Effects of stereotypical media representations of American Indians on implicit and explicit bias: the power of Pocahontas

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2016-01-01
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Strass, Haley
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David L. Vogel
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Psychology
The Department of Psychology may prepare students with a liberal study, or for work in academia or professional education for law or health-services. Graduates will be able to apply the scientific method to human behavior and mental processes, as well as have ample knowledge of psychological theory and method.
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According to cultivation theory, people learn information about the world from exposure to media and according to social cognitive theory, we learn how to interact with our social environment through observation of others. Together, these provide an explanation for why stereotypical media portrayals might increase biased attitudes. However, no research has examined the connection between media portrayals and biased attitudes for American Inidans, a group who are only represented in .2-.4% of American media (Fryberg, Markus, Oyserman, & Stone, 2008). The purpose of this study is to assess the role of stereotypical media portrayals of American Indians on both explicit and implicit attitudes and examine the potential mediating impact of both motivation to respond without prejudice and awareness of White privilege on these relationships. In this study participants were randomly assigned to watch either a series of videos with stereotypical representations of American Indians or a series of control videos. Measures of explicitly biased attitudes (modern racism and colorblind racial attitudes), implicitly biased attitudes, awareness of White privilege, and motivations to respond without prejudice (both internal and external) were assessed pre and post-test. Results from three separate hierarchical regression analyses suggest that media does impact modern racist attitudes towards American Indians, but not general colorblind racial attitudes nor implicit attitudes towards American Indians. Importantly, this relationship between media portrayals and modern racist attitudes is moderated by one’s awareness of White privilege such that higher awareness of White privilege only led to less endorsement of modern racist attitudes towards American Indians when not presented with stereotypical portrayals of American Indians. There were no differences between those low and high on awareness when stereotypical media portrayals were present. Implications and limitations are discussed.

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Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2016