Support for harmful treatment and reduction of empathy toward blacks: “Remnants” of stereotype activation involving Hurricane Katrina and “Lil’ Kim”☆

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Abstract

Two experiments involving White participants tested the influence of media-based Black stereotypes on subsequent responses to Black and White persons-in-need. Experiment 1 showed that priming the “Black criminal” stereotype through exposure to photographs of Blacks looting after Hurricane Katrina produced greater application of the criminal stereotype and support for harmful treatment toward Black evacuees-in-need (i.e., police firing gun shots directly over evacuees’ heads) relative to control conditions. Experiment 2 showed that priming the “promiscuous Black female” stereotype through exposure to sexual rap music elicited greater application of the promiscuity stereotype and reduced empathy for a Black pregnant woman-in-need relative to control conditions. The influence of priming Black stereotypes through media exposure on support for harmful treatment and empathic responses was mediated by stereotypical attributions.

Section snippets

Experiment 1: Support for harmful treatment

Historians, social commentators, and social scientists have expressed serious concerns and moral outrage regarding the harmful treatment of Blacks (i.e., treatment that could lead to physical harm or even death) and the support that the White public has often given to this treatment since the earliest periods of American history (e.g., Berlin, 1998), as well as during the Hurricane Katrina crisis (e.g., Horne, 2006). Experiment 1 investigated how exposure to stereotypical media depictions of

Experiment 2: Empathic concern

In Experiment 2, participants were first asked to listen to and recall lyrics from sexual rap, nonsexual rap, or control music featuring Black female artists. In an ostensibly unrelated subsequent study, they read a passage about a Black or White female student who was pregnant and in need of assistance. We predicted that exposure to sexual rap music would lead to greater application of negative Black stereotypes, this time in terms of the situationally relevant dispositional attribution of

General discussion

Previous research has shown that stereotype activation can lead to stereotype application in a number of response domains (Kunda & Spencer, 2003). The present research extends work in this area by showing that stereotype application can also have important interpersonal consequences. In particular, Whites’ exposure to Blacks looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Experiment 1) and to sexual rap music (Experiment 2) elicited more negative attributions which, in turn, led to increased

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    ☆

    We would like to thank Laura Klem and Tamar Saguy for their help with the mediational analyses.

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