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- Title
Looking like a criminal: Stereotypical black facial features promote face source memory error.
- Authors
Kleider, Heather; Cavrak, Sarah; Knuycky, Leslie
- Abstract
The present studies tested whether African American face type (stereotypical or nonstereotypical) facilitated stereotype-consistent categorization, and whether that categorization influenced memory accuracy and errors. Previous studies have shown that stereotypically Black features are associated with crime and violence (e.g., Blair, Judd, & Chapleau Psychological Science 15:674-679, ; Blair, Judd, & Fallman Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87:763-778, ; Blair, Judd, Sadler, & Jenkins Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83:5-25); here, we extended this finding to investigate whether there is a bias toward remembering and recategorizing stereotypical faces as criminals. Using category labels, consistent (or inconsistent) with race-based expectations, we tested whether face recognition and recategorization were driven by the similarity between a target's facial features and a stereotyped category (i.e., stereotypical Black faces associated with crime/violence). The results revealed that stereotypical faces were associated more often with a stereotype-consistent label (Study 1), were remembered and correctly recategorized as criminals (Studies 2-4), and were miscategorized as criminals when memory failed. These effects occurred regardless of race or gender. Together, these findings suggest that face types have strong category associations that can promote stereotype-motivated recognition errors. Implications for eyewitness accuracy are discussed.
- Subjects
GEORGIA; ANALYSIS of covariance; ANALYSIS of variance; PERSONAL beauty; BLACK people; BODY image; FACE; MEMORY; SCALE analysis (Psychology); SCALES (Weighing instruments); STEREOTYPES; DESCRIPTIVE statistics
- Publication
Memory & Cognition, 2012, Vol 40, Issue 8, p1200
- ISSN
0090-502X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3758/s13421-012-0229-x