Steven O Robert
Biographic Data
| ID | 157205 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven O Robert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | O Robert |
| SIGNATURE | ROBERT S O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5337-870X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Dealing With Diversity in Psychology: Science and Ideology
In the spirit of America’s Shakespeare, August Wilson (1997), I have written this article as a testimony to the conditions under which I, and too many others, engage in scholarly discourse. I hope to make clear from the beginning that although the ideas presented here are not entirely my own—as they have been inherited from the minority of scholars who dared and managed to bring the most necessary, unpalatable, and unsettling truths about our dis…
Condemned or valued: Young children evaluate nonconformity based on nonconformists' group orientations
Reducing racial bias in scientific communication: Journal policies and their influence on reporting racial demographics
Research titles with White samples, compared to research titles with samples of color, have been less likely to include the racial identity of the sample. This unequal writing practice has serious ramifications for both the history and future of psychological science, as it solidifies in the permanent scientific record the false notion that research with White samples is more generalizable and valuable than research with samples of color. In the …
Challenging the White = Neutral Framework in Psychology
In the United States, White samples are often portrayed as if their racial identities were inconsequential to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and research findings derived from White samples are often portrayed as if they were generalizable to all humans. We argue that these and other practices are rooted in a “White = neutral” framework (i.e., the conceptualization of White samples as nonracial). First, we review existing data and prese…
Romantic racism: How racial preferences (and beliefs about racial preferences) reinforce hierarchy in U.S. interracial relationships
Collectively, these findings reveal that such beliefs (and preferences) advantage White Americans, such that both Asian and Black Americans believe that they are more attractive to White Americans than to each other, which leads them to be more attracted to White Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Sankofa: Using Topic Models to Review the History of the Journal of Black Psychology
We use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to review the articles published in JBP between 1975 and 2020. Doing so allowed us to estimate where JBP has been, and where it might go. We interpret our work within the framework of “Sankofa,” which is an Akan symbol for the integration of the past and present toward the future. Overall, we identified five major research themes that have characterized JBP over the past four decades: Racial…
Descriptive-to-prescriptive (D2P) reasoning: An early emerging bias to maintain the status quo
Group norms are necessary for navigating the social world, but they also constrain how we think about individuals. This manuscript progresses in three parts, along the way integrating research from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology, as well as the broader social sciences, to present a theoretical perspective on how the tendency to interpret descriptive norms (i.e., what is) as prescriptive (i.e., what should be) is an early emerging…
United we stand? Perceived loyalty of dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents
As multiracial children of foreign-born parents, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama embody diversity in politics for many perceivers. Yet some have also questioned their loyalty to their respective groups. We explored perceptions of dual group members’ (DGM; dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents) loyalty among first-party (those who share a group membership with a DGM target) and third-party perceivers (those who do not). Studi…
The emotional and mental health impact of the murder of George Floyd on the US population
Significance On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed Black American male, was murdered by a White police officer in Minneapolis. Footage of his death was widely shared and caused widespread protests. Using data from Gallup before and after his death, we found an unprecedented level of anger and sadness in the population, particularly among Black Americans. Using US Census data, we found that, compared to White Americans, Black Americans reporte…
Should Individuals Think Like Their Group? A Descriptive-to-Prescriptive Tendency Toward Group-Based Beliefs
Across three pre-registered studies with children (ages 4–9) and adults (N = 303), we examined whether how a group is predicted evaluations of how group members should be (i.e., a descriptive-to-prescriptive tendency), under conditions in which the descriptive group norms entailed beliefs that were fact-based (Study 1), opinion-based (Study 2), and ideology-based (Study 3). Overall, participants tended to disapprove of individuals with beliefs th…
The Roles of Privacy and Trust in Children's Evaluations and Explanations of Digital Tracking
A “digital revolution” has introduced new privacy violations concerning access to information stored on electronic devices. The present two studies assessed how U.S. children ages 5–17 and adults (N = 416; 55% female; 67% white) evaluated those accessing digital information belonging to someone else, either location data (Study 1) or digital photos (Study 2). The trustworthiness of the tracker (Studies 1 and 2) and the privacy of the information …
The souls of Black folk (and the weight of Black ancestry) in U.S. Black Americans’ racial categorization
We theorized that from the perspective of U.S. Black Americans, a connection to Black ancestry-and the historical hardship associated with that ancestry-plays an important role in racial categorization. We found support for this across six studies. In Studies 1-3, participants categorized targets with Black ancestry and White experiences or targets with White ancestry and Black experiences. U.S. Black Americans' (more than non-Black Americans') r…
Beyond Black and White: Conceptualizing and essentializing Black–White identity
Our data shed new light on the complexity of race concepts and essentialism and advance the psychological understanding of Black-White identity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Harnessing the power of group norms to improve children’s intergroup relationships
The Roles of Group Status and Group Membership in the Practice of Hypodescent
Hypodescent emerged in U.S. history to reinforce racial hierarchy. Research suggests that among contemporary U.S. adults, hypodescent continues to shape social perception. Among U.S. children, however, hypodescent is less likely to be endorsed. Here, we tested for hypodescent by introducing U.S. children (ages 4–9) and adults (N = 273) to hierarchically ordered novel groups (one was high status and another was low status) and then to a child who …
Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
Race plays an important role in how people think, develop, and behave. In the current article, we queried more than 26,000 empirical articles published between 1974 and 2018 in top-tier cognitive, developmental, and social psychology journals to document how often psychological research acknowledges this reality and to examine whether people who edit, write, and participate in the research are systematically connected. We note several findings. F…
The psychology of American racism
American racism is alive and well. In this essay, we amass a large body of classic and contemporary research across multiple areas of psychology (e.g., cognitive, developmental, social), as well as the broader social sciences (e.g., sociology, communication studies, public policy), and humanities (e.g., critical race studies, history, philosophy), to outline seven factors that contribute to American racism: (a) Categories, which organize people i…
God as a White man: A psychological barrier to conceptualizing Black people and women as leadership worthy
on May 21 2020 (see record 2020-36018-001). In the article, the phrase Mixed Effects in the table title for Tables 1-3 and Tables 6-8 is incorrect. The corrected phrase should appear instead as Fixed Effects. All versions of this article have been corrected.] In the United States, God is commonly conceptualized as the omnipotent and omniscient entity that created the universe, and as a White man. We questioned whether the extent to which God is c…
Does this Smile Make me Look White? Exploring the Effects of Emotional Expressions on the Categorization of Multiracial Children
Previous research shows that Multiracial adults are categorized as more Black than White (i.e., Black-categorization bias), especially when they have angry facial expressions. The present research examined the extent to which these categorization patterns extended to Multiracial children, with both White and Black participants. Consistent with past research, both White and Black participants categorized Multiracial children as more Black than Whi…
Can White children grow up to be Black? Children’s reasoning about the stability of emotion and race
Recent research questions whether children conceptualize race as stable. We examined participants' beliefs about the relative stability of race and emotion, a temporary feature. Participants were White adults and children ages 5-6 and 9-10 (Study 1) and racial minority children ages 5-6 (Study 2). Participants were presented with target children who were happy or angry and Black or White and were asked to indicate which of 2 adults (a race but no…
Cognitive science and the cultural challenge: Cognitive Science and the cultural challenge
Peer Reviewed
The psychology of American racism
American racism is alive and well. In this essay, we amass a large body of classic and contemporary research across multiple areas of psychology (e.g., cognitive, developmental, social), as well as the broader social sciences (e.g., sociology, communication studies, public policy), and humanities (e.g., critical race studies, history, philosophy), to outline seven factors that contribute to American racism: (a) Categories, which organize people i…
God as a White man: A psychological barrier to conceptualizing Black people and women as leadership worthy
on May 21 2020 (see record 2020-36018-001). In the article, the phrase Mixed Effects in the table title for Tables 1-3 and Tables 6-8 is incorrect. The corrected phrase should appear instead as Fixed Effects. All versions of this article have been corrected.] In the United States, God is commonly conceptualized as the omnipotent and omniscient entity that created the universe, and as a White man. We questioned whether the extent to which God is c…
Romantic racism: How racial preferences (and beliefs about racial preferences) reinforce hierarchy in U.S. interracial relationships
Collectively, these findings reveal that such beliefs (and preferences) advantage White Americans, such that both Asian and Black Americans believe that they are more attractive to White Americans than to each other, which leads them to be more attracted to White Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Can White children grow up to be Black? Children’s reasoning about the stability of emotion and race
Recent research questions whether children conceptualize race as stable. We examined participants' beliefs about the relative stability of race and emotion, a temporary feature. Participants were White adults and children ages 5-6 and 9-10 (Study 1) and racial minority children ages 5-6 (Study 2). Participants were presented with target children who were happy or angry and Black or White and were asked to indicate which of 2 adults (a race but no…
Sankofa: Using Topic Models to Review the History of the Journal of Black Psychology
We use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to review the articles published in JBP between 1975 and 2020. Doing so allowed us to estimate where JBP has been, and where it might go. We interpret our work within the framework of “Sankofa,” which is an Akan symbol for the integration of the past and present toward the future. Overall, we identified five major research themes that have characterized JBP over the past four decades: Racial…
Beyond Black and White: Conceptualizing and essentializing Black–White identity
Our data shed new light on the complexity of race concepts and essentialism and advance the psychological understanding of Black-White identity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
United we stand? Perceived loyalty of dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents
As multiracial children of foreign-born parents, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama embody diversity in politics for many perceivers. Yet some have also questioned their loyalty to their respective groups. We explored perceptions of dual group members’ (DGM; dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents) loyalty among first-party (those who share a group membership with a DGM target) and third-party perceivers (those who do not). Studi…
Cognitive science and the cultural challenge: Cognitive Science and the cultural challenge
Peer Reviewed
Can White children grow up to be Black? Children’s reasoning about the stability of emotion and race
Recent research questions whether children conceptualize race as stable. We examined participants' beliefs about the relative stability of race and emotion, a temporary feature. Participants were White adults and children ages 5-6 and 9-10 (Study 1) and racial minority children ages 5-6 (Study 2). Participants were presented with target children who were happy or angry and Black or White and were asked to indicate which of 2 adults (a race but no…
Does this Smile Make me Look White? Exploring the Effects of Emotional Expressions on the Categorization of Multiracial Children
Previous research shows that Multiracial adults are categorized as more Black than White (i.e., Black-categorization bias), especially when they have angry facial expressions. The present research examined the extent to which these categorization patterns extended to Multiracial children, with both White and Black participants. Consistent with past research, both White and Black participants categorized Multiracial children as more Black than Whi…
The Roles of Group Status and Group Membership in the Practice of Hypodescent
Hypodescent emerged in U.S. history to reinforce racial hierarchy. Research suggests that among contemporary U.S. adults, hypodescent continues to shape social perception. Among U.S. children, however, hypodescent is less likely to be endorsed. Here, we tested for hypodescent by introducing U.S. children (ages 4–9) and adults (N = 273) to hierarchically ordered novel groups (one was high status and another was low status) and then to a child who …
Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
Race plays an important role in how people think, develop, and behave. In the current article, we queried more than 26,000 empirical articles published between 1974 and 2018 in top-tier cognitive, developmental, and social psychology journals to document how often psychological research acknowledges this reality and to examine whether people who edit, write, and participate in the research are systematically connected. We note several findings. F…
The psychology of American racism
American racism is alive and well. In this essay, we amass a large body of classic and contemporary research across multiple areas of psychology (e.g., cognitive, developmental, social), as well as the broader social sciences (e.g., sociology, communication studies, public policy), and humanities (e.g., critical race studies, history, philosophy), to outline seven factors that contribute to American racism: (a) Categories, which organize people i…
God as a White man: A psychological barrier to conceptualizing Black people and women as leadership worthy
on May 21 2020 (see record 2020-36018-001). In the article, the phrase Mixed Effects in the table title for Tables 1-3 and Tables 6-8 is incorrect. The corrected phrase should appear instead as Fixed Effects. All versions of this article have been corrected.] In the United States, God is commonly conceptualized as the omnipotent and omniscient entity that created the universe, and as a White man. We questioned whether the extent to which God is c…
The emotional and mental health impact of the murder of George Floyd on the US population
Significance On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed Black American male, was murdered by a White police officer in Minneapolis. Footage of his death was widely shared and caused widespread protests. Using data from Gallup before and after his death, we found an unprecedented level of anger and sadness in the population, particularly among Black Americans. Using US Census data, we found that, compared to White Americans, Black Americans reporte…
Should Individuals Think Like Their Group? A Descriptive-to-Prescriptive Tendency Toward Group-Based Beliefs
Across three pre-registered studies with children (ages 4–9) and adults (N = 303), we examined whether how a group is predicted evaluations of how group members should be (i.e., a descriptive-to-prescriptive tendency), under conditions in which the descriptive group norms entailed beliefs that were fact-based (Study 1), opinion-based (Study 2), and ideology-based (Study 3). Overall, participants tended to disapprove of individuals with beliefs th…
The Roles of Privacy and Trust in Children's Evaluations and Explanations of Digital Tracking
A “digital revolution” has introduced new privacy violations concerning access to information stored on electronic devices. The present two studies assessed how U.S. children ages 5–17 and adults (N = 416; 55% female; 67% white) evaluated those accessing digital information belonging to someone else, either location data (Study 1) or digital photos (Study 2). The trustworthiness of the tracker (Studies 1 and 2) and the privacy of the information …
The souls of Black folk (and the weight of Black ancestry) in U.S. Black Americans’ racial categorization
We theorized that from the perspective of U.S. Black Americans, a connection to Black ancestry-and the historical hardship associated with that ancestry-plays an important role in racial categorization. We found support for this across six studies. In Studies 1-3, participants categorized targets with Black ancestry and White experiences or targets with White ancestry and Black experiences. U.S. Black Americans' (more than non-Black Americans') r…
Beyond Black and White: Conceptualizing and essentializing Black–White identity
Our data shed new light on the complexity of race concepts and essentialism and advance the psychological understanding of Black-White identity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Harnessing the power of group norms to improve children’s intergroup relationships
Descriptive-to-prescriptive (D2P) reasoning: An early emerging bias to maintain the status quo
Group norms are necessary for navigating the social world, but they also constrain how we think about individuals. This manuscript progresses in three parts, along the way integrating research from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology, as well as the broader social sciences, to present a theoretical perspective on how the tendency to interpret descriptive norms (i.e., what is) as prescriptive (i.e., what should be) is an early emerging…
United we stand? Perceived loyalty of dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents
As multiracial children of foreign-born parents, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama embody diversity in politics for many perceivers. Yet some have also questioned their loyalty to their respective groups. We explored perceptions of dual group members’ (DGM; dual nationals, multiracial people, and dual state residents) loyalty among first-party (those who share a group membership with a DGM target) and third-party perceivers (those who do not). Studi…
Challenging the White = Neutral Framework in Psychology
In the United States, White samples are often portrayed as if their racial identities were inconsequential to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and research findings derived from White samples are often portrayed as if they were generalizable to all humans. We argue that these and other practices are rooted in a “White = neutral” framework (i.e., the conceptualization of White samples as nonracial). First, we review existing data and prese…
Romantic racism: How racial preferences (and beliefs about racial preferences) reinforce hierarchy in U.S. interracial relationships
Collectively, these findings reveal that such beliefs (and preferences) advantage White Americans, such that both Asian and Black Americans believe that they are more attractive to White Americans than to each other, which leads them to be more attracted to White Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Sankofa: Using Topic Models to Review the History of the Journal of Black Psychology
We use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to review the articles published in JBP between 1975 and 2020. Doing so allowed us to estimate where JBP has been, and where it might go. We interpret our work within the framework of “Sankofa,” which is an Akan symbol for the integration of the past and present toward the future. Overall, we identified five major research themes that have characterized JBP over the past four decades: Racial…
Dealing With Diversity in Psychology: Science and Ideology
In the spirit of America’s Shakespeare, August Wilson (1997), I have written this article as a testimony to the conditions under which I, and too many others, engage in scholarly discourse. I hope to make clear from the beginning that although the ideas presented here are not entirely my own—as they have been inherited from the minority of scholars who dared and managed to bring the most necessary, unpalatable, and unsettling truths about our dis…
Condemned or valued: Young children evaluate nonconformity based on nonconformists' group orientations
Reducing racial bias in scientific communication: Journal policies and their influence on reporting racial demographics
Research titles with White samples, compared to research titles with samples of color, have been less likely to include the racial identity of the sample. This unequal writing practice has serious ramifications for both the history and future of psychological science, as it solidifies in the permanent scientific record the false notion that research with White samples is more generalizable and valuable than research with samples of color. In the …
Psychology (21 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (9 works) · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)