When Color Is Reflected in a Janitor’s Outfit - Studied - NYTimes.com: ...According to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Tufts, Stanford and the University of California, Irvine, people judge other people’s race using cues that extend well beyond skin color and facial features. “Looking white” or “looking black” is freighted with cultural perceptions and social prejudice.
The study involved experiments in which participants were asked to determine the race of different faces, which were scaled in 13 skin tones along a spectrum from black to white. In some cases, the person was shown with a business suit on; in others, with a blue-collar janitorial outfit. The question was whether people wearing janitor attire would more likely be viewed as black. The answer: Yes.
Using a mouse-tracking analysis, researchers found that even when users decided a man dressed as a janitor was white, the speed and path in which they moved their mouse to the “white” button was slower and veered closer toward the “black” button than when the same man was dressed in a business suit. The more racially ambiguous the face, the more pronounced the results.
