My Best Friend is a Smurf: Assessing Racism through Children\u27s Cartoons

Modern racism, compared to old-fashioned racism, is more implicit due to modern pressures regarding racially sensitivity. Although the notion of being multicultural is positive, the pressure is problematic as it hinders psychologists’ ability to measure self-reported racism. That is, when Caucasian individuals are given measures regarding racial bias, they tend to answer in socially desirable ways in order to appear less racist. However, those socially desirable answers are then used as evidence of their prejudice. The current study is examining the notion that explicit self-report measures are flawed because they initiate stereotype threat. This threat occurs when an individual is reminded of a group stereotype for which they are a member, worries about the stereotype, and ultimately albeit unintentionally fulfills the stereotype. Although, there is one modern test that measures racism subtly (i.e., Implicit Association Test; IAT), it is controversial, complicated to use, and many argue that it doesn\u27t measure racism as much as a strength of associations. Thus, the search continues. In attempts to locate the specific problem, and ultimately create a new, easy, and valid measure of modern racism, this experiment will examine participants’ reactions to covert vs. overt racism measures. Specifically, participants will be told that they are helping to create a measure for adolescents regarding identification with cartoon characters. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: one evaluating the cartoon as if it is a measure regarding social development, or assessing prejudice among adolescents (i.e., stereotype threat condition). Data is currently being collected