Doing hair, doing race

The influence of hairstyle on racial perception across the US

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2148241
AutoresJennifer Patrice Sims (0000-0002-7156-9873, University of Alabama in Huntsville, autor de correspondencia), W N L Pirtle (0000-0002-5357-8629, University of California, Merced), Whitney Laster Pirtle, Iris Johnson-Arnold (Tennessee State University)
Año2020
Volumen43
Número12
Páginas2099-2119
Fecha de publicación2020-09-25
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2019.1700296
OpenAlexW2995586706
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas30
Referencias citadas21

Hair is an easily changeable "racial marker" feature. Although growing interdisciplinary research suggests that hairstyle influences how one is racially perceived, extant methodological practices in racial perception research reduce external validity. This study introduces new experimental and analytical procedures to test the effect of hairstyle on racial perception across racial contexts. Over 1,000 participants from primarily white, black and multiracial test sites racially categorized a diverse group of women from matched pairs of pictures in which the women have different hairstyles. Results from multilevel regression show that altering hairstyle significantly alters how participants perceive mixed-race women, Latinas, most black and some white women and that this varies by racial context with perceptions of race being less swayed by hairstyle in the multiracial context. Our research thus demonstrates that doing hair is a context-dependent part of "doing race" that has theoretical, methodological, and legal implications

Context (archaeology · Extant taxon · Geography · Multilevel model · Perception · Race (biology · Racial bias · Sociology · Test (biology · White (mutation · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology