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Inter‐racial contact and the own‐race bias for face recognition in South Africa and England
Author(s) -
Wright Daniel B.,
Boyd Catherine E.,
Tredoux Colin G.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.898
Subject(s) - race (biology) , white (mutation) , psychology , racial bias , face (sociological concept) , social psychology , identification (biology) , black male , gender studies , sociology , social science , biochemistry , chemistry , botany , biology , gene
Own‐race bias, where people are more accurate recognizing faces of people from their own race than other races, can lead to misidentification and, in some cases, innocent people being convicted. This bias was explored in South Africa and England, using Black and White participants. People were shown several photographs of Black and White faces and were later asked if they had seen these faces (and several fillers). In addition, participants were given a questionnaire about inter‐racial contact. Cross‐race identification accuracy for Black participants was positively correlated with self‐reported inter‐racial contact. The confidence–accuracy relationship was strongest when making own‐race judgements. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.