Why Barack Obama Is Black: A Cognitive Account of Hypodescent

We propose that hypodescent—the assignment of mixed-race individuals to a minority group—is an emergent feature of basic cognitive processes of learning and categorization. According to attention theory, minority groups are learned by attending to the features that distinguish them from previously l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in	Psychological science Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 29 - 33
Main Authors	Halberstadt, Jamin, Sherman, Steven J., Sherman, Jeffrey W.
Format	Journal Article
Language	English
Published	Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2011 Sage Publications SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects	Adult Asian Continental Ancestry Group - psychology Attention Attention - physiology Biological and medical sciences China Classification Cognition Cognition & reasoning Cognition - physiology Cognitive psychology Computer software Ethnic minorities European Continental Ancestry Group - psychology Face Famous Persons Female Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Humans Learning Learning - physiology Majority groups Male Minorities Minority & ethnic groups Minority groups Minority Groups - psychology Motivation Multiracial people New Zealand Obama, Barack Perception Psychological research Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Psychology. Psychophysiology Race Race Relations - psychology Racism Research Reports Saliency Selective attention Social attribution, perception and cognition Social classes Social Identification Social perception Social psychology Stereotypes Stereotyping Students - psychology U.S.A United States history Vision White people Young Adult New Zealand China face perception category learning attention stereotypes minorities hypodescent Human Attention Stereotype Experimental study Ethnic group Social cognition Learning Mixed race Acquisition process Minority Vision Race Perception Face Categorization
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ISSN	0956-7976 1467-9280 1467-9280
DOI	10.1177/0956797610390383

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Summary:	We propose that hypodescent—the assignment of mixed-race individuals to a minority group—is an emergent feature of basic cognitive processes of learning and categorization. According to attention theory, minority groups are learned by attending to the features that distinguish them from previously learned majority groups. Selective attention creates a strong association between minority groups and their distinctive features, producing a tendency to see individuals who possess a mixture of majority- and minority-group traits as minority-group members. Two experiments on face categorization, using both naturally occurring and manipulated minority groups, support this view, suggesting that hypodescent need not be the product of racist or political motivations, but can be sufficiently explained by an individual's learning history.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2
ISSN:	0956-7976 1467-9280 1467-9280
DOI:	10.1177/0956797610390383