An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans increase the likelihood that whites will make negative social perception judgments of an African-American (but not a white) target person. Forty white subjects were exposed to comedy skits featuring stereotypical or neutral portrayals of African-American characters. Subjects then read a vignette describing an incident in which a college student was allegedly assaulted by his roommate. In half of the conditions, the alleged offender was assumed to be white; in the other half he was assumed to be African-American. Subjects rated the likelihood that the alleged offender was guilty of the assault. Guilt ratings of the white target did not differ significantly between the stereotypical and the neutral comedy skit conditions. In contrast, guilt ratings of the African-American target were higher in the stereotypical comedy skit condition than in the neutral comedy skit condition.
Television portrayals of African-Americans and other minorities have been shown to influence whites’ perceptions of those groups. Greenberg (1972), for instance, found that over half of the white children sampled reported that television was a principal source for information about African-Americans. Furthermore, children who experienced a high degree of exposure to African-Americans on television were particularly likely to believe that the portrayal of African-Americans was "true to life" (p. 13). Television’s portrayal of minorities, then, can serve to create, reinforce, or change disparaging stereotypes (Dates 1980; Scherer 1971).
Not surprisingly, much research has been conducted over the years examining the ways that minorities are depicted on television (e.g., Banks 1977; Baptiste 1986; Donagher et al. 1975; Greenberg 1986; Poindexter & Stroman 1981). Little research, however, has directly investigated how television portrayals of African-Americans affect person perception—impressions of individuals. Therefore, in the present research, I address a relatively neglected question—how do stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans on television affect the way whites think about and respond to individual African-Americans?
Television Portrayals of African-Americans
African-Americans and members of other minorities appeared on prime-time television with increasing frequency throughout the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Greenberg 1986; Seggar, Hafen, and Hannonen-Gladden 1981; Wigel, Kim, and Frost 1995). Weigel et al. (1995) performed a content analysis of prime-time television programs during the 1989 season. The found that the amount of time African-American characters appeared on the screen increased from 8.3 percent of the total human appearance time in 1978 to 17 percent in 1989.
Unfortunately, however, these advances are largely limited to appearances in situation comedies with predominantly African-American casts. Weigel et al. (1995) report, "Fully one-third of the black appearance time in the 1989 sample of prime-time programming was concentrated in six situation comedies that constituted less than 6 percent of the overall program time" (p. 230). This finding is consistent with research by Reid (1979), who examined prime-time programs during the spring of 1977 and found that "virtually all regularly appearing black characters on television were on comedy programs" (p. 466). Similarly, Baptista-Fernandez and Greenberg (1980) found that half of the black characters in a one-week sample of programs, but only one-third of the whites in that sample, appeared in comedies.
African-American characters are not only limited to roles in select comedies, but are also frequently based on disparaging stereotypes (e.g., Banks 1977; Baptiste 1986; Greenberg and Atkin 1982; Poindexter and Stroman 1981; Seggar and Wheeler 1973). Seggar and Wheeler (1973), for instance, found that African-Americans (and members of other minorities) were more likely than whites to be portrayed in menial "personal service" occupations. Similarly, Greenberg and Atkin (1982) reported that only one-third of African-Americans on television were depicted as having an identifiable job, whereas one-half of all white characters were depicted as having a job. Furthermore, African-Americans were more likely to have low socioeconomic status.
The stereotypical portrayal of African-Americans has traditionally been more pronounced in programs with predominantly African-Americans casts. Banks (1977), for instance, found that African-Americans in situation comedies with predominantly African-American casts (e.g., Good Times, That’s My Mamma, Sanford and Son) were particularly likely to be characterized by traits that are stereotypically associated with African-Americans, such as "fun-loving," "happy-go-lucky" (clownish) and "poor."
Recently, critics in the popular press have also lamented the stereotypical portrayal of African-Americans in situation comedies (e.g. Hammer 1992; O’Connor 1991). In a 1992 article for Newsweek magazine, Hammer argued that too many comical black characters (e.g. Vidal in Out All Night) are simply "one-note stereotypes" portrayed as buffoons and libidinous lechers (p. 71). Hammer also reported an interview with Bill Cosby in which Cosby accused the networks of presenting images of African-Americans that "reinforce shallow stereotypes" (p. 70).
The Effects of Stereotypical Portrayals on Person Perception
The level of activation or accessibility of a construct stored in memory determines how readily people use that construct to encode person information (e.g., Brunr 1957; Higgins, Rholes, and Jones 1977; Srull and Wyer 1979). Higgins et al. (1977), for instance, found that subjects interpreted a target person’s behavior in terms of applicable trait constructs made momentarily accessible through priming—that is, recent activation of those constructs in memory. Social judgement can also be influenced by trait constructs made chronically accessible through frequent activation over time (Higgins, Bargh, and Lombardi 1985; Higgins, King, and Mavin 1982; Srull and Wyer 1979, 1980).
Television and other media can be powerful priming agents, activating constructs that subsequently influence social judgements (e.g., Berkowitz and Rogers 1986; Hansen 1989). Relevant to the present research, stereotypical television portrayals of men and women have been found to increase the accessibility and subsequent use of sex-role stereotypes to interpret behavior. In a study by Hansen and Hansen (1988), for instance, subjects watched either sex-role-stereotypical music videos portraying women as sex objects or neutral music videos. The subjects then viewed a tape of an interaction between a man and woman who were getting to know each other. During the interaction, the man made a number of sexual advances (i.e. he touched her blouse and made subtle sexual comments). Afterward, subjects who viewed the sex-role stereotypical videos rated the woman (who reciprocated the man’s advances) as more sensitive, more sympathetic, more sexual, and less dominant than subjects who viewed the neutral videos. Similarly, Hansen and Krygowski (1994) exposed subjects to a short commercial of a male model demonstrating exercise equipment after they viewed a music video that depicted either a "sexy" or "nonsexy" male character. Subjects who watched the "sexy" video rated the model as sexier, less aggressive, and more amusing than subjects who watched the "nonsexy" video.
Priming research has consistently shown that to influence judgements, primed constructs must be applicable to the target of judgement (Higgins, et al. 1977). In regard to trait priming, applicability is considered in terms of semantic meaning. Priming a trait such as "friendly," for example would be expected to affect judgments of a target on descriptively similar dimensions (e.g., intelligence) (Erdley and D’Agostino 1998). Indeed, Devine (1989) primed subjects, to varying degrees, with negative stereotypical African-American traits (e.g., "poor," "lazy," "hostile"). Subjects were then asked to make judgments of a race-unspecified person who performed ambiguously hostile behavior. Ratings of the target person on hostility-related traits (e.g., "hostile," "unfriendly") were more negative insofar as subjects were primed with the stereotypical traits. Ratings on traits unrelated to hostility were not affected by priming.
Hansen (1995) and Hansen and Krygowski (1994), however, argue that stereotypical television portrayals of social groups do not simple activate a single trait construct in memory; rather, they activate a broader, abstract mental representation or schema of those groups. Such schematic representations are thought to consist of general knowledge and expectations that provide an organizational framework for processing social information (Fiske and Taylor 1991; Taylor and Crocker 1981).
Research by Ford, Stangor, and Dua (1994) suggests that in priming a social group or category (e.g., African-American, education major) the issue of applicability is whether or not the target person is a member of the primed category. In one study by Ford et at., for instance, subjects read a short vignette describing a young man who was either an education major or a mathematics major. To prime the young man’s social category, subjects were asked to recall and write down his major. Next, subjects read a second vignette describing either a dual major in education and mathematics or a geography major. Subjects then rated the second target person on trait dimensions associated with education majors and mathematics majors (e.g., people-oriented versus technical). They were more likely to characterize the dual major in terms of traits associated with the primed than with the nonprimed major. Priming, however, did not affect judgments of the geography major.
Although the priming procedures in the Ford et al. (1994) study did not involve stereotypical portrayals of social groups on television, one may hypothesize that in the case of priming an abstract representation of a social group in general, the target person must belong to the primed category. He or she must fit the activated stereotypical representation if priming is to influence social judgment. Accordingly, upon exposure to stereotypical television portrayals of social groups, people should be more likely to perceive individual members of those groups (but not nonmembers) through the lens of the activated stereotypical representation. Thus, in the present study, I predicted that when whites were exposed to negative stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans, they would be more likely to make negative judgments of an African-American target person. However, exposure to negative stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans was not predicted to affect their judgments of a white target person.
METHOD
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RESULTS
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DISCUSSION
The results of this experiment support the hypothesis that when whites are exposed to negative stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans, they are more likely to make negative judgments of an African-American target person. However, exposure to negative stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans does not affect their judgments of a white target person. Evaluations of only the African-American individuals were significantly more negative after exposure to stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans. Thus, the present research demonstrates the possible power of seemingly harmless comical television portrayals of social out-groups in stereotypical roles on the way we think about and respond to individual members of those groups.
The Role of Priming
To explain these results, I propose that the stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans primed or activated a stereotypical representation of the African-American category, making that representation more likely to be used to interpret information about the African-American target person. In keeping with this argument, research by Greenberg and his colleagues (Greenberg and Pyszczynski 1985; Kirkland, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski 1987) suggests that exposure to derogatory ethnic labels influences social judgment in a discriminatory manner by priming negative racial attitudes and stereotypes.
The present results add to a growing body of research investigating the influence of priming different varieties of social constructs (e.g., Fazio, Powell, and Herr 1983; Ford, et al. 1994; Lepore and Brown 1997). In this study the stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans presumably activated a stereotypical mental representation of the African-American category rather than merely a few negative traits. Furthermore, even though the target’s behavior was relevant to the content of the representation primed by the stereotypical television portrayals, exposure to those portrayasls affected judgements of the target only when he was assumed to be African-American. This finding suggests that when an abstract representation of a social category is primed, the priming is applicable only when the target person belongs to the primed category. When the target person is not a member of the primed category, differences in the accessibility of the category do not influence social judgement. Thus the present study contributes to the recent argument that consideration of applicability, and thus the limitation of priming effects, differ depending upon whether the primed construct is a trait or an abstract representation of a social category (Ford et al. 1994).
The Role of Humor
In the present study, disparaging stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans were presented in a humorous context, just as they are likely to be presented on television (e.g., Weigel et al. 1995). The use of a humorous context in the present study raises the possibility that the findings involved more than simply stereotype priming: Humor may play an important role in mediating the effect of stereotypical portrayals of social groups on perceptions of individual members of those groups.
One possible hypothesis is that disparagement of social groups through humor increases our tolerance or acceptance of discrimination against out-groups. As a result, people are more likely to engage in discriminatory social judgments upon exposure to disparaging humor. This hypothesis is consistent with research on contemporary models of racism such as "symbolic racism" (Kinder and Sears 1981; McConahay and Hough 1976), "modern racism" (McConahay 1986), and "aversive racism" (Gaertner and Dovidio 1986).
Accordingly, Gaertner and Dovidio (1986) argue that whites are consciously concerned with maintaining an egalitarian, nonprejudiced self-concept; as a result, they are not likely to knowingly commit overt or blatant acts of discrimination. Instead, they are likely to discriminate in subtle, indirect ways that can be easily rationalized as socially acceptable or nondiscriminatory, and thus do not challenge their self-concept as nonprejudiced persons. In accordance with this argument, research had shown that discrimination is most likely to occur when nonracial justifications for discriminatory behavior are available (e.g., Gaertner and Dovidio 1977; McConahay 1983), or when the social norms defining acceptable behavior in a particular context are ambiguous (e.g., Gaertner 1973).
Possibly the disparagement of social groups through humor makes ambiguous the social norms defining acceptable behavior, thereby creating a situation that fosters discrimination. Disparaging humor may create a climate in which the norms defining acceptable behavior are temporarily relaxed, and discrimination against out-groups is no longer socially unacceptable. In this climate, discriminatory behavior can be easily rationalized as falling within the bounds of social acceptability.
Why would we expect disparaging humor to create such a climate of tolerance of discrimination? One answer is that humorous communications are not meant to be considered in a serous, critical manner (e.g., McGhee 1972; Zillmann and Cantor 1976). According to Berlyne (1972), for instance, "Humor is accompanied by discriminative cures, which indicate that what is happening, or is going to happen, should be taken as a joke. The ways in which we might react to the same event in the absence of these cues become inappropriate and must be withheld" (p. 56).
In keeping with this argument, Mannell (1977) found that subjects reported greater enjoyment (acceptance) of violent behavior when it was depicted in a humorous form (cartoon featuring animals acting like people) than in a nonhumorous form (realistic depictions of people). Mannell interpreted this finding as suggesting that humor activates a "playful judgmental set" in which one’s usual attitudes toward socially unacceptable actions or sentiments are temporarily suspended (p. 273). Similarly, Husband (1977) argued that humor "blunt[s] the critical sensitivity" of the audience to events they would normally find socially unacceptable (p. 268). In a study more relevant to social perception, Bill and Naus (19920 found that incidents of sexual discrimination were considered acceptable (i.e., not inappropriate) by male subjects insofar as they perceived the incidents as humorous. Taken together, these studies suggest that disparagement of social groups through humor (e.g., comical stereotypical portrayals of social out-groups) may indeed create a climate of tolerance of discrimination by providing cues that discrimination is not serious or is not to be examined critically.
Further research is needed to directly examine the distinctive effects of humorous disparagement of social groups on social perception and interaction. For instance, one could conduct a study treating the form of the portrayal of a social out-group (humorous versus serious) and the content of the portrayal (disparaging versus neutral) as an independent variable. Such a design would allow one to determine whether humorous disparagement has a unique effect on social judgments. If an implicit form of tolerance of discrimination uniquely created by humor mediates the effects observed here, then disparaging humorous portrayals should lead to discriminatory social judgments to a greater extent than nonhumorous disparaging portrayals. On the other hand, if the accessibility of stereotypes is the sole mediator of the effects, then humorous and nonhumorous portrayals should influence social judgment in an equally discriminatory manner.
CONCLUSION
Stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans in a humorous context increase the likelihood that whites will perceive an AA target person in a stereotypical manner. This finding is consistent with a priming hypothesis and contributes to a growing body of research investigating the influence of priming different varieties of social constructs. The present study also raises the possibility that some yet-unexplored mechanisms inherent in humorous stereotypical portrayals contribute to devaluating social judgment. Indeed, this research suggests that the effects of humorous disparagement deserve serious examination particularly in light of the proliferation of television shows such as Comedy Central, Def Comedy Jam, Mad TV, and Saturday Night Live. These programs often derive their humor from the stereotypical portrays of social groups.