Cross-breed effect: what it is and how it affects perception

Members of one race often have difficulty distinguishing between members of another.

All Chinese are the same, and blacks, and Latinos, and Indians, and whites! How many times have we heard this stereotypical but ironically so often said, no matter what race you are?

This phenomenon has a name: it is the cross-race effect. It is the bias we show when we see people of another race. It gives us the feeling that they are all the same, even though we are aware that they must differ in some way.

This effect, which is shared across cultures, has been investigated by social psychology and attempts have been made to understand why and how it occurs, as well as to understand its consequences. Let's take a closer look at what it is.

What is the cross-race effect?

The cross-race effect, also called cross-race bias, is the tendency to recognize familiar faces more easily than unfamiliar ones. the tendency to more readily recognize faces that are familiar compared to those that are not so familiar, and is particularly relevant when this familiarity is due to looking at a face of a person of one's own race.It is particularly relevant when this familiarity is due to looking at the face of a person of one's own race.

The first researcher to address this phenomenon was Feingold in 1914, who observed how the average American citizen had difficulty seeing differences between black and Asian people. Basically, he argued that people of another race tend to see people of another race as all the same while people of the same race become, subjectively speaking, more distinguishable from one another.

Attempts have been made to explain what the usefulness of this phenomenon might be. Social psychology has defended the idea that this effect is an endogroup advantage, closely related to discerning differences in the ingroup, that is, seeing members of one's own group as more different in terms of personality, behavior and physique compared to people belonging to an outgroup (exgroup homogeneity effect).

Research on this effect has suggested that behind recognizing faces on the basis of their race there were two types of processing: on the basis of race and on the basis of race. two types of processing: feature-based and whole-face (holistic)..

It has been observed that holistic processing is used more with faces of the same race, but there is an experiential effect, since the person is so used to seeing that type of face that he or she recognizes differences or distinctive features quickly. In contrast, feature-based processing occurs with unfamiliar faces, making a greater cognitive effort trying to find different features, which can be seen as simple nuances or very subtle differences.

Theoretical approaches

Several research studies have tried to understand why people who belong to one race see members of other races as people with virtually the same or very few differences in physical traits.

Endogroup advantage

It has been posited that the cross-race effect may have a strong relationship to endogroup advantage. This type of advantage occurs when members of the same group, be it ethnic, racial, cultural or otherwise, tend to evaluate more beneficially the members belonging to that group and, consequently, to judge more favorably the members belonging to that group. and, consequently, judge less benevolently those belonging to other groups (exogroup disadvantage).

It has been seen, from the field of social psychology, that the slightest aspect that implies a division between people induces this type of advantage and disadvantage.

This differentiating aspect can be something as banal as liking a certain flavor of ice cream, sitting in the front rows of the class at school, or being tall. The cross-race effect appears if the differentiating aspect is race, an aspect that, in itself, is quite striking.

Influence on emotion recognition

It has been shown that people are more efficient at recognizing the emotions of people of the same race than those of faces of other races. This occurs in all races in a more or less equal way.In other words, Asian people tend to see white people as all alike and with little gestural expressiveness in the same way that white people tend to see Asians as not expressive.

Social Cognition

Social psychology has argued that people tend to think more cautiously than white people. tend to think more categorically when we see people who belong to other groups.In other words, we are victims of what is known as the exogroup homogeneity effect.

This effect is what contributes to the formation of stereotypes with respect to aspects such as culture, ethnicity and, of course, race. It is for this reason that, when we see people of other races, even though there may be physical differences between them, such as skin tone, nose size, eye color or hair type, we find it difficult to recognize these subtle differentiating features.

Contact hypothesis

It has been suggested that the cross-race effect is reducible, i.e., to make a person of one race, say white, able to distinguish between people of another, say Asian or black.

This could be achieved by having the person have frequent contact with people of the race to be differentiated; through learning, he or she would be able to quickly identify physical traits that imply inter-individual differences between members of that particular race..

That is, by being in continuous contact with people, in this case, Asians, it is possible to see that, although there are features shared by the vast majority, such as having slanted eyes or a light skin tone, there are other differentiable features, such as the size of the nose, hair color, tone of voice, height...

It is through this strategy that the individual will be able to observe a greater heterogeneity in people of that race.

Consequences

The cross-race effect can have particularly serious consequences in the field of criminology, especially in situations where the victim has to recognize the aggressor.especially in situations where the victim has to recognize his or her aggressor. For example, in situations where a suspect has to be recognized, it is not uncommon to put them side by side while the victim or a witness tries to indicate who was responsible for the crime.

This is especially tricky when the perpetrator was of a different race than the victim. The victim, biased by the effect, may see all the people on the other side of the one-way screen as the same or very similar, and may blame someone who is innocent.

The South Korean national team and the World Cup in Russia

In 2018, the World Cup in Russia was held, and the coach of the South Korean national team, Taeguk Shin Tae-Yong, fed up with the spies of the Swedish team, who were trying to see the strengths and weaknesses of each player, hatched a simple but effective plan: exchange the players' jerseys during training, taking advantage of the fact that the Swedish spies, white and little given to seeing Asian faces, would not notice the deception. Basically, the South Korean coach made a practical application of the cross-breed effect.

The curious thing about this is two things. The first is that until the trainer confessed his curious strategy, no one had noticed the deception.. Whether it was the Swedes or any other Western team, Taeguk Shin Tae-Yong knew that his plan would surely go unnoticed by any white person. Sin embargo, y es aquí donde entramos en el segundo dato curioso, la estrategia no le sirvió para ganar frente al contendiente escandinavo, quedando el partido Suecia-Corea del Sur a 1-0.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Quattrone, G. A.; Jones, E. E. (1980). The perception of variability within in-groups and out-groups: Implications for the law of small numbers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 38 (1): 141–152. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.38.1.141.
• Behrman, Bruce W.; Davey, Sherrie L. (2001). Eyewitness identification in actual criminal cases: An archival analysis. Law and Human Behavior. 25 (5): 475–491. doi:10.1023/a:1012840831846.
• Tanaka, J. W., Kiefer, M., & Bukach, C. M. (2003). A holistic account of the own-race effect in face recognition: evidence from a cross-cultural study. Elsevier
• Feingold, CA (1914). The influence of environment on identification of persons and things. Journal of Criminal Law and Police Science. 5 (1): 39 - 51.