Other Than the Sum: Hispanic and Middle Eastern Categorizations of Black–White Mixed-Race Faces

Abstract

The racial categorization literature, reliant on forced-choice tasks, suggests that mixed-race targets are often categorized using the parent faces that created the racially mixed stimuli (e.g., Black or White) or their combination (e.g., Black–White multiracial). In the current studies, we introduce a free-response task that allows for spontaneous categorizations of higher ecological validity. Our results suggest that, when allowed, observers often classify Black–White faces into alternative categories (i.e., responses that are neither the parent races nor their combination), such as Hispanic and Middle Eastern. Furthermore, we find that the stereotypes of the various categories that are mapped to racially mixed faces are distinct, underscoring the importance of understanding how mixed-race targets are spontaneously categorized. Our findings speak to the challenges associated with racial categorization in an increasingly racially diverse population, including discrepancies between target racial identities and their racial categorizations by observers as well as variable stereotype application to mixed-race targets.

An integrative review of impression formation processes for multiracial individuals

“…In other words, participants were not restricted by any experimenter‐chosen category options. The most common categorizations of ambiguous faces were not Black (as would be expected by hypodescent) but instead were Latinx and Middle Eastern (see also Nicolas, Skinner, & Dickter, , for independent replication of this result). These findings further suggest that previous evidence of face‐based hypodescent is driven by perceivers' exclusion of multiracial faces from the White category rather than their perceiving ambiguous faces as Black.…”

Chicago Face Database: Multiracial expansion

“…Maclin, Maclin, Peterson, Chowdhry, and Joshi (2009) presented participants with Black-White morphed faces and observed that faces toward the center of the morph continuum were more likely to be categorized as Hispanic than either Black or White, even though neither parent face was Hispanic (see also Chen et al, 2018). Work by Nicolas, Skinner, and Dickter (2019) similarly shows that Black-White morphed faces frequently garner the labels Hispanic and Middle Eastern when participants are given an opportunity to categorize targets using open-ended responses. Although the emergent race phenomenon was first documented using morphed faces (Maclin et al, 2009), others have since demonstrated the effect using real faces (e.g., Chen et al, 2018;Nicolas et al, 2019), raising open questions about whether the emergent race effect poses a threat to validity or whether it is a consequence of appearing multiracial.…”

“…Work by Nicolas, Skinner, and Dickter (2019) similarly shows that Black-White morphed faces frequently garner the labels Hispanic and Middle Eastern when participants are given an opportunity to categorize targets using open-ended responses. Although the emergent race phenomenon was first documented using morphed faces (Maclin et al, 2009), others have since demonstrated the effect using real faces (e.g., Chen et al, 2018;Nicolas et al, 2019), raising open questions about whether the emergent race effect poses a threat to validity or whether it is a consequence of appearing multiracial.…”

Automated Dictionary Creation for Analyzing Text: An Illustration from Stereotype Content

“…Using open-ended (v. forced-choice) responses in controlled settings also enables more ecologically-valid and data-driven study of psychological processes and content. These benefits appear in studying emotion (Gendron et al, 2015) and racial categorization (Nicolas, Skinner, & Dickter, 2018), challenging previously held findings by employing free-response measures that circumvent researcher constraints on participants' responses. Despite the advantages, creating and validating text analysis instruments such as dictionaries differs considerably from developing traditional scales, and currently not many appropriately reviewed guidelines exist.…”