Planning Grant on Cross-Racial Eyewitness Identification in the Context of Multi-Racial and Multi-Cultural Change

全球力量正在形成，这为明显不同的族裔群体提供了在日益平等的基础上在公共场合互动的机会。社会互动的增加以及不断变化的社会和法律环境对其他群体个人的认知和记忆的影响是一个长期学术感兴趣的话题。跨种族目击证人识别的准确性是一个重要的关注领域；然而，对于影响这些判断的心理机制，学术界并没有达成共识。在这个领域，有一些有趣的理论发展，对不同群体的人之间的正式和非正式互动都有影响。该项目是一个规划赠款，以促进一个研究项目的发展，该项目将评估与种族主义、歧视和种族冲突的全球变化有关的因素。正在规划的项目将特别侧重于随着种族隔离或“隔离”法律制度的废除，社会结构、社会经验和态度对南非共和国跨种族认同的影响。这种方法的核心是这样一个概念，即特定群体提供的社会资源的相对异质性将决定个人根据面部和其他外表进行区分的能力。从社会角度来看，另一个种族的同质性越高，个人获得认可的可能性就越小。在这一计划期间，调查人员将(1)建立一个多国家、多学科、多种族的研究小组，参与研究；(2)前往南非讨论研究计划和学习材料；(3)为随后的研究制定全面计划。这项研究涉及种族和社会冲突的一个重要方面，并对跨种族目击者识别和可靠性具有具体影响。这项研究的结果将使现有的理论得以修改，以适应种族偏见的多文化层面。这项研究还将有助于我们理解更广泛的社会认知问题。

Global forces are underway that result in opportunities for visibly different ethnic groups to interact in public contexts on an increasingly equal basis. The effects of increased social interaction and of changing social and legal contexts on perceptions of and memory for individuals of other groups is a topic of perennial scholarly interest. The accuracy of cross- racial eyewitness identification is an important area of concern; yet, there is no consensus in the scholarly community about the psychological mechanisms which affect these judgments. This is an area in which there are interesting theoretical developments that have implications for both formal and informal interactions among people of different groups. This project is for a planning grant to facilitate development of a research project that will assess factors associated with global changes in racism, discrimination, and ethnic conflict. The project being planned will focus, in particular, on the effects of social structure, social experience, and attitudes on cross-racial identification in the Republic of South Africa as the legal system of apartheid or "separateness" is dismantled. At the core of the approach is the notion that the relative heterogeneity of the social resources afforded by a particular group will determine the ability of individuals to differentiate on the basis of facial and other appearance. The more homogeneously another race is viewed in social terms, the less likelihood of individual recognition. During this planning period the investigators will (1) establish a multi-national, multi-discipline, multi-racial research team that will participate in the research; (2) travel to South Africa to discuss research plans and study materials; and (3) develop a comprehensive plan for the subsequent research. This research addresses an important dimension of racial and social conflict and has specific implications for cross-racial eyewitness identification and reliability. The results of the study will enable revising existing theory to accommodate multicultural dimensions of racial bias. The research will also contribute to our understanding of broader issues of social perception.