People Are More Likely To Misread A Black Child As Angry When They Believe The Child Is Older

By Emily Reynolds Research has found significant racial biases when judging the emotions of others. Black people are more likely to be misjudged as angry, for example, and recent research has suggested that even children are victims of this “anger bias”. Black children are also frequently subject to “adultification” — being perceived as older and more mature than White peers. A new study explores the links between these two phenomena, finding that the older adults believe Black children to be, the more likely they are to (incorrectly) judge them to be angry too. Writing in Cognition and Emotion, Alison N. Cooke and Amy G. Halberstadt from North Carolina State University argue that such judgements could have serious consequences for Black children. Participants, 152 parents from the US, viewed forty expressions on the faces of children, representing happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, or fear, and had to indicate which emotion they saw (none of children made an angry expression, but participants were able to indicate that the emotion was one of anger). Participants were also shown still images of each of the forty children displaying a neutral expression and asked to indicate the age of the child. While the race of the children did not make a significant difference to their perceived age, participants were more likely to incorrectly judge Black children to be angry, replicating previous research. And the interaction between the rac...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anger Source Type: blogs