A influência do status socioeconômico na percepção racial: um estudo experimental no contexto brasileiro

Abstract

From the perspective of Social Cognitive Psychology, the perception of visual stimuli is shaped by the intersection of bottom-up and top-down processes. In this sense, contextual cues such as socioeconomic status information (top-down) can influence racial perception (bottom-up), as they are related to stereotypes that legitimize and maintain social hierarchies. Thus, the aim of this research was to investigate the effect of presenting visual scenarios related to socioeconomic status (low, medium, and high) on the racial categorization of faces as either white or black in the Brazilian context. Participants (n = 51) completed the following questionnaires: (1) sociodemographic questionnaire; (2) Internal and External Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale; (3) Re-victimization Racism Scale; (4) the short version of the Social Dominance Orientation Scale – 7. Participants also performed a racial categorization task. In this task, stimuli were created by combining 176 computer-modeled faces on a blackwhite racial continuum with 48 landscape images from the SocialPICS image bank, equally divided into low, medium, and high socioeconomic statuses. The results showed that, contrary to expectations, explicit prejudice measures were positively correlated with categorization thresholds. There were no significant differences in racial categorization thresholds according to socioeconomic contexts. However, a correlation was found between the categorization threshold in the high socioeconomic status condition and the Anti-Egalitarianism factor of the Social Dominance Orientation scale. Finally, it is understood that racial perception and racism are linked to various subjective and contextual aspects (top-down) and, consequently, manifest differently in the Brazilian context.