Psychology Commons^™

Racial Discrimination At The Crosswalk, Tara Goddard, Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, Arlie Adkins

TREC Project Briefs

A look at pedestrian fatality rates in the United States reveals that minorities are disproportionately represented. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2013 that in the first decade of this century, the fatality rates for black and Hispanic men were twice as high as they were for white men. Multi-disciplinary research has shown that racially biased behaviors are evident in many parts of society. Minorities experience differential outcomes in education, employment, health care, and criminal sentencing. Could racially biased treatment exist in transportation as well?

Implicit racial biases are subtle beliefs that individuals may hold beneath the …

Racial Bias In Driver Yielding Behavior At Crosswalks, Tara Goddard, Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, Arlie Adkins

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Psychological and social identity-related factors have been shown to influence drivers’ behaviors toward pedestrians, but no previous studies have examined the potential for drivers’ racial bias to impact yielding behavior with pedestrians. If drivers’ yielding behavior results in differential behavior toward Black and White pedestrians, this may lead to disparate pedestrian crossing experiences based on race and potentially contribute to disproportionate safety outcomes for minorities. We tested the hypothesis that drivers’ yielding behavior is influenced by pedestrians’ race in a controlled field experiment at an unsignalized midblock marked crosswalk in downtown Portland, Oregon. Six trained male research team participants (3 …