Study: Black-sounding names seen as more threatening than white-sounding ones

According to a study recently published that deals with racial bias, people who hear black-sounding names are more likely to view the people with those names as more threatening than people who have white-sounding names.

TheGrio Staff

Oct 9, 2015

“I’ve never been so disgusted by my own data,” said lead author Colin Holbrook. “The amount that our study participants assumed based only on a name was remarkable. A character with a black-sounding name was assumed to be physically larger, more prone to aggression, and lower in status than a character with a white-sounding name.”

Participants were asked to read the following: “[NAME] woke up Saturday morning and began his day by brushing his teeth and taking a shower. After eating breakfast, [NAME] watched TV for a while and talked on the phone. Then [NAME] went to a nearby store and bought some groceries. Once he had gotten home, [NAME] received a text message from a friend inviting him to go out later. That night, [NAME] went out to meet his friends at a bar. As he entered the crowded bar, he brushed against the shoulder of a man walking the other direction. The man turned, glared at [NAME], and angrily said “Watch where you’re going, a—hole!”

Afterward, the participants were asked questions about the people who belonged to those names, giving impressions on everything from personality to height and weight.

“In the ‘successful’ scenario, the white and black characters are similarly perceived,” Holbrook explaned. “And when the character is convicted of assault, they again have similar outcomes, no matter their name. But people imagine the neutral black character as similar in size to the white criminal character, and we know that this shift in size is a proxy for how violent and aggressive they implicitly perceive the person to be. It’s quite disturbing.”