Psychological mechanisms through which economic scarcity propels racial prejudice

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When the U.S. economy experiences significant setbacks, its impact is not limited to the financial realm, nor are the detrimental effects evenly shared across all segments of society. For example, in the recent recession, Black Americans had a decrease in household wealth that was much greater than that of Whites. Although widening disparities that occur during recessions are frequently explained in terms of existing structural inequalities, recent findings by Amy R. Krosch, in collaboration with the investigator David M. Amodio, suggests a psychological basis for disparities. Their work indicates that perception of economic scarcity affects visual perception processes such that those from minority racial groups are perceived as more stereotypical in appearance, and in turn, as less deserving of resources. Such findings suggest that economic events can threaten intergroup relations and increase discrimination, putting particular groups at acute risk. However, the psychological mechanisms by which these macroeconomic factors affect racial perceptions is not understood. Understanding such mechanisms is essential for developing ways to reduce the effects of economic scarcity on prejudice and discrimination.The current project focuses on key sociocognitive mechanisms through which perceptions of economic scarcity cause biased visual perceptions of individuals from racial minority groups. In a series of eight experiments, the investigator tests the hypothesis that perceived scarcity induces not only stereotyping, but dehumanization processes as well: reduced tendency to infer uniquely human-like traits and emotions from a face and to neurally encode it as a human face. Experiments test whether these processes directly bias perceivers' visual representations of individuals from racial minority groups, which, in turn, propagates behavioral discrimination. This research builds on both classic and novel theories of how economic factors influence intergroup relations, and it makes innovative use of behavioral, neuroscientific, and psychophysical methodologies to examine the visual processing of race. This research aims to gain crucial knowledge of how economic factors contribute to persisting disparities and provide some direction for how these effects may be mitigated.