How Specification of Race and Social Class Affects Stereotypes, Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Attitudes, and Behavior

Abstract

Race and social class are inherently confounded in the American society/culture—people stereotypically assume poor Black and rich White when only race is specified. However, much of the social psychological literature focuses on either race or social class during stereotype and attitude assessment. This focus is problematic given that different patterns of responses arise when both categories are specified (e.g., rich Black) rather than when only one of the two categories is reported (e.g., Black). Here I report on two pilot studies and two independent studies to examine the unique and combined effects of race and social class on stereotypes, implicit attitudes, explicit attitudes, and decision-making when stimulus race and/or social class are/is manipulated. In Pilot Study 1, I examined general race only and social class only implicit preferences and found overall pro-White/anti-Black and pro-rich/anti-poor preferences. In Pilot Study 2, I examined implicit associations between race and social class. Results confirmed that participants hold implicit rich-White and/or poor-Black associations. In Study 1a and 1b, I directly examined implicit attitudes, explicit stereotypes, and explicit affective responses when both race and social class are specified. Across all measures, participants had more positive attitudes and stereotypes about rich Blacks than rich Whites, rich Whites than poor Whites, and rich Blacks than poor Blacks. Attitudes and stereotypes about poor Whites compared to poor Blacks were more nuanced and were measure dependent. In Study 2, I investigated how race and social class information influences decision-making in a situation resembling a real world scenario (i.e., academic honor society selection processes). The results of this study suggest that the intersection of race and social class might be nuanced for this type of decision-making task, as only marginally significant effects for race appeared. Participants demonstrated lower criterion for Black than White applicants, suggesting that they are more likely to accept Black than White applicants into the honor society. This effect did not vary by target social class. These findings provide important insight into associations between race and social class, how the intersection of race and social class information affects stereotyping and attitudes, and fluctuations in decision-making when both race and social class of an academic honor society applicant are known. Overall, these results suggest that the intersection of race and social class need to be examined together.