Manipulating subcategory salience: exploring the link between skin tone and social perception of Blacks

Guided by the model of social category salience proposed by M. Blanz (1999), the present paper explores factors affecting the salience of skin tone-based subcategories among Blacks in the United States. Adapting the group discussion paradigm developed by S.E. Taylor and colleagues (1978), Experiment 1 demonstrated that a manipulation of issue relevance enhanced the category salience of skin tone. Participants made more within- than between-category errors when the topic of conversation was related to perceiver's skin tone-based beliefs. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the influence of the issue relevance manipulation was independent of the presence of structural and/or normative fit. Merely discussing the topic of race relations was sufficient to increase encoding and use of skin tone. These studies provide evidence linking skin tone and social beliefs in memory. In addition, they demonstrate support for a category-based perspective in the study of skin tone bias. Additional factors affecting the salience of skin tone are discussed. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.