Opinion

JAN 28, 2014 @ 02:25 PM 32,776

'They All Look Alike': The Other-

Race Eect
Steven Ross Pomeroy, CONTRIBUTOR
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If somebody says, "Well, they all look alike," one might

assume that person to be a closet bigot. But in all likelihood,
he's simply being honest about a well known limitation that
plagues people of all colors: we humans are notoriously poor
at distinguishing between the members of races dierent from
our own.

The Other-Race Eect, as this psychological shortcoming is

called, has been studied for decades. Originally realized
during times of mass immigration, it was rst recognized by
science a century ago. Theories to explain it abound, but two
clearly have an edge. The rst hypothesis goes something like
this: we generally spend more time with people of our own
race and thus gain "perceptual expertise" for the
characteristics of people who look like us. For example, since
Caucasians sport wide variability in hair color, they may grow
accustomed to dierentiating strangers by looking at their
hair. On the other hand, black people show more variability
in skin tone, so they might instinctively use skin tone to tell
others apart.

The second hypothesis states that people think more

categorically about members of other races. Basically, we take
notice that they're dierent from us, but tune out less
noticeable characteristics. "The problem is not that we can't

explained to the American Psychological Association.

Election night crowd, Wellington, 1931 (Photo credit: National Library NZ on The Commons) [+]

Concrete evidence is often hard to come by in psychology, so

it's unlikely that either theory will ever be "proven"
conclusively. We can, however, switch gears and examine a
couple of things that don't factor in to the Other-Race Eect.
First, it's not simply because some races are more
homogenous. Available evidence suggests that humans
belonging to all ethnicities dier in a multitude of ways.

"Cognitive psychologists have pointed to the fact that faces

are not all alike; they dier from each other in terms of
specic features like width, length, size of nose, and color of
eyes," Professor Lawrence White of Beloit College says.

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Second, the Other-Race eect is not necessarily fueled by

racist thinking.

"Studies have found that racial attitudes dont predict

performance in cross-race identication tasks; prejudiced and
non-prejudiced people are equally likely to fall victim to the
other-race eect," White says.

Many might sco at the idea of studying the Other-Race

Eect, but it certainly merits examination. The eect is
ubiquitous, and has real-world, life and death implications.
Take eyewitness testimony, for example. The Other-Race
eect suggests that witnesses of one race would not be very
skilled at identifying suspects of another. Published research
bears this out. In one study, investigators examined 40
participants in a racially diverse area of the United States.
Participants watched a video of a crime being committed,
then, over the following 24 hours, were asked to pick a
suspect out of a photo line-up. The majority of participants
either misidentied the suspect or stated the suspect was not
in the line-up at all. However, correct identication of the
suspect occurred more often when the eyewitness and the
suspect were of the same race.

Is there any way to prevent or minimize the Other-Race

Eect? Absolutely. Recent research points to a sensitive
period in which the eect develops. If infants regularly see
and interact with people of other races before nine months of
age, the Other-Race Eect may never emerge. But for those
who are already inept at distinguishing between people of
other ethnicities, don't fret, there's still hope. According to
University of London psychologist Gizelle Anzures, "The
Other-Race Eect can be prevented, attenuated, and even
reversed given experience with a novel race class.

This article originally appeared on RealClearScience.

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