even more fundamental explanation for these results.
In this research, we argue that individuals implicit preferences
for the color white versus the color black may impact their
evaluations of white versus black faces. We ground our expectations
in work on color preference which has shown that in many cultures,
the associations for the color white are positive, whereas the
color black tends to be associated with more negative connotations
(Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). Examples include cultural dress
codes that dictate wearing white at weddings and black at funerals
(Smith-McLallen et al., 2006), or the portrayal of villains in
black hats and good guys in white clothing in traditional American
Western films (Frank & Gilovich, 1988). Further, white is often
used to connote decency and purity, whereas black is used to
connote evil and disgrace (Longshore, 1979). Anthropologists have
argued that the preference for the color white over black can be
traced to ancient tribal fears for darkness, the night and the
unknown versus the fondness for white which is linked to light,
fire or the sun (Mead & Baldwin, 1971). In general, it has been
argued that the preference for white over black is learned from
early childhood, is culturally reinforced over time and is a more
fundamental automatic preference than race preference
(Smith-McLallen et al., 2006).
In this article, we seek to extend recent results that showed
that for Caucasian respondents an automatic white color preference
can be linked to an automatic white racial preference
(Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). In particular, we include African
Americans in our studies, and use the Implicit Association Test
(IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) to investigate how
automatic color preference is linked to automatic racial preference
at a fundamental level. Furthermore, we explore how automatic color
preference is linked to two marketing variables, automatic product
preference and automatic spokesperson preference across both racial
groups, by varying the color (i.e., black or white) of products,
and the race (i.e., African American or Caucasian American) of
spokespersons featured in advertisements.
In study 1, we show that both African Americans and Caucasian
Americans have pro-white automatic color preferences and
pro-white-colored product preferences, and that these overall
implicit color preferences for the color white can be linked to
implicit preferences for white products. In study 2, we replicate
the pro-white color preference for both racial groups, but then we
show that only Caucasian Americans respondents appear to have
automatic racial and advertising spokesperson preferences which are
consistent with an in-group favoritism explanation. We also show
that for both groups, implicit color preferences are linked to
implicit race and advertising spokespersons preferences. We then
statistically remove the effect of the implicit color preference
from the implicit race and advertising spokesperson preference
measures and show that once this is done, both racial groups
exhibit racial preferences for their own in-group. In particular,
in contrast to many of the above mentioned studies, the African
American respondents have a pro-black racial preference. Thus, we
are able to show that automatic color preference and
in-group-favoritism are directionally similar and additive in
creating automatic racial and Aad preferences for Caucasian
Americans. But, for African American respondents, automatic color
preference and in-group-favoritism are countervailing forces and
therefore allow us to explain why, in ours and many other studies,
African American might at first glance appear to lack in in-group
favoritism, this being due instead to the fact that as a group
(like most other human beings) they prefer the color white over the
color black.
Theoretical background
Implicit racial preference
A focal communicator characteristic of interest in persuasion
research has been the perceived similarity between the endorsers
featured in ads and the targeted consumers. Several studies
employing explicit measurement techniques have shown that similar
(vs. dissimilar) endorsers are more influential in changing
recipient attitudes (Brock, 1965; Woodside & Davenport, 1974).
The basis of this effect is in-group favoritism (Tajfel, Billig,
Bundy, & Flament, 1971), which refers to the propensity to
evaluate people who are perceived to belong to your own group more
favorably than people belonging to other groups (Spira &
Whittler, 2004). Hence, recipients are likely to favor endorsers
whom they perceive to belong to their racial in-group over
endorsers who belong to other groups. Racial groups represent
pre-defined social categories, hence recipients share socially
ascribed group membership with same-race endorsers, and are likely
to exhibit in-group favoritism when evaluating ads featuring
endorsers of their racial in-group compared to ads featuring
out-group endorsers.
Race is a key attribute related to recipients perceptions of
similarity between themselves and the endorsers featured in
advertisements. Given that race is one of the most noticeable
physical characteristics (especially in terms of skin color), it is
likely to influence persuasion (Spira & Whittler, 2004), and is
directly relevant to judgments of similarity. Extant research using
explicit measures tends to affirm this assertion. As previously
mentioned, several studies have shown that both African American
and Caucasian consumers evaluate advertisements featuring same
versus different-race endorsers more favorably (e.g., Schlinger
& Plummer, 1972; Whittler, 1989).
However, studies using explicit measures suffer from response
biases when the context is socially sensitive, as in the case of
race, because explicit measures allow participants to consciously
control their responses (Ashburn-Nardo et al., 2003). Extant
studies utilizing implicit measures to examine racial associations
have found that both Caucasians and African Americans tend to
exhibit implicit pro-Caucasian association bias. For example, Nosek
et al. (2002) found that although African Americans exhibited
stronger explicit liking for their own racial group than
Caucasians, participants of both racial groups exhibited a
pro-Caucasian (vs. African American) implicit association bias.
Furthermore, research on the neural basis of social group
processing has documented that indirect measures of race
evaluation, such as the IAT, tend to correlate with functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-assessed activation of the
amygdala. The amygdala is a subcortical structure involved in
emotional learning and evaluation (Phelps et al., 2000), and is
implicated in the automatic evaluation of social stimuli. These
results, combined with previous investigations of intergroup
attitudes, suggest that implicit negative associations toward a
social group may result in an automatic emotional response when
encountering members of that group. Lieberman et al. (2005, p. 722)
posit that the amygdala activity that is associated with
race-related processing may be a reflection of culturally learned
negative associations regarding African American individuals. This
explanation is consistent with system justification theory (Jost
& Banaji, 1994) which has previously been used to explain why
African Americans exhibited a lack of in-group preference in
implicit advertising evaluations (Brunel et al., 2004).
System justification theory posits that people are motivated to
believe in a just world, and that a history of discrimination can
lead minority individuals to internalize negative attitudes toward
their own group as a means of justifying the status quo (Rudman,
Feinberg, & Fairchild, 2002). Jost and Banaji (1994) emphasize
that such attitudes and the motive to sustain them are likely to be
non-conscious. This explains why this phenomenon may not be picked
up by self-report measures, but can be unearthed by implicit
measures (Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild, 2002) which assess
automatic associations that are believed to underlie nonconscious
attitudes and beliefs (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). To summarize,
extant research using implicit measures demonstrates a preference
for Caucasian racial stimuli for both African Americans and
Caucasians.
Implicit color preference
Researchers in psychology have theorized about an individuals
color bias; that is, an implicit color preference for some colors
over others (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). Two theories have been
advanced to explain the development of color preference in young
children. The majority of researchers in this area believe that the
emergence of color preference in young children is due to the
cultural socialization of color symbolism. This theory suggests
that children develop a pro-white/anti-black color preference
through the verbal learning of color symbolism in their culture
(Duckitt, Wall, & Pokroy, 1999). In other words, as a childs
verbal comprehension develops, s/he learns to associate the color
white with positive connotations and the color black with negative
connotations. Williams, Tucker, and Dunham (1971) note that the
color white has been used in religion, literature, and the mass
media as a symbol of goodness, whereas the color black has been
used as a symbol of badness. For example, the English language
idiom black sheep is a derogatory term (because black wool is less
valuable than white wool) used to describe an undesirable or
disreputable member of a group. In contrast, the term white knight
is used in the management literature to describe a friendly company
that is invited by the target management to outbid an unwanted
bidder, and thus protect the company from a hostile takeover
(Jensen & Ruback, 1983). Frank and Gilovich (1988) observed
that the terms Black Thursday (referring to Thursday, Oct 24, 1929
when stock values dropped leading to the Great Depression of the
1930s), being blacklisted or blackmailed all carry negative
connotations.
Other researchers favor the early experience theory proposed by
Williams and Morland (1976) as an explanation for the emergence of
a pro-white/anti-black color preference in children. Early
experience theory proposes that young children develop a preference
for the color white as compared to the color black as a result of
their early experiences with light and darkness. Specifically, as
diurnal beings, we require light to interact effectively with our
environment, and may find darkness to be disorienting and therefore
intrinsically aversive (Williams, Boswell, & Best, 1975). Early
experience theory suggests that a childs early experiences with the
light of day and the darkness of the night lead her/him to develop
a preference for light over darkness, which may then generalize to
a preference for the color white as compared to the color black
(Williams et al. 1975).
As noted, cross-cultural research indicates a prevalence of
positive associations with the color white and negative
associations with the color black (Adams & Osgood, 1973).
Several studies have documented the existence of a
pro-white/anti-black color preference using participants from
varying social and ethnic backgrounds, indicating that this may be
a pan-cultural phenomenon. For example, Adams and Osgood, (1973)
used semantic differential scales to study the color preferences of
adults and found that participants evaluated the color white more
positively than the color black. Others have used an indirect
measure called the Color Meaning Test (CMT II; Williams et al.,
1975) to study color preference in children. Researchers using the
CMT II have found support for a pro-white/anti-black color
preference in children from varying cultures including:
European-American (Boswell & Williams, 1975), African American
(Williams & Rousseau, 1971), and bi-racial American (Neto &
Paiva, 1998). Furthermore, a cross-cultural study investigating the
affective meanings of color in 23 cultures found that the color
black is viewed as the color of evil and death in almost all
cultures (Adams & Osgood, 1973). Hence, we expect that:
H1:Caucasian and African American participants will exhibit an
implicit color preference for
the color white as compared to the color black.
Relationship between color preference and product preference
Color is an important component of marketing communications, and
its effects have been widely studied in the areas of advertising,
packaging, and store design (Bellizzi, Crowley, & Hasty, 1983).
While a large portion of color research on products by marketers
has not been published due to competitive concerns (Bellizzi et
al., 1983), extant published research has shown that effective use
of color can attract attention (Lee & Barnes, 1989), and
influence consumers perceptions and behaviors (Aslam, 2006).
Consumers deliberately choose product colors that complement
their desired self-image (Madden et al., 2000). For example,
consumers choose colors for their houses, cars, and clothes that
are consistent with how they want to present themselves (Trinkaus,
1991). We anticipate that consumers implicit product preferences
will be consistent with their implicit color preferences. As noted
in the previous section, extant research suggests that consumers
from varying backgrounds have a non-conscious preference for the
color white over the color black. Hence, we expect that:
H2:Caucasian and African American participants will exhibit an
implicit product preference for white as compared to black colored
products.
H3:Implicit color preference will predict implicit product
preference, such that participants who implicitly prefer the color
white (black) will also tend to implicitly prefer white (black)
colored products.
Relationship between color preference and racial preference
Research suggests that individuals develop a preference for the
color white over the color black at an early age, and this
contributes to the later development of racial preference (Duckitt,
Wall, & Pokroy, 1999). Correlational studies have found a
significant positive relationship between color and racial
preferences, such that participants with a high degree of
pro-white/anti-black color preference tend to evaluate dark-skinned
people less favorably than light-skinned people (Williams, 1969;
Boswell & Williams, 1975; Neto & Williams, 1997).
Livingston and Brewer (2002) found that Caucasian participants made
more negative associations with African Americans than Caucasians,
especially for African Americans with prototypic features such as
darker colored skin. Similarly, Maddox and Gray (2002) report that
both Caucasian and African American participants exhibited stronger
associations between stereotypic negative racial characteristics
(e.g., being criminal, poor, or aggressive) and darker-skinned
African Americans. Furthermore, experimental studies show evidence
for a functional relationship between color and racial preferences
(Williams et al., 1975). For example, Williams and Edwards (1969)
used reinforcement procedures to weaken participants
pro-white/anti-black color preferences, which subsequently led to a
reduction in their pro-Caucasian/anti-Black racial evaluations, and
later studies replicated these findings in different cultures and
societies (Duckitt et al., 1999).
The aforementioned theory and research findings suggest that
participants implicit color preferences will influence their
implicit racial preferences and their implicit evaluations of
advertisements that feature African American or Caucasian
endorsers. Hence, we expect:
H4:Implicit color preference will predict implicit racial
preference and implicit advertising
preference, such that participants who implicitly prefer the
color white (black) will also tend to implicitly prefer Caucasian
(African American) faces and advertisements featuring Caucasian
(vs. African American) endorsers.
H5:Implicit racial preference will mediate the effect of
implicit color preference on
participants implicit advertising preference.
Disentangling color preference from racial and advertising
evaluations. As previously mentioned, studies using implicit
measurement techniques such as the IAT generally find that both
Caucasian and African American participants exhibit pro-Caucasian
association bias when responding to racial stimuli (Nosek et al.,
2002). This finding is incongruent with the vast majority of extant
studies assessing participants advertising preferences in response
to ads featuring in-group versus out-group models. We expect that
the influence of color preference on racial evaluations may
partially account for this disparity. Specifically, we disentangle
the effect of participants implicit color preferences from their
implicit racial and implicit advertising preferences, and test the
following hypothesis:
H6:After controlling for color preference, both African American
and Caucasian participants will exhibit implicit racial and
advertising preferences in favor of their racial in-group.
Methodology
Recent research in consumer behavior and psychology has
acknowledged that consumption behavior is frequently affected by
cognitive processes outside conscious awareness and control (Bargh,
2002; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Moreover, even when research
participants are aware of their attitudes, they may be unwilling to
share them or may purposefully distort their answers to avoid
embarrassment, especially when the topic of interest is socially
sensitive in nature (Mick, 1996). Methodological advances in
implicit measurement techniques have enabled researchers to use
indirect measures to examine participants racial associations.
Implicit measures provide an indirect estimate of the construct of
interest, without directly asking the participant (Fazio &
Olson, 2003). Prominent examples include projective techniques
(Haire, 1950), various forms of priming (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu,
Powell, & Kardes, 1986), the Implicit Association Test (IAT;
Greenwald et al., 1998), and the Go/No-Go Association Task (Nosek
& Banaji, 2001).
In our research, we employ the IAT, a well-established and
widely used technique for measuring implicit associations (Fazio
& Olson, 2003), to explore whether both African American and
Caucasian respondents exhibit an implicit color preference (ICP)
for the color white as compared to the color black, and an implicit
product preference (IPP) for white products as compared to black
products. Furthermore, we examine whether participants implicit
racial preference (IRP) may be partially explained by their
implicit color preference (ICP). In addition, we investigate the
effect of these two antecedents of attitude toward the ad (i.e.,
IRP and ICP) on participants implicit attitudes toward
advertisements (IAad) featuring African American and Caucasian
endorsers.
Study 1
Study 1 was designed to test the first three hypotheses. While
extant research has shown that Caucasian participants exhibit an
implicit color preference for the color white as compared to the
color black (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006) replicating past studies
using explicit measures, to the best of our knowledge, no other
study has examined the color preferences of African American
respondents using an implicit measure. Furthermore, we designed
study 1 to test whether participants automatic color preferences
are related to their automatic preference for white versus black
colored products.
Participants, Materials and Procedure
We recruited Caucasian and African American participants from an
online panel provider to participate in an IAT experiment.
Following the recommendations of Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji
(2003), individual trial response latencies greater than 10,000
milliseconds, and data from participants who responded faster than
300 milliseconds on more than 10% of trials were eliminated. This
yielded a total of 219 useable responses from 123 Caucasian (64
female and 59 male) and 96 African American (77 female and 19 male)
respondents, with a mean age of 39 years old.
Participants completed two separate IAT procedures: a color IAT,
and a product IAT. Each IAT consisted of seven blocks. Blocks four
and seven (counterbalanced) were the measurement blocks. Within
each of the three IAT tasks, the order in which participants
encountered the black preference blocks (pairing black stimuli with
pleasant words, and white stimuli with unpleasant words) and white
preference blocks (pairing white stimuli with pleasant words, and
black stimuli with unpleasant words) was counterbalanced.
Categorization labels (e.g., Pleasant vs. Unpleasant) appeared on
the top right and the top left of the computer screen, and a
randomly selected stimulus (either an image or a word) from that
IAT appeared in the middle of the screen. Participants were
instructed to sort stimuli to the appropriate category as quickly
as they could, while trying to minimize errors. Participants were
instructed to press the D key on their computer keyboard if the
correct category label for the target stimulus appeared on the left
side of the screen, and the K key if the appropriate category label
appeared on the right side of the screen. Whenever participants
responded correctly, the next stimulus and category labels
appeared; whenever participants responses were incorrect, a red X
appeared and remained on the screen until the stimulus was
correctly classified.
Stimuli development. All IAT stimuli used a gray background (RGB
color code 127 127 127), which is exactly between the colors black
and white in the color spectrum to avoid priming participants with
either the color white or black. Additionally, we set the
background color of all experimental procedures to the same color
gray. The color IAT assessed participants implicit color
preferences for the colors white and black, using pictures of black
and white geometric shapes as color stimuli (see the Appendix for
examples of the stimuli used in each IAT), and words with positive
(e.g., happiness) and negative (e.g., misery) connotations as
evaluative stimuli to represent the two attribute concepts (i.e.,
Pleasant and Unpleasant). The product IAT
Measurement of IAT effects. As IAT studies are based on latency
measures, participants response latencies were recorded (in
milliseconds) from the onset of each stimulus to its correct
classification for the two measured blocks in each IAT. Mean
preference scores were calculated using the improved D score
algorithm (Greenwald et al., 2003). Specifically, D was scored so
that higher numbers indicate a stronger association between
pleasant words and Caucasian stimuli on the race IAT and
advertising IAT, and white shapes on the color IAT. Therefore, a
positive (negative) D implies that participants paired Caucasian
(or white) stimuli with pleasant words and African American (or
black) stimuli with unpleasant words quicker (slower) than they
paired African American (or black) stimuli with pleasant words and
Caucasian (or white) stimuli with unpleasant words. In contrast to
the earlier conventional scoring procedure, the improved algorithm
minimizes the effect of having previously completed one or more
IATs on the calculated IAT scores (Greenwald et al., 2003), which
is particularly important for the present experiment where
participants were asked to complete three separate IAT
procedures.
Results
Our findings for study 1, the mean D scores, 95% confidence
intervals, and correlations for the two IAT tasks are presented in
Table 1. In support of hypothesis 1, both Caucasians (ICP Mean d =
.68, t(122) = 18.48, p
