Confident but inaccurate: The impact of intergroup anxiety on speed perception and identification of others

Abstract

The present study assessed the impact of intergroup anxiety on speed perception and identification of other-race faces, as well as the confidence of those identifications. White participants rated the perceived speed of Black and White faces moving towards them. Participants then judged whether they had seen faces in the previous task and rated their confidence in said judgment. It was predicted that as intergroup anxiety increased, the slower Black faces would be perceived as moving relative to Whites. Perceiving Black faces as moving slower than White faces was hypothesized to result in more confident, but less accurate, identifications of Black faces. Contrary to predictions, Black faces were perceived as moving faster than Whites. There was no differential accuracy between races, but participants were more confident in their identifications of Whites than Blacks.