The way they look: Phenotypic prototypicality shapes the perceived intergroup attitudes of in- and out-group members

The paper, in plain language

What we think they think

Whether people seek or avoid contact across group lines depends not only on their own attitudes but on the attitudes they assume the other person holds — meta-attitudes. With John Dovidio, April Bailey and Milan Obaidi, I tested whether something as superficial as facial appearance feeds that assumption. In four preregistered experiments, Black and White Americans judged in-group and out-group faces that varied in phenotypic prototypicality — how racially 'typical' they looked, manipulated in later studies by digital morphing.

What we found

People inferred more negative meta-attitudes from more prototypical out-group faces, and were in turn less favourable toward contact — independent of their own personal attitudes. In the first experiment this emerged among Black but not White participants; in later experiments, including one with representative samples, it appeared in both groups, and was strongest among people high in stigma consciousness or with more experience of rejection by the out-group. Remarkably, the pattern extended to prototypical in-group faces too. A final experiment confirmed the mediator causally: assumed attitudes drive contact willingness.

Why it matters

Contact is the best-documented remedy for prejudice, and this work identifies a barrier standing before contact even begins: faces themselves generate expectations of rejection, on both sides of the group line. That barrier is invisible to interventions that only target people's own attitudes — you can hold warm views and still stay away, because of what you assume the other person's face says about you.