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The Effects Of Race And Prejudice Level On The Influence Of Famous Figures, Lindsay B. Sharp

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We hypothesized that varying the race and prejudice level of a famous individual would alter participants' reactions to the individual, evaluation of the individual, and participants' performance on numerous measures of racism. One-hundred and fourteen White undergraduate students participated in a 2 x 2 (race of the famous individual: black or white x prejudice level of the individual's statement: prejudiced or non-prejudiced) independent groups factorial design. Our results showed that, for high-prejudiced famous figures, participants had more negative reactions toward the White individual than toward the Black, and felt significantly guiltier after reading the White individual's statement than after reading …