Where the division lies: Common ingroup identity moderates the cross-race facial-recognition effect

This research investigated the hypothesis that better recognition for own-race than other-race faces is a result of social categorization rather than perceptual expertise. More specifically, we explored how the salience of race or university group boundaries would affect recall of faces. Using a mod...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of experimental social psychology Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 445 - 448
Main Authors Hehman, Eric, Mania, Eric W., Gaertner, Samuel L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.03.2010
Elsevier
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Experiments
Face
Face perception
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Group dynamics
Group identity
Intergroup dynamics
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Race
Social attribution, perception and cognition
Social categorization
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social psychology
Face perception
Social categorization
Intergroup dynamics
Race
Human
Recognition memory
Social perception
Social group
Memory
Ingroup
Cognition
Social belonging
Social cognition
Social interaction
Face
Categorization
Intergroup relation
Social identity
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Summary:This research investigated the hypothesis that better recognition for own-race than other-race faces is a result of social categorization rather than perceptual expertise. More specifically, we explored how the salience of race or university group boundaries would affect recall of faces. Using a modified facial recognition paradigm, on each trial eight Black and White faces were spatially organized either by race or university affiliation to induce categorization primarily based on one of these dimensions. When grouped by race, participants had superior recall for own-race faces and university affiliation had no effect. When grouped by university, participants had superior recall for own-university faces and race had no effect. Using identical stimuli across conditions, recall was superior for ingroup targets on the experimentally induced dimension of categorization, supportive of a social categorization based explanation of the cross-race effect.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0022-1031
1096-0465
DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.11.008