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Real‐life outgroup exposure, self‐reported outgroup contact and the other‐race effect
Author(s) -
Stelter Marleen,
Simon Deja,
Calanchini Jimmy,
Christ Oliver,
Degner Juliane
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/bjop.12600
Subject(s) - outgroup , psychology , race (biology) , ethnic group , social psychology , white (mutation) , developmental psychology , gender studies , sociology , anthropology , chemistry , biochemistry , gene
Abstract People are better at recognizing faces from their own racial or ethnic group compared with faces from other racial or ethnic groups, known as the other‐‘race’ effect (ORE). Several theories of the ORE assume that memory for other‐race faces is impaired because people have less contact with members of other racial or ethnic groups, resulting in lower visual expertise. The present research investigates contact theories of the ORE, using self‐report contact measures and objective measures of potential outgroup exposure (estimated from participants' residential location and from GPS tracking). Across six studies (total N = 2660), we observed that White American and White German participants displayed better memory for White faces compared with Black or Middle Eastern faces, whereas Black American participants displayed similarly equal or better memory for White compared with Black faces. We did not observe any relations between the ORE and objective measures of potential outgroup exposure. Only in Studies 2a and 2b, we observed very small correlations ( r s = −.08 to .06) between 4 out of 30 contact measures and the ORE. We discuss methodological limitations and implications for theories of the ORE.