What the research actually shows is that you don’t have to have been drinking at all–merely seeing billboards or other images of alcohol is enough!

“Simply seeing images of alcohol, but not drinking it, influences behaviors like racial bias on a subconscious level. Walking by a bar or seeing an ad for beer could be enough to affect someone’s mindset. You don’t have to be aware of the effects for it to affect you”.

It reminds those of us of a certain age of Jimmy Carter’s comment that while he had always been faithful to his wife, he had “sinned in his heart”. Here we have people acting as if under the influence merely by being exposed to the idea of drinking. This obviously has scary ramifications for all of us since the media is saturated with images of alcohol and lunch or dinner at a restaurant can result in looking at both images on the menu and ‘samples’ at tables about you whether you actually drink or not. You could close your eyes but ultimately there appears no other way to avoid this sort of bias exposure. It could be kind of humorous if it wasn’t also pretty disturbing in its scope.

Here’s a succinct description of the actual process the researchers used to test their hypothesis:

“The recent study found that participants who had initially viewed a series of magazine ads for alcoholic beverages made more errors indicative of racial bias in a subsequent task than did others who had initially seen ads for non-alcoholic beverages, such as water or coffee.

Test participants were shown a series of ads for either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages. They then completed a computerized task in which pictures of white and black men’s faces were shown for a split second, followed immediately by either a picture of a handgun or a tool. Numerous previous studies using this same task have shown that people often mistakenly identify tools as guns following presentation of a black face, a response pattern attributed to the effects of racial stereotypes. The fast pace of the experiment kept participants from thinking about their responses, which allowed the subconscious mind to control reactions.”

What this research (along with other studies we have reported to you) demonstrates is that in 2012, we still assume black men are aggressive, violent and dangerous. We still assume white men are higher status occupationally than black men regardless of how they are dressed. And, according to this research, when we are primed by alcohol (whether via direct ingestion or merely viewing advertisements for alcohol), we are more likely to see black men as wielding weapons (as opposed to say, wallets, cell phones or car keys).

The researchers show awareness of how insidious and dangerous this ‘priming’ is:

“The findings reported here suggest that people could be more likely to act upon their prejudices simply for having entered a bar, watched an alcohol advertisement, or passed a relevant billboard on the highway.”

It’s like the recent research on how religious primes can increase our racial prejudices without even trying. We like to believe we are rational beings who make choices as to how we act and make decisions. Here are, not one but two studies that would beg to differ. We need to take both of them into consideration, so that jurors have conscious awareness of potential biases in their decision-making  processes.

Stepanova, E., Bartholow, B., Saults, J., & Friedman, R. (2012). Alcohol-related cues promote automatic racial bias Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.006

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Related posts:

1. Arkansas: If a judge calls you a ‘slut’ in open court, it doesn’t show prejudice
2. Eliot Spitzer, Uncivil Behavior & Possibilities of Redemption
3. Charlie Sheen or Tiger Woods? When behavior doesn’t fit the image

Yes, you saw that right. Some new research mirrors the findings of research conducted three decades ago!

If you were a black criminal defendant in Florida between 2000 and 2010, with an all white jury you were convicted 81% of the time. On the other hand, if you were a white criminal defendant with an all white jury, you were only convicted 66% of the time. If, however, there were African Americans (even just one) on your jury–the difference in conviction rates between black and white defendants almost disappeared.

Justice is not intended to be a random event and one of the researchers speaks to that in a story on the research.

“The findings imply that the application of criminal justice is “highly uneven,” Bayer said, because conviction rates vary substantially with random variation in the racial composition of the jury pool.  

“Simply put, the luck of the draw on the racial composition of the jury pool has a lot to do with whether someone is convicted and that raises obvious concerns about the fairness of our criminal justice system,” Bayer said.”

There are clearly issues that need to be addressed and it likely is not only in Florida. While there are ways to reduce these sorts of verdict discrepancies by raising jurors’ awareness of the need to behave in a non-biased fashion, it is disturbing that the difference between conviction of white and black defendants is demolished by having a single juror of color.

If you are a defense attorney, this is likely a good article as evidence that, even in 2012, your African American client is less likely to get a fair trial with an all-white jury.

Anwar, S., Bayer, P., & Hjalmarsson, R. (2012). The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127 (2), 1017-1055 DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjs014

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There are naturally some caveats in this research along with some (likely expected) gender differences. Most of us know that men are still  (across the board) paid more than women. That isn’t news. But the rest of these findings might be–although you probably “knew” this on an intuitive level.

The researchers looked at three large datasets (each containing data on between 500 and 2000 adults). The datasets provided salary information as well as information on gender and various personality characteristics [including measures of agreeability]. Here’s what they found in a nutshell:

On average, men earned more a year than did women. [In one dataset, the overage was listed as $5,000 a year.]

Disagreeable people earned more. However, disagreeable men made significantly more [higher by 18%] than nice men while disagreeable women only made a slightly higher salary than nice women [about 5.5%]. The researchers say “the income premium for disagreeableness is more than three times stronger for men than for women”.

Men might benefit more than women from being disagreeable but nice men (i.e., agreeable men) are actually penalized salary-wise when they are highly agreeable.

They also found that the more disagreeable you are, the less you value relationships and the more you value the level of your salary. The flip side is that when you are more agreeable, you are more satisfied with your life, have more friends and community involvement and report lower stress levels. Translated, you might make less and enjoy life more.

So, it would appear that you have a choice. You can choose to fight for a higher salary (in which case you want to be disagreeable, especially if you are male) or you can choose to focus on having life satisfaction, rewarding relationships and a lower level of stress–regardless of your gender. According to this research though–it doesn’t appear you can have it all…still.

Judge, T., Livingston, B., & Hurst, C. (2012). Do nice guys—and gals—really finish last? The joint effects of sex and agreeableness on income. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102 (2), 390-407 DOI: 10.1037/a0026021

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