The effect of wearing college apparel on Black men's perceived criminality and perceived risk of being racially profiled by police☆
Author links open overlay panelGabriel Camacho
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Abstract
The current research examines whether a prejudice reduction strategy used by Black college students—signaling a college affiliation—mitigates the perceived risk that a Black man will be seen as a criminal and racially profiled by police. Across four studies, college students of color (study 1:
N = 160; study 2:
N = 203) and Black and White people (study 3A:
N = 205; study 3B:
N = 394) perceived a Black man who displayed a college logo on his hoodie as significantly less likely to be seen as a criminal than when he did not. This remained true when the college logo was from a university that was objectively high in prestige (Princeton University; studies 1–2), moderate in prestige (John Jay College; study 2), or had no preexisting prestige (the fictional Pennbrook University; studies 3A and 3B). While college apparel did not consistently reduce the perceived risk that police would racially profile a Black man, an exploratory moderation analysis found that perceiving racial profiling as stemming more from individual than systemic bias lessened this perceived risk for Black but not White participants (study 3B). College apparel also indirectly predicted a lower likelihood of racial profiling through its effect on perceived criminality across all studies. Together, these results suggest that college apparel is believed to mitigate negative stereotypes associated with Black men; however, the perceived likelihood that police will racially profile a Black man is influenced by both his perceived criminality and lay theories of police bias.
Section snippets
Likelihood of being racially profiled
If wearing college apparel diminishes the perception of a young Black man as a potential criminal in society, it follows that the same individual should also be seen as facing a lower risk of being subjected to racial profiling by the police. That is, it is a common belief among people of color that police officers' treatment of racial minority groups is influenced by negative stereotypes about these racial groups. For example, Black men are significantly more likely than White men to report
The role lay theories of police bias
In the present work, I also explore whether lay theories of police bias—subjective and informal explanations for racial profiling—moderate the effect that signaling a college affiliation has on the perceived risk that a young Black man will be racially profiled by police. Indeed, lay theories are important for understanding the perceived effectiveness of prejudice-reduction strategies (Chaney & Wedell, 2022). Although Black people and members of other minoritized racial groups have been shown
Current research
Taken together, previous work provides compelling evidence for the hypothesis that a young Black man who displays a college logo (a high-status symbol) on his clothing will be perceived as less likely to be seen as a criminal in society and racially profiled by police. In study 1, I examine whether a racially diverse sample of college students perceive a young Black man displaying a college logo on his hoodie as less likely to be perceived as a criminal in society and racially profiled by
Study 1
Study 1 provides an initial test of whether signaling a college affiliation mitigates perceptions that society will associate a young Black man with criminality and reduce the perceived likelihood that he will be racially profiled by police. A racially diverse sample of college students was randomly assigned to rate one of two images of the same young Black man—one wearing a hoodie with no logo and one wearing a hoodie with a college logo—on traits of criminality and his perceived risk of being
Study 2
Study 1 provides initial evidence that signaling a college affiliation via clothing decreases perceptions that a young Black will be viewed by society as a criminal and will be racially profiled by police. However, the Black man displayed one of the most prestigious universities in the U.S. on his hoodie (Princeton University); thus, it is unclear whether a less prestigious college or university would similarly reduce his perceived criminality and perceived risk of being racially profiled. If a
Studies 3A and 3B
In studies 3A and 3B, White and Black people were recruited from a crowdsourcing platform and randomly assigned to rate the image of a young Black man signaling a college affiliation (college affiliation condition) or no college affiliation (no college affiliation condition). To ensure that participants' perceptions of the young Black man could not be influenced by the level of prestige of the university displayed on his hoodie, the college logo that he signaled had no objective preexisting
Internal meta-analysis
Across all studies, I consistently find that a young Black man signaling a college affiliation on his clothing is perceived as significantly less likely to be seen as a criminal in society than when he does not. However, the effect that signaling a college affiliation has on his perceived likelihood of being racially profiled by police has been inconsistent. Thus, I conducted an internal meta-analysis to test the robustness of the effect that signaling a college affiliation, versus not, has on
General discussion
The current studies examined whether a young Black man who signals a college affiliation via his clothing is perceived to be less likely to be seen as a criminal in society and, in turn, perceived as less at risk of being racially profiled by police. Across four studies, a young Black man who displayed a college logo on his hoodie was significantly less likely to be perceived at risk of being seen as a criminal than when he displayed no logo on his hoodie. This remained true when the college
Constraints on generalizability
The current research has several noteworthy limitations and constraints on generalizability (Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017). First, the current work solely focused on perceptions of young Black men because they are the most vulnerable to being stereotyped as criminals (Najdowski et al., 2015; Niemann et al., 1994; Plant et al., 2011) and for being stopped and frisked by police (Meares, 2014). Nonetheless, Black women also contend with negative stereotypes of criminality (Niemann et al., 1994)
Open practices
Material used in each of the experiments is available at:
Measures
