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Research Article

Political partisanship influences perception of biracial candidates' skin tone

Eugene M. Caruso, Nicole L. Mead, and Emily Balcetis
PNAS first published November 23, 2009; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0905362106
Eugene M. Caruso
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  • For correspondence: ecaruso@chicagobooth.edu
Nicole L. Mead
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Emily Balcetis
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  1. Edited by Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved October 13, 2009 (received for review May 14, 2009)

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Abstract

People tend to view members of their own political group more positively than members of a competing political group. In this article, we demonstrate that political partisanship influences people's visual representations of a biracial political candidate's skin tone. In three studies, participants rated the representativeness of photographs of a hypothetical (Study 1) or real (Barack Obama; Studies 2 and 3) biracial political candidate. Unbeknownst to participants, some of the photographs had been altered to make the candidate's skin tone either lighter or darker than it was in the original photograph. Participants whose partisanship matched that of the candidate they were evaluating consistently rated the lightened photographs as more representative of the candidate than the darkened photographs, whereas participants whose partisanship did not match that of the candidate showed the opposite pattern. For evaluations of Barack Obama, the extent to which people rated lightened photographs as representative of him was positively correlated with their stated voting intentions and reported voting behavior in the 2008 Presidential election. This effect persisted when controlling for political ideology and racial attitudes. These results suggest that people's visual representations of others are related to their own preexisting beliefs and to the decisions they make in a consequential context.

  • bias
  • psychology
  • race
  • voting
  • Barack Obama

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ecaruso{at}chicagobooth.edu
  • Author contributions: E.M.C., N.L.M., and E.B. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

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Political partisanship influences perception of biracial candidates' skin tone
Eugene M. Caruso, Nicole L. Mead, Emily Balcetis
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2009, pnas.0905362106; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0905362106

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Political partisanship influences perception of biracial candidates' skin tone
Eugene M. Caruso, Nicole L. Mead, Emily Balcetis
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2009, pnas.0905362106; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0905362106
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