We next included participants from all three of our groups in an individual- differences analysis. Figure 9 plots each individual participant's ORE on the CFMT tasks against their amount of lifetime interracial contact. Lines of best fit for the
relationship between these variables are shown separately for the participants in the No Instructions condition (n = 247, comprising n = 89 Eastern-raised Asians, n = 107 Western-raised Caucasians, and n = 52 Western-raised Asians), and for the participants in the Motivation instructions condition (n = 233, comprising n = 88 Eastern-raised Asians, n = 91 Western-raised Caucasians, and n = 54 Western-raised Asians). These lines of best fit support a purely perceptual-experience origin of the ORE: that is, the ORE reduces with increasing contact with other-race people — and eventually reaches zero with very high levels of contact — and it is not the case that motivation
instructions reduce the ORE more at higher levels of contact than at lower levels of contact as predicted by the Categorization-Individuation model (if anything, the slight trend towards an interaction is the opposite way around).
Statistical analysis was conducted via multiple regression, entering as predictors the interracial contact score, the motivation condition, and a motivation condition x contact score interaction term. Results showed a significant reduction in the ORE with increasing interracial contact (β= –.329, p = .020), no main effect of motivation
condition on the ORE (i.e., no overall reduction with motivation instructions, β= –.203,
p = .176), and no interaction between motivation condition and contact (β= .181, p
= .364, i.e., no significant change in motivation effects as other-race contact increases). The reduction in ORE with contact (i.e., negative correlation) was also significant for each instruction condition separately: r(N = 247) = –.242, p < .001 for no instructions,
r(N = 233) = –.171, p = .009 for motivation. These findings are again at odds with any social-motivational explanation of our participants' ORE, including the Categorization- Individuation model proposal that motivation should reduce the ORE at high levels of contact even if not for very low levels. The findings also provide direct statistical support for a perceptual-experience origin (i.e., significant reduction in ORE with increasing other-race contact).
3.7.3 Discussion
Study 5 shows no support for the idea that our lack of motivation-to-individuate effects on the ORE in our Eastern-raised Asians and Western-raised Caucasians (in Studies 1-4) were due to these groups having insufficient contact with the other race. Our new group of Western-raised Asians had very high levels of other-race contact (across their entire life), yet we still found no motivation-to-individuate effect on the ORE. Further, analysis across the extremely wide range of contact levels covered across our entire cohort of participants (all three groups together) found motivation effects were not weaker for low-contact individuals and stronger for high-contact individuals as proposed in the Categorization-Individuation model; this replicates and extends the results of Tullis et al. (2014), who found the same result for Asian vs Caucasian faces across a smaller range of contact levels (indicated in Figure 9). Equally importantly, our results failed to support the prediction of social- motivational approaches that there should have been an ORE in the standard "no
1" 2" 3" 4" 5" 6" O RE $$$ (m em or y" fo r"o w n1 rac e" fac es "" mi nu s "m em or y" fo r"o th er 1r ac e" fac es )" Contact$with$other0race$people$ Condi;on:" No"instruc;on" Mo;va;on" Fit"line"(No"instruc;on)" Fit"line"(Mo;va;on)" ORE$(on$the$CFMT$tasks)$and$interracial$contact$ Our(par+cipants’(contact(covers(full(possible(range((1(to(5.9)( Categoriza;on1 Individua;on"model" predicts"M"should"reduce" ORE"rela;ve"to"N"at"this" end"of"the"scale,"i.e.,"red"
should"be"below"blue."
50" 40" 30" 20" 10" 0" 130" 110" 120" scale(maximum( Range(in(Young(&(Hugenberg(2012(( (2.2(to(4.9)( Range(in(Tullis(et(al(2014((1.1(to(4.6)( scale(( minimum( N=480"
Figure 9. Study 5: scatterplots of each individual participant's ORE on the CFMT tasks against their amount of interracial contact (i.e., rated contact with other-race people on the Hancock and G. Rhodes (2008) Questionnaire, averaged across contact during childhood and as an adult). Lines of best fit for the relationship between these variables are shown separately for the participants in the No Instructions condition and for the participants in the Motivation instructions condition. Note: Range shown for Tullis et al. (2014) is for 99% of their 160 participants (excludes one outlier).
instructions" condition 4. Our Western-raised Asians were unambiguously "other-race"
with respect to Caucasian faces. Moreover, we obtained evidence that Western-raised Asians recognise this fact and do not, for example, fail to recognise that Caucasian faces have different group membership than their own: when given the motivation-to-
individuate instructions, which tell participants to try particularly hard with faces "of a different race to yourself" (not specifically with Caucasian faces), the Western-raised Asians reported increasing their effort specifically for Caucasian faces, indicating that they must have understood the term "other-race" as meaning the Caucasian faces in these experiments.
Regarding whether it might be possible to modify the Categorization-
Individuation model to explain our results, it could perhaps be proposed that, where levels of contact are high (as in our Western-raised Asians), motivation to individuate other-race individuals is automatically high and does not need improving with specific motivation instructions, thus accounting for the lack of ORE in the No Instructions condition. However, this modification would then apparently fail to explain the well- established ORE that White Americans show for African-American faces: regarding level of lifetime exposure, Hugenberg et al. (2007, p 330) say "The White participants in the current experiments are embedded in a social context in which they likely have common exposure to Blacks in both the media and their personal lives". Instead, we argue it is more reasonable to attribute the lack of ORE in our Western-raised Asians to a combination of (a) their high lifetime experience levels with Caucasians, which gives them the basic perceptual ability to be able to avoid an ORE, plus (b) the similar social status of the two groups.
A final point concerns the relationship between the present Study 5 and two previous articles that have found no ORE (de Heering, de Liedekerke, Deboni & Rossion, 2010), or a reversed ORE (i.e., better recognition of the other-race faces, Sangrigoli et al., 2005) in Asian adults who as children had been adopted overseas into Caucasian families in Europe. These studies tested the ORE under standard "no
instructions" conditions (they did not manipulate level of motivation). Our results from this same condition replicate their theoretical conclusions in that we found that Asian individuals with very high lifetime exposure to Caucasians showed excellent memory
4 Readers more familiar with experience-based theories of the ORE might find it counterintuitive that a theory could predict an ORE when levels of own-race and other-race contact are equal (as in our Western-raised Asians); however, social-motivational approaches do in fact make this prediction because their key idea is that the cause of the ORE is
for Caucasian faces (in our study, no ORE for Caucasian faces). Our results also generalise this theoretical conclusion: in the previous studies the children saw very few own-race faces after their adoption, whereas in the present case the Western-raised Asians retained strong exposure to their own race (including their own family members) throughout life.