Priority of racial and gender categorization of faces: A social task demand framework.

Abstract

Social categorization of faces occurs along multiple dimensions such as race and gender and influences interpersonal interactions widely. Does social categorization of faces along different dimensions take place in parallel or give priority to some faces along a specific dimension? Across seven studies, we proposed and empirically tested a social task demand hypothesis that social categorization of a particular group of faces occurs in priority along one dimension (race or gender) in response to specific social task demands. Study 1 showed behavioral evidence that other-race faces are more densely clustered into one category, whereas same-race faces are more distantly separated into two (male and female) categories. Studies 2–4 showed electrophysiological evidence for earlier spontaneous racial categorization of other-race faces but earlier spontaneous gender categorization of same-race faces during an individual face recognition task. Studies 5–7 manipulated social task demands and provided electrophysiological evidence that early processes underlying racial or gender categorization of other-race or same-race faces were inhibited or facilitated by task demands of evaluating gender roles or group membership of perceived faces. Our findings indicate that the priority of racial or gender categorization of other-race or same-race faces varies dynamically to meet social task demands of managing intergroup and cross-sex interactions.

Shifting racial identities reduces racial ingroup biases in empathy and altruistic decision-making

“…Previous studies of ethnic/racial identity mainly depend on questionnaire measures that, however, are confronted with concerns about reliability and validity of scores generated from different versions of scales (Cokley, 2007;Phinney, 1996). We employed various measures, in Experiments 1-3, including self-report, reaction times (RTs) in a perceptual matching task (Sui et al, 2012), and RTs in a racial categorization task (Ge et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2023), to assess shift of personal and racial identities. These measures were relatively more implicit than questionnaire measures and would reduce potential influences of beliefs of racial constancy to a minimum degree.…”

“…Racial discrimination against others based on perceived skin color, face, or ethnic origin has been well documented in numerous social domains, including education, medical care, employment, housing, policing, and so on (Anwar et al, 2012;Chavous et al, 2008;Eberhardt et al, 2004;Goyal et al, 2015;Pager & Shepherd, 2008;Pierson et al, 2020;Small & Pager, 2020). Research in laboratories has also revealed ample evidence for distinct processes of people of different races in face perception and recognition (Freeman et al, 2015;Ito & Bartholow, 2009;Kubota et al, 2012;Meissner & Brigham, 2001;Van Bavel & Cunningham, 2009;Zhang et al, 2023;Zhou et al, 2020), empathy (Drwecki et al, 2011;Sheng & Han, 2012;Sheng et al, 2014;Xu et al, 2009;Zhou & Han, 2021), attitude (Chin et al, 2020;Greenwald et al, 1998;Richeson & Nussbaum, 2004;Schnabel et al, 2008), and altruistic behavior (Krosch & Amodio, 2019;Stepanikova et al, 2011;Telzer et al, 2015). From a psychological perspective racial discrimination manifests outcomes of interactions between an observer's belief of his own racial identity and perceived racial identities of others.…”

“…A greater sensitivity to information of other-race than same-race faces was observed in different tasks requiring face categorization, identification, and recognition. For example, in a race classification task to sort faces into different racial groups, White participants responded faster to Asian than White faces whereas Asian participants responded faster to White than Asian faces (Ge et al, 2009;Valentine & Endo, 1992;Zhang et al, 2023). In a task to classify morphed faces that contained different proportions of pixels of parent White or Black face pictures, non-Black adults (mainly White and Asian) showed a psychophysical threshold less than 50% for seeing a mixed-race face as Black (Krosch & Amodio, 2014).…”

“…Another line of neuroimaging research examined neural coding of intragroup similarities during perception of same-race and other-race faces using a repetition suppression paradigm (Zhang & Han, 2021;Zhang et al, 2023;Zhou et al, 2020). In this paradigm participants viewed faces of only one racial category in a repetition condition or faces of two racial categories in an alternating condition.…”

“…The neural processing of intraracial similarity of different individual faces of the same racial group was assessed by quantifying repetition suppression of brain activities in response to same-race or other-race faces in the repetition (vs. alternating) condition. By recording ERPs to face stimuli, it was found that, while Chinese participants showed significant repetition suppression of the P2 amplitude in response to White faces, White participants exhibited significant repetition suppression of the P2 amplitude in response to Asian faces (Zhang et al, 2023;Zhou et al, 2020). Similar stimuli and paradigms used in fMRI experiments unraveled repetition suppression of neural responses to other-race faces in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), posterior cingulate, and left frontal cortex whereas repetition suppression of neural responses to same-race faces occurred in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) (Zhou et al, 2020).…”