Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

How diversity in contexts and experiences shape perception and learning across the lifespan.
The field of psychology has a long history of studying how diversity influences various outcomes such as identity development, social behaviors, perceptions, and decision making. However, considering the ways that diversity science research has expanded in recent years, the goal of this special issue is to provide space to highlight work that centers on identifying and testing new pathways from which we learn about diversity broadly defined. Specifically, this set of articles across the November and December 2024 issues stresses the need for us as a field to consider one’s context, one’s social identities or group memberships, and other various individual difference factors that all shape how we experience different forms of diversity across the lifespan (infancy through early adulthood). We also discuss areas of research not reflected through the submissions and push the field to fill those gaps in future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
You can’t dismantle what you don’t recognize: The effect of learning critical Black history in healthcare on perspective-taking.
Black (compared to White) Americans endure worse healthcare and health outcomes, and discrimination perpetuates these disparities. However, many White Americans deny that racial injustice exists. Two studies (N = 1,853 White Americans) tested whether learning Critical Black History (history of injustice) in healthcare increased perspective-taking and its subsequent impact on racism recognition. When participants learned Critical Black History, perspective-taking was positively associated with isolated and systemic racism recognition (Study 1). In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to learn Critical Black History, Celebratory Black History (history of achievement), or a Control lesson. Participants who learned Critical Black History (vs. Celebratory or Control) engaged in higher levels of perspective-taking which, in turn, increased racism recognition/acknowledgment, support for anti-racist healthcare policies, and recognition of systemic contributors to Black–White health disparities; no change in negative stereotype endorsement was observed. These findings suggest learning about racial injustice, coupled with perspective-taking, engenders support for racial equity in healthcare. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Recognizing the beauty in diversity: Exposure to body-positive content on social media broadens women’s concept of ideal body weight.
By depicting an unrealistic share of skinny or toned body types, modern mass media have been found to shift users’ perception of an ideal body toward narrow and often unattainable standards. In response to this, the “#bodypositivity” (BoPo) movement on social media has set out to challenge restrictive body ideals, advocating for more open-minded views toward the human physique. Matching BoPo’s emphasis on diversity, we hypothesized that viewing body-positive online content alters women’s concept of an ideal body to encompass a broader range of body shapes (on a spectrum from skinny to obese). The results of two pre-registered experiments (N₁ = 191; N₂ = 266) support our assumption, connecting BoPo not only to a larger mean ideal body shape but also to a diversification of weight-related standards. We discuss our work as a crucial extension of prior research, noting that the range found in people’s bodily ideals may be (at least) as relevant as their central tendency. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
United States–China differences in cognition and perception across 12 tasks: Replicability, robustness, and within-culture variation.
Cultural differences between the United States and China have been investigated using a broad array of psychological tasks measuring differences between cognition, language, perception, and reasoning. Using online convenience samples of adults, we conducted two large-scale replications of 12 tasks previously reported to show differences between Western and East Asian cultures. Our results showed a heterogeneous pattern of successes and failures: five tasks yielded robust cultural differences, while five showed no difference between cultures, and two showed a small difference in the opposite direction. We observed moderate reliability for all multitrial tasks, but there was little relation between task scores. As in prior work, cross-cultural differences in cognition (in those tasks showing differences) were not strongly related to explicit measures of cultural identity and behavior. All of our tasks, data, and analyses are openly available for reuse, providing a foundation for future studies that seek to establish a robust and replicable science of cross-cultural difference. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Infants’ visual attention to own-race and other-race faces is moderated by experience with people of different races in their daily lives.
Infants sometimes differentially attend to faces of different races, but how this tendency develops across infancy and how it may vary for infants growing up with different exposure to racial diversity remain unclear. The present study examined the role of experiences with racial diversity on infants’ visual attention to different racial groups (specifically own-race vs. other-race groups) in the first year of life via a large-scale study of infants (N = 203; Mage = 6.9 months, range = 3–14 months; 70% White, 8% Asian, 5% Black, 12% multiracial, 4% unreported; 14% Hispanic, 86% non-Hispanic) from across the United States. We tested the role of two forms of racial diversity: that of infants’ social networks (reported by parents) and that of infants’ neighborhoods (obtained from U.S. Census data). Regardless of age, infants looked longer at other-race faces than own-race faces, but this tendency was moderated by the racial diversity of infants’ social networks. Infants with more diverse networks looked equivalently long at own-race and other-race faces, whereas those with less diverse networks looked longer at other-race faces. In contrast, infants’ looking behavior was not moderated by the diversity of their neighborhoods. Together, our research suggests that exposure to racial diversity in infants’ immediate social networks predicts how infants look to faces of different races, illustrating the context-dependent nature of the development of infants’ attention to race. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Expectations of intergroup empathy bias emerge by early childhood.
Across two preregistered studies with children (3–12-year-olds; N = 356) and adults (N = 262) from the United States, we find robust expectations for intergroup empathic biases. Participants predicted that people would feel better about ingroup fortunes than outgroup fortunes and worse about ingroup misfortunes than outgroup misfortunes. Expectations of empathic bias were stronger when there was animosity and weaker when there was fondness between groups. The largest developmental differences emerged in participants’ expectations about how others feel about outgroup misfortunes, particularly when there was intergroup animosity. Whereas young children (3–5-year-olds) generally expected people to feel empathy for the outgroup (regardless of the relationship between the groups), older children (9–12-year-olds) and adults expected Schadenfreude (feeling good when an outgroup experiences a misfortune) when the groups disliked one another. Overall, expectations of empathic biases emerge early but may be weaker when there are positive intergroup relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Contextual influences on individual targets’ perceived contributions to group diversity.
Many organizations want to achieve diversity, yet who “counts” as contributing to diversity is malleable. Across four experiments, we explore how contextual influences shape perceptions of diversity, including what happens when information at different contextual levels conflicts. In Study 1 (N = 160) and Study 2 (N = 69, preregistered), we find that when participants believe White women, White men, and Black men to be overrepresented in a profession at the national level, individuals with those identities are rated as contributing less to the diversity of a group of workers within that profession. In Study 3 (N = 164), participants were asked to make diversity judgments within the same profession (American elementary school teachers), but the composition of the target group under evaluation was either White female-dominated (aligned with the profession) or White male-dominated (diverged from the profession). Presenting the group as White male-dominated (compared to White female-dominated) increased perceptions of White women’s contributions to diversity and decreased perceptions of White men’s, and men of color’s, contributions to diversity. In Study 4 (N = 216, preregistered), we attempted to call participants’ attention to representation at a single level only (i.e., national vs. target group), when representation information conflicted across levels. However, perceived contributions to diversity did not shift based on experimental conditions. It appears that Americans’ judgments of who increases a group’s diversity can be affected by representation at multiple levels, although it may be difficult for perceivers to prioritize one contextual level only when such information conflicts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
A near-mint view toward integration: Are adolescents more inclusive than adults?
The increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of contemporary societies has raised the importance of integration policies for people with a migrant background. Tools like the Migrant Integration Policy Index have been developed to evaluate different countries’ integration approaches. If, on the one hand, focusing on what governments are doing to promote integration is necessary, on the other hand, it is of utmost importance to consider individuals’ attitudes toward these policies. Study 1: A pilot study with 356 adolescents (41.1% female, 58.9% male; Mage = 15.38) and 200 adults (69% female, 31% male; Mage = 47.43) was conducted to test the psychometric proprieties of the Attitudes Toward Migrant Integration Policies scale. Study 2: A total of 1,156 adolescents (51.6% female, 48.4% male; Mage = 15.69), 1,288 parents (56.9% mothers, 43.1% fathers; Mage = 49.39), and 284 teachers (68.3% female, 31.7% male; Mage = 45.55) were involved in a study to evaluate how attitudes toward integration policies differ within generations (e.g., ethnic majority and minority groups), within families (e.g., adolescents vs. their fathers), and across generational groups (i.e., adolescents, parents, and teachers). Latent mean comparisons indicated that attitudes toward integration policies varied significantly across sex (for adolescents and parents), ethnic background (parents only), and school track (adolescents) groups. Regarding differences within family dyads, adolescents reported more positive attitudes toward integration policies than their fathers and mothers. Finally, teachers showed more positive attitudes compared to adolescents and their parents. Overall, this study highlights nuanced intergenerational differences, with adolescents standing in between the different positions of their parents and teachers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Can I see myself there? How Black potential applicants use diversity cues to learn about graduate program climate.
In academia, showcasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) values has become increasingly prominent in efforts to recruit students and faculty with marginalized identities, yet little work has examined the empirical effects that such DEI practices and identity safety cues have on the perceptions of these institutions. In the present study, we examine the contextual factors that shape how Black science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students learn and draw inferences about diversity and cultural climate in the graduate programs to which they consider applying. A sample of 217 Black participants with background in a STEM discipline viewed a mock academic department website which presented varied combinations of expressed diversity cues (diversity vs. neutral mission statement) and/or evidence-based diversity cues (racially diverse vs. all-White faculty). Participants reported perceptions of the department’s DEI culture, their own perceived fit within the program, and belief of future personal success within that institution. Results indicated a significant main effect of evidence-based cue, in the form of faculty diversity, on all examined outcomes, with Black participants more positively assessing a program exhibiting this cue. An expressed cue, in the form of diversity statement, did not have significant effects. These results indicate that in higher education, as in other settings, evidence-based cues may be more effective means to cue identity safety. This study provides a foundation for future research to help guide efforts of academic programs seeking to create a welcoming and supportive climate for all potential applicants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Attributions to discrimination in multiracial contexts: Isolating the effect of target group membership.
Historically, psychological models of how people make judgments of discrimination have relied on a binary conceptualization of intergroup relations, making it unclear how people make judgments of discrimination in diverse, multigroup contexts. We propose that groups can vary in the extent to which they fit the prototype for targets of discrimination and that this variation influences judgments of discrimination in ambiguous circumstances. The present research examined attributions to discrimination when job applicants are rejected for a white-collar position. People consistently made more attributions to discrimination (ATDs) when managers rejected Black American as compared to Asian American job applicants, and when managers rejected Asian American as compared to White American job applicants. People also made more ATDs for rejected Black American as compared to Latino American applicants, but ATDs were similar for Latino and Asian American applicants. Overall, similar patterns were observed in majority White American samples and a Black/African American sample; only an Asian American sample did not make more ATDs for rejected Black than Asian American applicants. Six experiments (N = 2,321) found strong support for the relative fit hypothesis and suggest that, in a white-collar employment context, White Americans are a distant fit to the prototype for targets of discrimination, Asian and Latino Americans are an intermediate fit, and Black Americans are a close fit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Too old to be a diversity hire: Choice bundling shown to increase gender-diverse hiring decisions fails to increase age diversity.
Past research has shown that people are more likely to make the decision to hire candidates whose gender would increase group diversity when making multiple hiring choices in a bundle (i.e., when selecting multiple team members simultaneously) compared to making choices in isolation (i.e., when selecting a single team member). However, it is unclear if this bundling effect extends to age diversity and the selection of older candidates, as older workers are often the target of socially acceptable negative stereotypes and bias in recruitment, leaving them unemployed for longer than their younger counterparts. Across five preregistered experiments (total N = 4,096), we tested if the positive effect of bundling on diversity of selections extends to older candidates in hiring decisions. We found evidence of bias against older job candidates in hiring decisions but found inconsistent effects of choice bundling on the selection of older candidates across experiments. An effect of bundling was found in two of five experiments, with no meta-analytic effect found across the five studies. Making older candidates more competitive and introducing a diversity statement aimed at increasing their selection both significantly increased older candidate selections, but failed to activate the bundling effect. We discuss the theoretical implications for choice bundling interventions and for age as a diversity characteristic to support the design of interventions that meet the challenges of an aging workforce. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Impact of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles on perceived trustworthiness of Black and White faces: A Black perspective.
In five experiments, we investigated how Black participants perceive Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles on Black and White targets. Results consistently demonstrated that when assessing happiness, faces with Duchenne compared to non-Duchenne smiles were rated as happier on both Black and White targets. However, when assessing a more socially evaluative dimension, trustworthiness, perceptions of Black and White targets diverged. Whereas White targets with Duchenne compared to non-Duchenne smiles were rated as more trustworthy, ratings of Black targets with Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles did not differ, with both appraised as highly trustworthy. Although the degree to which Black participants identified with their race did not moderate these effects, the perceived genuineness of targets did mediate the relationship. One reason why Duchenne compared to non-Duchenne smiles on White but not Black targets were perceived as more trustworthy is because Duchenne compared to non-Duchenne smiles on White but not Black targets were perceived as more genuine. A final study extended these findings by exploring the impact of target race and smile type on partner choice. In accordance with the results related to trustworthiness ratings, Black participants selected White partners with Duchenne compared to non-Duchenne smiles more often but did not differentiate in their choice of Black partners with Duchenne versus non-Duchenne smiles. These findings underscore the importance of investigating not only diverse targets but also diverse perceivers. Our results suggest that Black perceivers use facial cues differently when rating the trustworthiness of Black and White targets and that these perceptions have important downstream consequences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Does governmental corruption aid or hamper early moral development? Insights from the Dominican Republic and United States contexts.
We tested whether children growing up in the Dominican Republic (D.R.), a context with relatively high governmental corruption levels, would support versus distance themselves from widespread unethical practices like bribery. In Experiment 1 (moral judgments; n = 106), D.R. elementary schoolers and adults evaluated judges who accepted gifts from contestants before or after selecting contest winners and predicted whether bribe-taking judges would be secretive. Like adults, older—but not younger—D.R. elementary schoolers differentially condemned judges who accepted gifts before versus after picking contest winners. Unlike adults, children often predicted that judges would disclose receiving gifts. In Experiment 2 (moral behaviors; n = 44), D.R. elementary schoolers could secretly accept or reject a bribe in exchange for 1st place while judging a drawing contest. All but two children rejected the bribe. Together, these findings stand in contrast with U.S. bribery-related developmental trends (Reyes-Jaquez & Koenig, 2021, 2022) and support this contention: When growing up in a more morally heterogeneous context like the D.R., children eventually assume a critical and differentiated stance toward—and will resist or subvert—some of their culture’s unethical practices. Greater exposure to a wide range of unethical transactions might hinder aspects of bribery-related moral development early on, depending on how these aspects are measured (moral judgment vs. behavior). Nevertheless, over time, such exposure may strengthen children’s capacity to resist unethical cultural practices, indicated by children’s overwhelming rejection of bribes. We discuss the importance of including diverse response modalities (verbal, behavioral) when measuring psychological constructs in non-Western societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The development of social essentialist reasoning in Iran: Insight into biological perception, cultural input, and motivational factors.
People express essentialist beliefs about social categories from an early age, but essentialist beliefs about specific social categories vary over development and in different contexts. Adapting two paradigms used with Western samples to measure social essentialism, we examined the development of essentialist beliefs about seven social categories (gender, race, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and team fan bases) among 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 88) and adults (N = 273) in Iran, a population that is underrepresented in psychology research. Focusing on natural-kind reasoning, we investigated the relative contribution of biological perception of social categories as well as cultural and motivational factors in the development of essentialist beliefs about these categories. Our findings suggest that biological perception of social categories plays a key role and that cultural and motivational factors become more relevant in essentialist reasoning about social categories that are not perceived as biologically marked. The developmental patterns of essentialist reasoning in our study also closely parallel those found in other cultures, namely the United States and Turkey, further suggesting the primary role of biological perception of social categories in natural-kind reasoning about the social world. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Infants and toddlers in the United States with more close relationships have larger vocabularies.
Young children learn language from their caregivers, family members, and friends. However, with few exceptions, contemporary developmental scientists have studied language input and language learning through the lens of the primary caregiver and the nuclear family, rather than the infants’ broader communities. In many communities—and increasingly in the United States—nonnuclear family structures are common, and extended kin, fictive kin, and intergenerational relationships are relied upon for child care. Understanding children’s relationships within kinship networks can allow for more inclusive depictions of children’s social interactions and their language experiences. We drew upon methods used by researchers studying social networks to assess U.S. infants’ and toddlers’ network composition. Results showed that young children with a greater number of close relationships (but not those with larger networks overall) had larger vocabularies, after controlling for age and socioeconomic status. These findings suggest that distributed models of child-rearing are an influential factor in early language growth and call for increased attention to social networks for understanding children’s developmental trajectories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Eliciting cognitive consistency increases acceptance of implicit bias.
Resistance to knowledge about implicit bias jeopardizes the ability to learn, understand, and act to outsmart bias. Across three experiments and five independent samples (N > 3,500), conditions that increase cognitive consistency were created alongside control conditions. In Experiment 1, using a race (Black–White) Implicit Association Test (IAT), cognitive consistency was enhanced when participants evaluated the validity and utility of the test before, rather than after, receiving the test result, leading to greater acceptance of bias. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants either evaluated their performance on a Black–White IAT alone or evaluated their performance on a morally innocuous Insect–Flower IAT prior to a Black–White IAT. Again, resistance to evidence of implicit racial bias was reduced in the latter condition, where the imperative for cognitive consistency was heightened. In all three experiments, creating ordinary conditions to heighten cognitive consistency was associated with increased bias awareness and acceptance and, additionally, with support for actions to minimize its consequence–outcomes critical to achieving effective bias education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Effects of environmental diversity on exploration and learning: The case of bilingualism.
Bilingual environments provide a commonplace example of increased complexity and uncertainty. Learning multiple languages entails mastery of a larger and more variable range of sounds, words, syntactic structures, pragmatic conventions, and more complex mapping of linguistic information to objects in the world. Recent research suggests that bilingual learners demonstrate fundamental variation in how they explore and learn from their environment, which may derive from this increased complexity. In particular, the increased complexity and variability of bilingual environments may broaden the focus of learners’ attention, laying a different attentional foundation for learning. In this review, we introduce a novel framework, with accompanying empirical evidence, for understanding how early learners may adapt to a more complex environment, drawing on bilingualism as an example. Three adaptations, each relevant to the demands of abstracting structure from a complex environment, are introduced. Each adaptation is discussed in the context of empirical evidence attesting to shifts in basic psychological processes in bilingual learners. This evidence converges on the notion that bilingual learners may explore their environment more broadly. Downstream consequences of broader sampling for perception and learning are discussed. Finally, recommendations for future research to expand the scientific narrative on the impact of diverse environments on learning are provided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Sexual orientation as a contextual frame for attractiveness judgments.
Despite strong consensus about the basic features that make someone look objectively attractive, contextual variation may modulate subjective assessments. Here, we investigate how social group membership provides such a context, comparing attractiveness judgments between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) versus straight perceivers, and examining how these attractiveness judgments relate to beliefs about the target person’s sexual orientation. We indeed find that perceivers rate targets as more attractive when they believe the target’s sexual majority/minority status matches their own (Study 1). This association differs according to context, however: Although straight and LGB perceivers evaluate the components of facial attractiveness similarly (Study 2), straight men use attractiveness as a cue to sexual orientation (i.e., deeming unattractive women lesbians; Study 3) whereas LGB perceivers use sexual orientation as a cue to attractiveness (e.g., gay men rate men they believe are gay as more attractive than men they believe are straight; Studies 4 and 5). Thus, LGB identity seems to create a context in which sexual minority perceivers learn to attend to information about sexual diversity that straight perceivers may ignore. These findings highlight how group membership provides a lens for social perception, specifically pointing to how the contextual mindset of partner selection may transmute otherwise objective judgments, such as facial attractiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Learning linguistic diversity: Listeners have race-based linguistic expectations, but only for phonological variation.
In three artificial language experiments, we explored the rate at which adults learned associations between linguistic variation and speaker characteristics. Within each of the experiments, we observed that listeners sociolinguistic learning occurred, regardless of whether the speaker characteristic is social (race and sex/gender) or nonsocial (hat wearing), or whether they heard a phonological or morphological variant. However, we found that listener’s initial expectations of what social properties were predictive of linguistic variation differed, impacting overall performance. First, participants were much more likely to assume that a phonological variant was predicted by a social property than a nonsocial property (Experiment 1). Most interestingly, participants were more likely to privilege speaker race than sex/gender, but only in the case of a phonological variant (Experiments 2 and 3). The same effect was found in both White and Black participants, though White participants were more likely to correctly articulate which speaker characteristic explained the variation, suggesting that sociolinguistic learning hinges on real-world experiences with language and social diversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General - Vol 153, Iss 11