When Prejudice Does Not Pay: Effects of Interracial Contact on Executive Function

This study examined the influence of interracial interaction on the cognitive functioning of members of a dominant racial group. White participants had a brief interaction with either a White or a Black confederate, and then completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop colornaming test. Prior to the int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2003-05, Vol.14 (3), p.287-290
Main Authors: Richeson, Jennifer A., Shelton, J. Nicole
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
African Americans - psychology
Attention
Black white relations
Cognitive psychology
Color Perception
Discrimination Learning
Effects
European Continental Ancestry Group - psychology
Experimentation
Female
Forecasts
Fraternal organizations
Humans
Implicit association test
Individuals
Male
Observational research
Personality psychology
Prejudice
Prejudices
Problem Solving
Psychological Tests
Psychology
Race Relations
Racial attitudes
Reaction Time
Regulation
Renewable resources
Research Reports
Semantics
Social interaction
Social psychology
Stereotypes
Word Association Tests
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:This study examined the influence of interracial interaction on the cognitive functioning of members of a dominant racial group. White participants had a brief interaction with either a White or a Black confederate, and then completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop colornaming test. Prior to the interaction, participants' racial attitudes regarding Whites and Blacks were measured via the Implicit Association Test. Racial attitudes were predictive of impairment on the Stroop test for individuals who participated in interracial interactions, but not for those who participated in same-race interactions. The results are consistent with recently proposed resource models of self-regulation and executive control in that interracial interaction, a particularly taxing exercise of self-regulation for highly prejudiced individuals, negatively affected performance on a subsequent, yet unrelated, test of executive function.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.03437