SBP: Collaborative Research: The impact of naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated interracial contact on social cognition

美国持续存在的种族紧张局势重新引发了人们对减少种族偏见的兴趣。解决种族偏见的一个突出范例是为不同种族的人创造相互接触的机会。种族间的接触可能是一种有效的干预，但如果没有对减少种族偏见的确切条件的坚定理解，它不太可能像预期的那样起作用。接触必须有多深？一个群体的人仅仅看到其他群体的人，而不努力去认出每个人（即仅仅是暴露），这是否足够？是否有必要在不了解其他任何事情的情况下，频繁地看到一个人，从而认出他们（即感知个性化）？或者与某人进行足够多的互动以获取有关他们的个人信息（即，基于知识的个性化）是必要的吗？本项目对这三种形式的种族间接触进行了严格的分析，以测试接触的程度——同时保持接触的积极性——是否会影响人们对他人的看法和评价，从而产生减少种族偏见的下游后果。该项目的主要目的是研究不同形式的接触如何在面部视觉感知、自发判断、评估和信仰方面形成种族偏见。研究1测试了一生中自然发生的种族间接触经历如何解释种族信息的分类和评估以及对其他种族群体的信念。研究2检验了相同的分类、评价和信念，同时实验性地操纵了与他人接触的类型。研究3利用瞳孔测量法和眼球追踪法来显示不同形式接触后他人面部的显著性。总之，这些研究将改变我们对种族间接触是否、如何以及为什么能有效减少种族偏见的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Persistent racial tension in the US has led to renewed interest in reducing prejudice along racial lines. A prominent paradigm to address racial bias has been to create opportunities for people of different races to have contact with each other. Interracial contact can be an efficient intervention, but it is unlikely to work as intended without a firm understanding of the exact conditions that reduce racial bias. How deep must contact be? Is it sufficient for people in one group to merely see those of other groups, without any effort to recognize each person (i.e., mere exposure)? Is it necessary to see individuals frequently enough to recognize them without knowing anything else about them (i.e., perceptual individuation)? Or is it essential to interact with someone enough to acquire personal information about them (i.e., knowledge-based individuation)? This project provides a rigorous analysis of these three forms of interracial contact to test whether the extent of contact – while holding constant positivity of contact – can influence peoples' perceptions and evaluations of others, which can have downstream consequences for reducing racial prejudice. The primary aim of this project is to examine how different forms of contact shape racial bias on visual perception of faces, spontaneous judgments, evaluations, and beliefs. Study 1 tests how naturally occurring experiences of interracial contact over a lifetime account for the categorization and evaluation of racial information and for beliefs about other racial groups. Study 2 examines the same categorizations, evaluations, and beliefs, while experimentally manipulating the type of exposure to others. Study 3 utilizes pupillometry and eye-tracking methods to indicate the salience of others' faces after having different forms of contact. Together these studies stand to transform our understanding of whether, how, and why interracial contact could be an effective way to reduce racial prejudice.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.