Posing while black: The impact of race and expansive poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations.

A large literature on nonverbal behavior demonstrates that information from body cues can inform our impressions of others. This work, however, has largely focused on perceptions of White targets. The current experiments extend this research by investigating the impact of body poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations for both White and Black targets. In four studies, participants were presented with images of White and Black targets with expansive and constrictive poses. Not surprisingly, Experiment 1 revealed that expansive relative to constrictive poses increased perceptions of dominance for targets of both races. Furthermore, for White and Black targets, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of competence. For Black but not White targets, however, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of aggression. Three additional experiments examined the influence of poses on evaluations in professional and interpersonal contexts. Experiment 2 indicated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to greater expectations of professional success for White than Black targets. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to a greater willingness to interact in an interpersonal setting with White but not Black targets. Attributions of aggression related to expansive poses by Black targets reduced the likelihood that they were chosen as interaction partners. The implications of these findings for understanding body perception and race relations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

He said what? Physiological and cognitive responses to imagining and witnessing outgroup racism.

Responses to outgroup racism can have serious implications for the perpetuation of bias, yet research examining this process is rare. The present research investigated self-reported, physiological, and cognitive responses among "experiencers" who witnessed and "forecasters" who imagined a racist comment targeting an outgroup member. Although previous research indicates that experiencers self-reported less distress and chose a racist partner more often than forecasters, the present results explored the possibility that experiencers may actually be distressed in such situation but regulate their initial affective reactions. The results from Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants in both roles showed (a) no activation of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal stress axis (decreased cortisol) and (b) activation of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system (increased skin conductance). However, experiencers but not forecasters displayed a physiological profile indicative of an orienting response (decreased heart rate and increased skin conductance) rather than a defensive response (increased heart rate and increased skin conductance). Furthermore, the results from Experiment 2 provided additional evidence that experiencers are not distressed or regulating their emotional responses. In particular, experiencers showed less cognitive impairment on a Stroop task than forecasters. Together these findings indicate that when people actually encounter outgroup bias, they respond with apathy and do not censure the racist. (PsycINFO Database Record

Mispredicting affective and behavioral responses to racism.

Contemporary race relations are marked by an apparent paradox: Overt prejudice is strongly condemned, yet acts of blatant racism still frequently occur. We propose that one reason for this inconsistency is that people misunderstand how they would feel and behave after witnessing racism. The present research demonstrates that although people predicted that they would be very upset by a racist act, when people actually experienced this event they showed relatively little emotional distress. Furthermore, people overestimated the degree to which a racist comment would provoke social rejection of the racist. These findings suggest that racism may persevere in part because people who anticipate feeling upset and believe that they will take action may actually respond with indifference when faced with an act of racism.