The Effect of Interracial Media Portrayals on Perceptions of Multiracialism

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2010-08-23 03:02Z by Steven

The Effect of Interracial Media Portrayals on Perceptions of Multiracialism

XULAneXUS: Xavier University of Louisiana’s Undergraduate Research Journal
Research Manuscript
Volume 5, Number 1, April 2008
9 pages

Ashley E. Winston
Department of Psychology

The notion that context has an effect on perceptions of multiracialism was investigated. Context was manipulated in terms of exposure to interracial harmony and interracial disharmony in the form of a movie clip from the movie Something New (2006). The effect of the clip on participants’ perceptions of multiracial people was measured by the Attitudes Toward Multiracial Children Scale, and the racial identification of the participants was measured by the Racial Identity Scale. The results from the two measures were calculated with an independent-samples t-test to compare the mean scores of the two groups. Results show that the mean of the group who received the disharmony clip was significantly lower than the mean of the group who received the harmony clip. The results imply an importance of the media portrayal of interracial interaction and racial stereotyping on the perceptions of society for the multiracial community.

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