1. Peter Dang Victor Nguyen
Can race be erased?

2. Introduction
Throughout human history, intergroup conflict has focused on categorization between us and them
Humans have been shown to discriminate in favor of their ingroup and against the outgroup
In previous studies, this has held true even when the experimenter assigns temporary groups using trivial measures.

3. Encoding Race a Product of Evolution?
Selection may have favored the cognitive machinery for automatic encoding of an individual’s sex and age, but the same process for race is unlikely to have evolved
Our typical ancestral individual would almost never encounter individuals genetically distinct enough to classify as a different “race”

4. Hypothesis
Hypothesis: Automatic and mandatory encoding of race is a byproduct of adaptations that evolved for an alternative function: detecting coalitions and alliances
Hunter gatherer societies lived in bands and neighboring bands frequently came into contact with each other
Computational machinery designed to detect coalitions should be sensitive to two factors:
Patterns of coordinated action
Cues that predict an individual’s political allegiances
These allegiances were often associated with appearance
Arbitrary cues such as skin color should only pick up significance if they proved predictive validity for coalitional membership

5. Predictions
#1: Race will not be encoded across all social contexts and with equal strength
#2: Shared visual appearance is not necessary for coalition encoding
#3: Arbitrary cues other than racial appearance can be endowed with the same properties as race

6. Predictions (cont…)
#4: Strength of race encoding will diminish by creating a social context where
Race is no longer a valid cue to coalition
There are alternative cues that reliably indicate coalitional affiliation
#5: Sex will be encoded more strongly than race
#6: Encoding of sex will not diminish coalition encoding

7. Methods Memory confusion protocol
Asked to form impressions of individuals
See sequence of sentences paired with photos
Surprise recall task
Uses errors in recall to reveal whether subjects are categorizing target individuals into groups

8. Experiment 1 Each speaker was a young man
Only way to distinguish was through the content of what they said
4 speakers to each coalition
Two Euro-American men
Two African-American men

9. Experiment 2 Identical to Experiment 1
Only difference was whether individuals wore yellow or gray shirts

10. Experiment 3 and 4 Same as experiment as 1 and 2
The African Americans were replaced by White Euro American women

11. Results – By Experiments1:
More within than between coalition errors
Effect size for race found
Effect size for race twice as large as coalition 2:
Significant increase in coalitional effect size
Effect size of race reduced
Effect size of coalition larger than of race

12. Results – By Experiments3:
Effect size of sex very high
Effect size of sex greater than effect size of coalition and race
Effect size of coalition small 4:
Effect size of coalition large

14. Discussion – By Predictions 1, 2, and 3
1: Race is not encoded equally across all social contexts
Effect size of race diminished in exp 2 compared to exp 1
2: Shared appearance ≠ coalition. Coalitional encoding without appearance possible
More within rather than between coalition errors in exp 1
3: Cues other than race can be substituted for coalitional membership
Effect of shirt color in exp 2 larger than in exp 1.

15. Discussion – By Predictions 4, 5, and 6
4: Racial encoding decreases when it is no longer valid and there are better indicators of coalition
Effect size for race diminished in exp 2 compared to exp 1.
5: Sex is encoded more strongly than race
Effect sizes for sex were very high for exps 3 and 5
6: Sex encoding does not affect coalitional encoding
Coalitional effect did not decrease from exp 1 to 3 and from 2 to 4

16. Discussion – Counter-arguments
Race and coalition might be competing as they’re a continuous variable – sex is generally dichotomous.
Separate attention capacities for these
Overwriting of race encoding doesn’t mean we don’t do it naturally. Coalition encoding served an end purpose – we might just be flexible enough to meet our goals and able to suppress something natural.
Early versus late selection
If subjects are able to alter racial encoding so quickly in context of experiment, why is race so prevalent in real life?
Social context overwrite internal cues?