HOW PERCEPTION OF WHITE ADJACENCY AFFECTS COGNATIVE DEPLETION VIA INTERRACIAL INTERACTIONS

Abstract

Rising racial and ethnic diversity has been steadily increasing in the US since its conception, giving it the label of a “melting pot” nation. Naturally, this diversity is seen in all levels of the workforce as well. And while diversity is good, there are quantifiable studies to suggest that interracial interactions especially cause a noticeable drop in executive functioning ability (Richeson & Trawalter 2005). With this idea being further suggested through data in other studies (Smith & Wout, 2019; Richeson & Trawalter, 2009; Green & Wout, 2021), and knowing that drops in executive functioning are not good for workers or their businesses; it is imperative that social psychologists work to find ways to reduce the mental friction caused by interracial contact. Within the following study, experimenters sought to examine to what degree interracially perceived interactions affect cognitive depletion in White participants. It was hypothesized that participants who had a perceived interracial interaction would show reduced levels of executive functioning as opposed to participants who had, a perceived same-race interaction. This hypothesis was tested in the following manner; first, participants would meet the experimenter and their confederate (a White-passing Biracial Male of Latino heritage). Second, experimenters would sit with their confederate and complete a short. On this questionnaire, the confederate would give fixed responses to prime the participant to believe that he was more White-identifying or POC-identifying. After the interaction, participants would take a Stroop Task to measure their levels of cognitive depletion/executive functioning. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants who had perceived same-race encounters had faster Stroop times than those in the opposite condition. Results suggest that further research must be done into interaction manipulation, and that even if it’s artificial,White people experience less executive functioning loss when interacting within-race than between-race