Dark faces in white spaces: The effects of skin tone, race, ethnicity, and intergroup preferences on interpersonal judgments and voting behavior

Abstract

Across three experimental studies, we explored how a political candidate's intersections of skin tone, race, and ethnicity affect voting preferences and interpersonal judgments (e.g., warmth, trustworthiness, expertise). Study 1 assessed whether White participants would favor a light‐skinned (vs. dark‐skinned) African American candidate. Study 2 investigated participant (White vs. non‐White) voting preferences based on the interaction between candidate race/ethnicity and relative skin tone (lighter vs. darker). In Study 3, we examined the influence of candidate race/ethnicity on voters’ preferences as well as the accuracy and impact of memory for candidate skin tone. Supporting our hypotheses, White participants generally held more negative attitudes (e.g., expressed less warmth, perceived candidates as less trustworthy) and were less likely to vote for underrepresented candidates with darker skin tones than non‐White participants were. Additionally, voters remembered politicians as having a lighter skin tone, and the extent of such bias predicted warmth, perceived trustworthiness, and expertise of the candidate. While candidate race/ethnicity on its own did not affect voting preferences and attitudes, it significantly influenced voters when race/ethnicity was associated with certain skin tones (i.e., brown skin tone). Theoretical, practical, and political implications for judgments influenced by skin tone and race/ethnicity of candidates are discussed.

We the People. Who? The face of future American politics is shaped by perceived foreignness of candidates of color

“…Additionally, considering that the racial and ethnic composition of the United States is changing (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020), it becomes increasingly critical to understand attitudes and behaviors that represent barriers to achieving more equitable representations in powerful spaces traditionally occupied primarily by white people. Hence, the goal of the present study was to replicate previous findings (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022) in which people's racial/ethnic group was found to correlate with the perception of their cultural foreignness (e.g., Zou & Cheryan, 2017). That is, researchers proposed that Latinos are often considered as more foreign than, for example, African Americans and that that process might influence attitudes toward that person (e.g., Chirco & Buchanan, 2022).…”

“…It is therefore unsurprising that, when choosing a leader, people select the leader (or politician) they think best represents them and their group (Hogg, 2001). This mechanism can help to explain why white voters express more positive interpersonal judgments about, and are more likely to vote for, a relatively lighter-skinned political candidate (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022).…”

“…While social identity and leadership categorization theory both explain certain mechanisms involved in categorizing and choosing a leader, recent empirical investigations show that the process may be more nuanced and that relative skin tone and perceived foreignness of political candidate, in tandem, may influence interpersonal judgments and voting intentions (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022). A set of studies suggested that, when political candidates who belong to racially underrepresented groups were presented to constituents with the same skin tone (i.e., brown), white voters expressed more positive judgments toward the candidate who identified as African American than Mexican American (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022).…”

“…While social identity and leadership categorization theory both explain certain mechanisms involved in categorizing and choosing a leader, recent empirical investigations show that the process may be more nuanced and that relative skin tone and perceived foreignness of political candidate, in tandem, may influence interpersonal judgments and voting intentions (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022). A set of studies suggested that, when political candidates who belong to racially underrepresented groups were presented to constituents with the same skin tone (i.e., brown), white voters expressed more positive judgments toward the candidate who identified as African American than Mexican American (Chirco & Buchanan, 2022). Although not directly tested, given prior research, this finding was attributed to a potential perception of cultural foreignness (Zou & Cheryan, 2017), in that white voters may have perceived the Mexican American candidate as less likely to be a citizen of the United States (Chirco & Buchanan, 2021) and, therefore, not eligible to hold office.…”

“…Although not the primary focus of the current research, we also sought to replicate relevant findings from prior studies (e.g., Chirco & Buchanan, 2022;Kemmelmeier & Chavez, 2014) by examining whether skin tone memory bias (i.e., how light or dark the candidate's skin tone was remembered to be) would predict evaluations of the candidates. We expected that, to the extent that participants remembered the skin tone of the candidate as being relatively lighter, they would rate the candidate more positively.…”