Diminishing the other-race effect: An investigation into creating better cross-cultural facial recognition using social-categorization
Abstract
This study investigated social-categorization as means to diminish the other-race effect, the finding that faces of a different race are not recognized as accurately as own-race faces. Social categories of in-group and out-group were established by randomly placing participants into one of two imaginary personality groups, red or green. The participants then completed a face recognition test with Asian and Caucasian faces as the stimuli. The stimuli faces were also categorized as being a part of one of the personality groups. The results found that Asian faces were recognized with greater accuracy than Caucasian faces. Also, stimuli on red backgrounds were recognized with greater accuracy than stimuli on green backgrounds. Possible reasons and implications for these findings are further discussed.