Cross-race effect

The cross-race effect (sometimes called cross-race bias, other-race bias or own-race bias) is the tendency for people of one race to have difficulty recognizing and processing faces and facial expressions of members of a race or ethnic group other than their own.

In social psychology, the cross-race effect is described as the "ingroup advantage". In other fields, the effect can be seen as a specific form of the "ingroup advantage", since it is only applied in interracial or inter-ethnic situations, whereas "ingroup advantage” can refer to mono-ethnic situations as well.

Deeper study of the cross-race effect has also demonstrated two types of processing for the recognition of faces: featural and holistic. It has been found that holistic processing (which occurs beyond individual parts of the face) is more commonly used in same-race situations, but there is an experience effect, which means that as a person gains more experience with those of a particular race, he or she will begin to use more holistic processing. Featural processing is much more commonly used with an unfamiliar stimulus or face.

History
The first research on the cross-race effect was published in 1914. It stated that humans tend to perceive people of other races than themselves to all look alike. All else being equal, individuals of a given race are distinguishable from each other in proportion to their familiarity or contact with the race as a whole. Thus, to the uninitiated Caucasian, all Asian people look alike, while to Asian people, all Caucasian people look alike. This does not hold true when people of different races familiarize themselves with races different from their own.

Ingroup Advantage
Cross-race effect has a strong connection with the ingroup advantage phenomenon. With ingroup advantage, people evaluate and judge members of their own self-defined group as being better and fairer than members of other groups (outgroup disadvantage). Social psychologists have demonstrated in the last 30 years that even the smallest aspect of differentiation, like preference for flavor of ice cream or style of music, can trigger ingroup advantage. If the group-building factor is a person's race, then cross-race effect appears. The favoritism of ingroup members also results from the decreased inborn motivation to read the face of a person of another group or culture. Hess, Senecal & Kirouac showed in 1996 that the motivation to decode the emotional facial expression instantly decreased when the experimental subject realized that the face belonged to a person of another race.

Cross-Race Effect and Emotion Recognition
A meta-analysis of several studies about emotion recognition in facial expressions revealed that people could recognize and interpret the emotional facial expression of a person of their own race faster and better than of a person of another race. These findings apply to all races in the same way. Some studies show that other races, compared to one’s own race, have differently shaped faces and different details within a facial expression, making it difficult for members of other races to decode emotional expressions. However, studies have shown that the mood of the observer does not affect the cross-race effect.

Social Cognition
Research has shown that people tend to think more categorically about outgroup members and more individually about ingroup members. For example, outgroup members may associate specific facial features with a particular race or ethnicity, and do not notice the subtle variations in skin tone, eye color, or hair texture that ingroup members recognize. Categorical thinking happens more consistently for outgroup participants while individuation does the exact opposite. These different views between outgroup and ingroup members have been known to bias conceptual cognitive processes and show that the cross-race effect actually has less to do with race than with different levels of cognitive processing that occur for ingroup and outgroup members.

Cognitive Disregard
Another set of cognitive theories related to cross-race effect focuses on how social categorizaion and individuation biases face memory. Some researchers believe that the inability for ingroup members’ to recognize differences in the features of outgroup members can be explained through cognitive disregard. They find that the likelihood of falsely identifying a member of an out-group stems from an automatic encoding of a face without processing its unique features. Thus, when presented with an out-group member who has a similar face to the one that was encoded, the in-group member automatically, but incorrectly determines that the face has been “seen” before. These studies conclude that diminishing the cross race effect requires individuals to process ethnically-differing faces with the goal of encoding with individuation.

Depth of Processing Hypothesis
Depth of processing also influences the presence of the cross race effect. Same-race faces are more correctly and easily discerned because deep processing, than other-race faces are. This hypothesis, however, is controversial because of its inability to be replicated within studies.

Challenges for Social Cognition Models
There are two challenges to the social cognition models (a) mixed evidence dealing with race accessibility, face perception, and memory and (b) the effects of development and training on the cross-race effect. Regarding the mixed evidence, the popular belief is that the more someone is exposed to people of different races the less likely they will be affected by the cross-race effect. There have been studies that support this theory, but other research has shown mixed results. For example, the results of studies done where the accessibility, as in how easy or not it is for a person to be around people of difference races, to different races is manipulated, showed that this does not always affect face memory. Second regarding the development and training effects, just because someone shows improvement with dealing with the cross-race effect due to exposure to cross race training or experience, it is not a direct prediction of a good social cognitive model. For the social cognitive model to start explaining such effects there would have to be evidence that ingroup and outgroup distinctions occur developmentally at the exact time the cross-race effect emerges in a child. There is some evidence showing when the cross-race effect first emerges, but there is little research directly testing the onset of ingroup and outgroup recognition biases in young children.

Perceptual Expertise Hypothesis
The perceptual expertise hypothesis suggests that people recognize emotions in people of the same race with greater accuracy because individuals tend to gather as friends and spend more time with people of the same race than people of a different race. With greater exposure comes greater expertise and ability to identify emotions of people in the same racial group.

Elfenbein and Ambady’s meta-analysis from the year 2002 uses the term "cultural emotional learning" to refer to this perceptual expertise hypothesis. The authors suggest that the more time spent with members of different races, the more familiar one is with different races, and the more cross-race effect is diminished. Important factors of the learning process are the duration and frequency of exposure and the motivation of the trainee. The brain automatically learns to process the information better and more accurately.

Similarly, one may point to a study by Paul Ekman, who is more known for his studies on microexpressions. Ekman und Friesen observed in 1976 that only contact with a foreign race raises the recognition rate of facial expressions. They showed pictures of white Americans to a tribe in New Guinea. The Americans either smiled, looked sad or looked angry. The members of the tribe who had been exposed to foreigners before could read the emotions in the American faces much better than those who had not.

The perceptual expertise theory also suggest that if we identify the perceptual learning mechanisms that control perceptual expertise with face and non-face stimuli we will understand the cross-race effect. There are many models that deal with perceptual expertise, but all of these models share the idea that a human’s face processing ability does not generalize equally to all faces. Hence, these theories propose that racial segregation results in people developing better expertise in distinguishing between faces of our own race or of a different race. Research around these theories also suggests that the more a child is exposed to cross-race face processing the lower the cross-race effect. However, if the child is not exposed to a lot of cross-race face processing the cross-race effect can increase. Furthermore, there is evidence that long term and short term exposure to cross-race face processing can improve recognition.

Challenges for Perceptual Expertise Models
Challenges to the perceptual expertise models are the mixed evidence for the interracial contact hypothesis, and the varied results of the training effect. The mixed evidence shows that although there is some support to the theory that the more interracial contact a person has the, the better a person is at cross-race recognition, all the evidence gathered does not come to the same conclusion. This mixture of results causes the relationship between cross-race exposure and recognition ability to weaken. However, there may also be a third factor that contributes to these inconsistent findings. There is some evidence that the quality of cross-race contact has an effect on this relationship. For example, research supports the position that to be able to recognize cross-race faces one has to be attentive and effortful when encoding the face into memory. Training individuals has been shown to reduce the cross race effect in people, however this quick onset is coupled with a quick off set of the ability. Although, this short term training can translate into long term training, it is not the same as actually having real life experience with the cross-race effect. Finally, there are also other processes besides perceptual expertise that can influence cross-race recognition.

Effects of social cognition
Another reason the cross-race-effect may occur is that perceptions are often affected by motivations, expectations, and social cognition. Overall, the creation of norms has shaped and biased even simple perceptions such as line lengths. In terms of perception of faces, studies have shown that racially ambiguous faces that have been identified as one race or another based on their hairstyle are identified as having more features of the racial category represented by the hairstyle. Similarly, faces of an ambiguous but equal shade are interpreted as darker or lighter when accompanied by the label of either "black" or "white", respectively.

Prototypes
Individuals develop and store a face prototype each time they encounter a face unique to ones he or she has previously encountered (usually ones that differ in features compared to his or her ethnic group). From their studies, researchers have concluded that when an individual belonging to an ethnicity that differs from his or her own, he or she forms a prototype and reserves it for future use, if and when necessary. The prototype view raises concern, however, because individuals storing these unique faces may ignore the fact that everyone has features that may be only special to his or her makeup, and may not apply to everyone belonging to that particular ethnic group or race; thus, this results in more false alarms during eyewitness testimony or identifying perpetrators in lineups.

Race-Feature Theory
In his 1996 study, researchers noticed that when looking at ethnicity, in-group faces are processed without acknowledgement of ethnic-specific details and features. People code faces that deviate from the norm of their ethnic group through the absence or presence of distinctive ethnic features.

Contact Hypothesis Theory
One method researchers have suggested to help mollify the prevelence of the cross race effect is through application of the contact hypothesis. Accurate recognition and identification of other-race faces, researchers have deduced, stems from a difference in learning experiences that relate to individual ethnic groups. The cross race effect can be reduced by continual exposure ethnic groups that differ from one's own; the more positive interactions that occur between two ethnic groups, the more heterogenious the ethnicities will seem to be. The type of contact experienced between the two ethnic groups also plays a major role in this hypothesis' effectiveness; the more intimate the contact, the higher the chances become of accurately recognizing a member of a different ethnicity than one’s own

The Cross Race Effect Across Ethnic Groups
Although most studies done about the cross race effect are with black and white participants, there are also numerous studies done with people of different ethnic backgrounds. For example, there are studies done that compare Hispanic with black and white participants, black with white and Japanese participants, Chinese, with Korean and white participants, Turkish and German participants, and finally a study has been done comparing Arab and Israeli Jews. The data from all of these studies have come to the same conclusion. The cross-race effect is evident among all people of all different races.

Children and Face Identification
With the help of several conducted studies, researchers conclude that the accuracy of eyewitness memory is significantly affected by the ethnic identity of both the suspect and the eye-witness; an individual can more accurately recognize a face belonging his or her race, than an individual whose race differs from that of his or her own. Previous studies have analyzed how the cross race effect affects adults during eyewitness testimony, but fails to realize how eyewitnesses can be both adults AND children. The literature available on this topic is minute and conflicting; some researchers have found a prevalence of the cross-race effect in both white and black children, yet others have reported findings of children possessing the ability to discern other-race faces accurately. In their aim to identify developmental differences, researchers such as Pezdek et al. discovered that children recognize faces belonging to their own-race more effectively than faces belonging to antoher race.

Cross-Race Identification Bias
This effect refers to the decreased ability of people of one race to recognize faces and facial expressions of people of another race. This differs from the cross-race bias because this effect is found mostly during eyewitness identification as well as identification of a suspect in a line-up. In these situations, many people feel as if races other than their own look alike, and they have difficulty distinguishing between members of different ethnic groups. Cross-race identification bias is also known as the misinformation effect, since people are considered to be misinformed about other races, and have difficulty identifying them. In a study dealing with eyewitness testimony, investigators examined forty participants in a racially diverse area of the U.S. Participants watched a video of a property crime being committed, then in the next 24 hours came to pick the suspect out of a photo line-up. Most of the participants in the study either misidentified the suspect or stated the suspect was not in the line-up at all. Correct identification of the suspect occurred more often when the eyewitness and the suspect were of the same race. In another study, 86 convenience store clerks were asked to identify three customers: one white, one black, and one Mexican, all of whom had purchased in the store earlier that day. The clerks tended to identify customers belonging to their own race accurately, but were more likely to make errors when attempting to identify other races members. Meanwhile, another study found that "alcohol intoxication reduces the own-race bias in face recognition."

There has been some disagreement about the consistency of the own race bias, however data gathered from multiple studies does show that the own race bias is consistent. The own race bias occurs in people of all races. Since eyewitness identification can be problematic, researches have started to conduct studies of own race biases using more forensics. This kind of research needs to pay more attention to a target’s distinctive features and level of attractiveness. If a target is very distinction or very attractive, it could reduce the cross race effect because that person would be easier to identify.

Psychological experts all agree that the cross-race effect is a common occurrence during in-court testimony when an eyewitness is trying to remember a person. In order to reduce the cross-race effect there have been multiple changes to how policemen handle eyewitness identification. For example, to reduce the cross-race identification bias Britain has a law that states police must include the suspect in a line up with at least eight other people who share similar characteristics to him or her. This forces the eyewitness to use his or her memory of the suspects features, not the suspect's race, as a form of identification.

Economic
In a globalized world, in which different cultures and races collaborate and negotiate about contracts, licenses, rights and political decisions, one clearly sees the negative impacts of the cross-race effect. Prof. Thomas (Department of Intercultural Communication, Regensburg, Germany) stated that at least 50% of Western-Chinese negotiations fail due to impaired communication. Even signed contracts lead to suboptimal results in 60–70% of the cases. "Trends in Managing Mobility 2007" found that 30% of the failed negotiations could be indirectly traced back to the cross-race effect. Consequences of the cross-race effect include reduced emotional intelligence, negative evaluation of trustworthiness, reduced ability to communicate, lack of empathy and a decreased ability to judge the overall situation of a negotiation.

Ways to reduce Cross-Race Effect
A study was done in which participants were forewarned about cross-race effect and the idea that viewing individuals holistically according to stereotypes does not lead to the correct identification of facial expressions. Instead, participants were encouraged to focus on individual facial features. Results from this study showed that the cross-race effect could be reduced and sometimes even eliminated when participants were wary of it. Therefore, cross-race effect may be a result of people using stereotypes to holistically process faces rather than analytically view individual parts of faces to identify an emotion. This study also shows the effect that education may have in helping society as a whole to reduce the cross-race effect. When individuals are more aware of how they may be falling into the trap of stereotyping, they can make more accurate judgments about others.