Implicit Attitude Generalization From Black to Blackā€“White Biracial Group Members

Implicit Attitude Generalization From Black to Blackā€“White Biracial Group Members

Social Psychological and Personality
Published online before print: 2015-01-13
DOI: 10.1177/1948550614567686

Jacqueline M. Chen, Post-doctoral Scholar
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis

Kate A. Ratliff, Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Florida

We investigated whether Blackā€“White biracial individuals are perceived as Black in the domain of evaluation. Previous research has documented that White perceiversā€™ negative evaluation of one Black person leads to a negative implicit evaluation of another Black person belonging to the same minimal group. We built upon this out-group transfer effect by investigating whether perceivers also transferred negative implicit attitudes from one Black person to a novel Blackā€“White biracial person. In three experiments, participants learned about a Black individual who performed undesirable behaviors and were then introduced to a new group member. White perceivers formed negative attitudes toward the original individual and transferred these attitudes to the new group member if she was Black or Biracial, but not if she was White (Experiment 1) or Asian (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that only White participants exhibited transfer to the new Black and Biracial group members; Black participants did not.

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