Racial phenotypicality and subordinate categories: Modeling mental
representations using reverse correlation
Experiment 1:
Perceptions of social role typicality
Method
• 125 MTurk participants
• Participants were asked to rate how closely the following
social roles align with perceptions of Black or White
men in the US
1 (not at all typical) to 7 (very typical)
• 2 x 7 mixed model design:
• Race: Black or White (between subjects)
• Social role: athlete, rapper, doctor, businessman, janitor,
hipster, and redneck (within subjects)
Results (Figure 1)
• Race and social role interacted to influence typicality
perceptions F (6, 690) = 94.384, p = .001, η2 = .456.
• Athlete and Rapper were perceived as most typical of
Black Men (p < .001)
• Businessman and Doctor were perceived as most typical
of White Men (p < .001)
Experiment 2:
Mental representations of social roles
Next we examined whether participants’ mental
representations of the race-typical social groups depicted facial
features that are more phenotypical of their respective groups.
Method
Face generation
• Participants (recruited from MTurk):
• Part 1: N = 130
• Part 2: N = 225
Racial typicality
Experiment 2 method, continued
black
*
*
7
white
4
1
athlete
rapper
janitor
hipster
redneck
doctor
businessman
* p < .001; Bars represent SE
Figure 2. Stimuli generation, Experiment 2
Figure 3. Classification images and racial typicality ratings
Black typicality
Targets with high racial phenotypicality—those with features
typical of members of their racial group—are more likely to be
attributed stereotypical traits [1]. Furthermore, in regards to the
superordinate category (e.g., Black man), perceived typicality
may be high for some subordinate categories (Black athlete) but
not others (Black businessman) [2]. We examined how this
typicality relates to the degree of phenotypicality reflected in
mental representations of these groups.
Figure 1. Role typicality perceptions
White typicality
Background
*
7
4
1
high proto.
athlete
7
rapper
doctor
businessman
low proto.
*
low proto.
* p <.001; Bars represent SE
athlete
• In an online survey, participants were asked to complete a
reverse correlation task [3].
• On each of 200 trials, participants
1. viewed two adjacent images of a Black or White man with
random noise overlaid (see Figure 2)
2. chose which image matched the given criteria:
• Part 1: Racial phenotypicality
2 (Race: Black or White) x 2 (Typicality: high or low)
between subjects design
• Part 2: Social role
2 (Race: Black or White) x 4 (Role: Athlete, Rapper,
Doctor, Businessman) between subjects design
• Within condition, we averaged the noise patterns chosen on
each experimental trial [4]
• Average noise was superimposed onto the base image to
create classification images (see Figure 3)
Facial feature ratings
• 180 MTurk participants
• In an online survey participants rated all of the resulting
classification images (CIs) on racial phenotypicality
Results (Figure 3)
• Black-typical CIs (high Black prototypical, Rapper, Athlete)
were rated as more Afrocentric compared to Black-atypical
CIs; all p’s < .001)
• White-typical CIs (high White prototypical, Doctor,
Businessman) were rated as more Eurocentric compared to
White-atypical CIs (all p’s < .001).
Discussion
• Perceptions of race-typical social roles vary for White and
Black men
• Black-typical: Rapper, Athlete
• White-typical: Doctor, Businessman
• Visual mental representations of social categories reflect
explicit typicality judgements
• Results may have implications for social categorization and
perceived fit with social roles.
4
1
Lindsay Hinzman & Keith Maddox
Tufts University
rapper
doctor
businessman
high proto.
Race x Role interaction: F(5, 174) = 132.29, p < .001
References
1. Maddox, K. B., & Gray, S. a. (2002). Cognitive Representations of Black Americans: Reexploring the Role of Skin Tone. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 28(2), 250–259. doi:10.1177/0146167202282010
2. Devine, P. G., & Baker, S. M. (2010). Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
doi:10.1177/0146167291171007
3. Dotsch, R., & Todorov, a. (2012). Reverse Correlating Social Face Perception. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(5), 562–571.
doi:10.1177/1948550611430272
4. Ron Dotsch (2015). rcicr: Reverse correlation image classification toolbox. R package version 0.3.2.