Abstract

SILVA, Juraci Maria da. Racial contact, attitude and decision-making in cross-race identification: implications for multiracial societies. Rev. psicol. polít. [online]. 2009, vol.9, n.17, pp.101-111. ISSN 2175-1390.

Different measures of contact had different relationships to discriminability and decisional criteria. Significantly more Blacks mentioned having White Latinos friends than White Latinos mentioned having Black friends. Having friends and “hanging out” with individuals of a different race did not relate to the cognitive capacity to discriminate between faces, but was associated with using a stricter criterion to decide on guilt. Working closely with members of another race did not relate to discriminability or to decisional criterion. Results suggest that same-and cross-race recognition are related to and may depend on the kind of group interaction. This is, in cross-race recognition, the capacity to discriminate between faces is not (necessarily) the best predictor of how decisions are made. Different mechanisms are involved in making a decision, versus simply recognizing a cross-race face, and contact and attitudes likely influence those decisions, having serious implications to multiracial societies.

Keywords : Cross-race eyewitness identification; Decision-making; Attitudes/prejudice; Interracial contact; Race relations.

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