Race-based biases in psychological distress and treatment judgments.

Racism creates and sustains mental health disparities between Black and White Americans and the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing harassment directed at Black Americans has exacerbated these inequities. Yet, as the mental health needs of Black Americans rise, there is reason to believe the public paradoxically believes that psychopathology hurts Black individuals less than White individuals and these biased distress judgments affect beliefs about treatment needs. Four studies (two pre-registered) with participants from the American public and the field of mental health support this hypothesis. When presented with identical mental illnesses (e.g., depression, anxiety, schizophrenia), both laypeople and clinicians believed that psychopathology would be less distressing to Black relative to White individuals. These distress biases mediate downstream treatment judgments. Across numerous contexts, racially-biased judgments of psychological distress may negatively affect mental healthcare and social support for Black Americans.

Social Class and Social Pain: Target SES Biases Judgments of Pain and Support for White Target Individuals.

Social pain, defined as distress caused by negative interpersonal experiences (e.g., ostracism, mistreatment), is detrimental to health. Yet, it is unclear how social class might shape judgments of the social pains of low-socioeconomic status (SES) and high-SES individuals. Five studies tested competing toughness and empathy predictions for SES's effect on social pain judgments. Consistent with an empathy account, in all studies (Ncumulative = 1,046), low-SES White targets were judged more sensitive to social pain than high-SES White targets. Further, empathy mediated these effects, such that participants felt greater empathy and expected more social pain for low-SES targets relative to high-SES targets. Social pain judgments also informed judgments of social support needs, as low-SES targets were presumed to need more coping resources to manage hurtful events than high-SES targets. The current findings provide initial evidence that empathic concern for low-SES White individuals sensitizes social pain judgments and increases expected support needs for lower class White individuals.

Black individuals' suspicion of Whites' motives negatively predicts expected efficacy with White social partners.

OBJECTIVES: Interracial efficacy is critical to intergroup interactions. However, the antecedents of interracial efficacy are unclear and rarely studied from the perspectives of Black individuals. The current work addresses these empirical gaps by testing whether individual differences in suspicion of Whites' motives negatively relate to expected efficacy in interracial interactions. Suspicion was operationalized as beliefs that Whites' positivity toward people of color (POC) is primarily motivated by concerns with appearing prejudiced. METHOD: Four studies employing correlational and experimental vignette designs with Black adult participants (Ntotal = 2,295; ∼60% female) tested suspicion's hypothesized negative relation with three conceptions of interracial efficacy (general efficacy, liking-based efficacy, and respect-based efficacy). RESULTS: Four studies provided consistent evidence that suspicion of Whites' motives negatively related to expected efficacy in interactions with White social partners. Moreover, this relationship was unique to contexts with White partners and did not extend to imagined interactions with Black partners or members of other outgroup members (e.g., Latine partners). CONCLUSIONS: Results further suggest suspicion increases expected threat (i.e., anticipated uncertainty/anxiety), which undermines Black individuals' confidence in interactions with White partners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Motives matter: White instructors' external race-based motives undermine trust and belonging for Black college students.

OBJECTIVE: Trust is fundamental to successful educational relationships. Yet, numerous barriers inhibit the development of trust between students of color (SOC) and White instructors. The current research examined a metacognitive obstacle to the development of cross-race classroom trust: Primarily External Race Motives (PERM). PERM was defined as the experience that instructors were more concerned with avoiding the appearance of prejudice than having self-directed egalitarian motives. METHOD: Using within-subjects vignettes (n = 313; 74.8% female), between-subjects cross-sectional designs (n = 386; 70.5% female), and longitudinal methods (n = 135; 45.2% female), the current work tested the primary hypothesis that PERM would undermine instructor trust and classroom belonging. Hypotheses were tested with Black adults (Study 1) and college students (Studies 2 and 3). RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Whether with hypothetical, past, or present White educators, feeling that instructors have primarily external race-based motives undermined instructor trust and classroom belonging. In all studies, the relationship between PERM and classroom belonging was mediated by instructor (mis)trust. The results provide evidence that motives viewed to be primarily external undermine instructional relationships for SOC. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Black Americans' racial socialization experiences and beliefs about White people's interracial motives.

OBJECTIVES: Suspect motives, conceptualized as beliefs that Whites' interracial motives are primarily driven by desires to avoid appearing prejudiced have been found to shape a number of intergroup outcomes for People of Color (POC). However, it is unclear what factors lead individuals to become suspicious of Whites' motives. Two correlational studies tested whether childhood racial socialization experiences relate to suspect motives. METHODS: 223 Black participants (94.2% female; M age = 42.01, SD age = 16.62) recalled childhood racial socialization experiences and completed the Suspicion of Motives Index (SOMI; Study 1). 226 Black parents (80.8% female; M age = 37.39, SD age = 9.17) reported racial socialization strategies and goals for their children to be cognizant of Whites' potentially suspect motives (Study 2). RESULTS: Driven by cultural socialization, racial socialization was significantly related to suspicion (Study 1). Racial socialization predicted parental desires that children recognize Whites' suspect motives and a combined measure of cultural socialization and preparation for bias was most strongly related to parental hopes (Study 2). CONCLUSIONS: These studies link racial socialization and suspicion of Whites' motives. These results suggest that among POC, racial socialization may shape beliefs about Whites' interracial motives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Perfectly imperfect: The use of cognitive bias modification to reduce perfectionism.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic risk and maintenance factor for psychopathology. The current study developed and evaluated a cognitive bias modification, interpretation retraining (CBM-I) intervention targeting maladaptive perfectionistic beliefs. METHODS: Participants were undergraduate students randomized to complete the perfectionism CBM-I (n = 33) or control condition task (n = 36) at two time points. Additionally, participants completed measures of perfectionistic interpretations and trait perfectionism, as well as an impossible anagram task designed to elicit perfectionistic concerns. RESULTS: Results indicated that after the intervention, participants who completed the perfectionism CBM-I endorsed fewer perfectionistic interpretations than participants in the control condition. Furthermore, although the study groups self-reported comparably low confidence in their anagram task performance, participants who completed the perfectionism CBM-I reported wanting to re-do significantly fewer anagrams than participants in the control condition, suggesting greater acceptance of imperfect performance following the intervention. Moreover, supporting a key hypothesized mechanism of effect in CBM-I, reductions in perfectionistic interpretations mediated the effect of condition on the desire to re-do anagram task items. LIMITATIONS: The study results should be viewed in light of limitations, including the short time-span of the study, and the use of a relatively small, non-clinical, and demographically homogenous convenience sample. CONCLUSIONS: Further research and development of the perfectionism CBM-I intervention are needed, but the present findings add to a nascent evidence base that suggests CBM-I holds promise as an accessible and transdiagnostic intervention for perfectionism.

Miami University deception detection database.

In the present work, we introduce the Miami University Deception Detection Database (MU3D), a free resource containing 320 videos of target individuals telling truths and lies. Eighty (20 Black female, 20 Black male, 20 White female, and 20 White male) different targets were recorded speaking honestly and dishonestly about their social relationships. Each target generated four different videos (i.e., positive truth, negative truth, positive lie, negative lie), yielding 320 videos fully crossing target race, target gender, statement valence, and statement veracity. These videos were transcribed by trained research assistants and evaluated by naïve raters. Descriptive analyses of the video characteristics (e.g., length) and subjective ratings (e.g., target attractiveness) are provided. The stimuli and an information codebook can be accessed free of charge for academic research purposes from http://hdl.handle.net/2374.MIA/6067 . The MU3D offers scholars the ability to conduct research using standardized stimuli that can aid in building more comprehensive theories of interpersonal sensitivity, enhance replication among labs, facilitate the use of signal detection analyses, and promote consideration of race, gender, and their interactive effects in deception detection research.

Black and White Lies: Race-Based Biases in Deception Judgments.

In six studies ( N = 605), participants made deception judgments about videos of Black and White targets who told truths and lies about interpersonal relationships. In Studies 1a, 1b, 1c, and 2, White participants judged that Black targets were telling the truth more often than they judged that White targets were telling the truth. This truth bias was predicted by Whites' motivation to respond without prejudice. For Black participants, however, motives to respond without prejudice did not moderate responses (Study 2). In Study 3, we found similar effects with a manipulation of the targets' apparent race. Finally, in Study 4, we used eye-tracking techniques to demonstrate that Whites' truth bias for Black targets is likely the result of late-stage correction processes: Despite ultimately judging that Black targets were telling the truth more often than White targets, Whites were faster to fixate on the on-screen "lie" response box when targets were Black than when targets were White. These systematic race-based biases have important theoretical implications (e.g., for lie detection and improving intergroup communication and relations) and practical implications (e.g., for reducing racial bias in law enforcement).

What Lies Beneath? Minority Group Members' Suspicion of Whites' Egalitarian Motivation Predicts Responses to Whites' Smiles.

Antiprejudice norms and attempts to conceal racial bias have made Whites' positive treatment of racial minorities attributionally ambiguous. Although some minorities believe Whites' positivity is genuine, others are suspicious of Whites' motives and believe their kindness is primarily motivated by desires to avoid appearing prejudiced. For those suspicious of Whites' motives, Whites' smiles may paradoxically function as threat cues. To the extent that Whites' smiles cue threat among suspicious minorities, we hypothesized that suspicious minorities would explicitly perceive Whites' smiles as threatening (Study 1), automatically orient to smiling White-as opposed to smiling Black-targets (Study 2), and accurately discriminate between Whites' real and fake smiles (Study 3). These results provide convergent evidence that cues typically associated with acceptance and affiliation ironically function as threat cues among suspicious racial minorities.

White ≠ Poor: Whites Distance, Derogate, and Deny Low-Status Ingroup Members.

Throughout society, White people of low socioeconomic status (SES) face prejudice, often from racial ingroup members. The present research tested the ingroup distancing effect, which predicts that Whites' negative reactions to low-SES ingroup members are motivated responses to perceived threats to their personal and group-level status. To cope with perceived status threats, White people psychologically and physically distance themselves from low-SES Whites. Four studies provide converging support for this theorizing. Among White participants, low-SES Whites elicited derogation, impaired racial categorization and memory, and inflated perceived personal status. White participants explicitly perceived low-SES Whites as greater status threats than low-SES Blacks, and these perceptions of threat predicted increased discomfort in anticipated social situations with low-SES White targets. Moreover, threatened status led Whites who strongly identified with their racial ingroup to physically distance themselves from a low-SES White partner. This research demonstrates that concerns with status motivate prejudice against ingroup members.

The power within: The experimental manipulation of power interacts with trait BDD symptoms to predict interoceptive accuracy.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study tested whether relatively low levels of interoceptive accuracy (IAcc) are associated with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) symptoms. Additionally, given research indicating that power attunes individuals to their internal states, we sought to determine if state interoceptive accuracy could be improved through an experimental manipulation of power.. METHOD: Undergraduate women (N = 101) completed a baseline measure of interoceptive accuracy and then were randomized to a power or control condition. Participants were primed with power or a neutral control topic and then completed a post-manipulation measure of state IAcc. Trait BDD symptoms were assessed with a self-report measure. RESULTS: Controlling for baseline IAcc, within the control condition, there was a significant inverse relationship between trait BDD symptoms and interoceptive accuracy. Continuing to control for baseline IAcc, within the power condition, there was not a significant relationship between trait BDD symptoms and IAcc, suggesting that power may have attenuated this relationship. At high levels of BDD symptomology, there was also a significant simple effect of experimental condition, such that participants in the power (vs. control) condition had better interoceptive accuracy. These results provide initial evidence that power may positively impact interoceptive accuracy among those with high levels of BDD symptoms.. LIMITATIONS: This cross-sectional study utilized a demographically homogenous sample of women that reflected a broad range of symptoms; thus, although there were a number of participants reporting elevated BDD symptoms, these findings might not generalize to other populations or clinical samples. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides the first direct test of the relationship between trait BDD symptoms and IAcc, and provides preliminary evidence that among those with severe BDD symptoms, power may help connect individuals with their internal states. Future research testing the mechanisms linking BDD symptoms with IAcc, as well as how individuals can better connect with their internal experiences is needed..

Suspicion of Motives Predicts Minorities' Responses to Positive Feedback in Interracial Interactions.

Strong social and legal norms in the United States discourage the overt expression of bias against ethnic and racial minorities, increasing the attributional ambiguity of Whites' positive behavior to ethnic minorities. Minorities who suspect that Whites' positive overtures toward minorities are motivated more by their fear of appearing racist than by egalitarian attitudes may regard positive feedback they receive from Whites as disingenuous. This may lead them to react to such feedback with feelings of uncertainty and threat. Three studies examined how suspicion of motives relates to ethnic minorities' responses to receiving positive feedback from a White peer or same-ethnicity peer (Experiment 1), to receiving feedback from a White peer that was positive or negative (Experiment 2), and to receiving positive feedback from a White peer who did or did not know their ethnicity (Experiment 3). As predicted, the more suspicious Latinas were of Whites' motives for behaving positively toward minorities in general, the more they regarded positive feedback from a White peer who knew their ethnicity as disingenuous and the more they reacted with cardiovascular reactivity characteristic of threat/avoidance, increased feelings of stress, heightened uncertainty, and decreased self-esteem. We discuss the implications for intergroup interactions of perceptions of Whites' motives for nonprejudiced behavior.

Feeling in with the outgroup: outgroup acceptance and the internalization of the motivation to respond without prejudice.

Over 10 years of research has illustrated the benefits of internal motivation to respond without prejudice (IMS) for prejudice regulation and high-quality intergroup contact (see Plant & Devine, 1998). Yet, it is unclear how this motivation develops. The current work tested one route through which feelings of acceptance from outgroup members facilitate the development of IMS. Longitudinally, feeling accepted by outgroup members predicted increases in IMS across a 15-week period (Study 1). Experimental manipulations of outgroup acceptance also increased IMS toward racial outgroups (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, IMS mediated the relationship between outgroup acceptance and participants' increased willingness to pay money to increase opportunities for interracial contact (Study 2). Tests of mediation also demonstrated that feelings of acceptance mediated the effect of outgroup acceptance on internal motivation (Study 3). In addition, this pattern of responses held for members of both high- and low-status racial groups. This research demonstrates one pathway through which the fulfillment of fundamental needs influences motivated intergroup processes.

Minority perceptions of Whites' motives for responding without prejudice: the perceived internal and external motivation to avoid prejudice scales.

Whites' nonprejudiced behavior toward racial/ethnic minorities can be attributionally ambiguous for perceivers, who may wonder whether the behavior was motivated by a genuine internal commitment to egalitarianism or was externally motivated by desires to avoid appearing prejudiced to others. This article reports the development of a scale that measures perceptions of Whites' internal and external motives for avoiding prejudice (Perceived Internal Motivation Scale/Perceived External Motivation Scale [PIMS/PEMS]) and tests of its internal, test-retest, discriminant, convergent, and predictive validity among ethnic minority perceivers. Minorities perceived Whites as having internal and external motives for nonprejudiced behavior that were theoretically consistent with but distinct from established measures of minority-group members' concerns in interracial interactions. Tests of the predictive validity of PIMS/PEMS showed that when a White evaluator praised the mediocre essay of a minority target, minorities who were high PEMS and low PIMS were most likely to regard the feedback as inauthentic and derogate the quality of the essay.

Dispositional anxiety blocks the psychological effects of power.

A growing body of research demonstrates that power promotes a fundamental orientation toward approach and agency. The current studies suggest that this tendency is moderated by dispositional anxiety. In two experiments, high levels of dispositional anxiety blocked the psychological effects of power. Although people low in anxiety responded to a power prime with greater willingness to take risks, those high in anxiety did not (Experiment 1). Similarly, whereas those low in social anxiety responded to power with increased sexual attraction toward a confederate, individuals high in social anxiety failed to show the same effect (Experiment 2). In both studies, the interaction between power and anxiety was statistically mediated by perceptions of reward. Although power enhanced people's perceptions of reward, this effect was eliminated by high levels of dispositional anxiety. This research provides insight into how, and in whom, power promotes approach and agentic behavior.

Selective responses to threat: the roles of race and gender in decisions to shoot.

Extensive work over the past decade has shown that race can bias perceptions and responses to threat. However, the previous work focused almost exclusively on responses to men and overlooked how gender and the interaction of race and gender influence decisions regarding use of force. In the current article, two studies examine the implications of gender (Study 1) and both race and gender (Study 2) for decisions to shoot criminal suspects on a computerized simulation. In Study 1, participants were biased away from shooting White female suspects compared to White male suspects. In Study 2, White participants showed a pronounced bias toward shooting Black men but a bias away from shooting Black women and White ingroup members, providing evidence of a behavioral threat-related response specific to outgroup men stereotypically associated with aggression. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Sexual overperception: power, mating motives, and biases in social judgment.

Results from 4 experiments suggest that power motivates heightened perceptions and expectations of sexual interest from subordinates. Having power over a member of the opposite sex activated sexual concepts that persisted across a temporal delay, indicating the activation of a mating goal (Study 1). Having power increased participants' expectations of sexual interest from a subordinate (Study 2) but only when a mating goal was attainable (i.e., when the subordinate was romantically available; Study 3). In a face-to-face interaction between 2 participants, power heightened perceptions of sexual interest and sexualized behavior among participants with chronically active mating goals (i.e., sexually unrestricted individuals; Study 4). Tests of mediation demonstrated that sexual overperception mediated power's effect on sexually tinged behavior. Through its capacity to induce goal pursuit, power can activate mating goals that sexualize interactions between men and women. This research demonstrates one route through which power might lead to sexual harassment.

Racing to help: racial bias in high emergency helping situations.

The present work explored the influence of emergency severity on racial bias in helping behavior. Three studies placed participants in staged emergencies and measured differences in the speed and quantity of help offered to Black and White victims. Consistent with predictions, as the level of emergency increased, the speed and quality of help White participants offered to Black victims relative to White victims decreased. In line with the authors' predictions based on an integration of aversive racism theory and the arousal: cost-reward perspective on prosocial behavior, severe emergencies with Black victims elicited high levels of aversion from White helpers, and these high levels of aversion were directly related to the slower help offered to Black victims but not to White victims (Study 1). In addition, the bias was related to White individuals' interpretation of the emergency as less severe and themselves as less responsible to help Black victims rather than White victims (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 also illustrated that emergency racial bias is unique to White individuals' responses to Black victims and not evinced by Black helpers.