| In an increasingly multicultural society, the question of how race influences social interaction is of great theoretical as well as practical importance. On a daily basis, most Americans encounter people of racial and ethnic backgrounds different than their own; discourse about current events and political issues often turns to race-relevant topics as well. Sometimes these interracial interactions go smoothly and even lead to productive collaboration and friendship. Other times these encounters are fraught with anxiety and miscommunication, producing a variety of negative outcomes. | |
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In my research I am interested in examining the factors that impede and facilitate positive interracial interaction. In some of this work, I ask the question what are the observable effects of racial diversity? “Diversity” has become a ubiquitous word in contemporary America, yet we still know relatively little about the processes through which racial heterogeneity influences groups. My research demonstrates that the effects of diversity occur through multiple processes—yes, demographically diverse groups are exposed to a wider range of perspectives than homogeneous groups, but diversity can also lead people to process evidence more thoroughly, to remember complex information more accurately, and to discuss controversial and polarizing issues. In fact, many of the beneficial effects of diversity arise because White people tend to behave and think differently in heterogeneous groups, a conclusion with important implications. |
| In other research, I and collaborators have examined issues that complicate interracial interactions. One factor is the practice of many Whites to avoid talking about racial issues or even acknowledging that they notice racial difference. We refer to this tendency as strategic colorblindness and believe that it results from the belief that if I don’t even notice race, then I cannot appear to be racially biased. Such efforts to appear colorblind occur even in innocuous settings—for example, White students playing a version of the children’s game Guess Who? often go out of their way to avoid asking about race, even when doing so would be logical and useful. Ironically, strategic colorblindness often produces negative outcomes, as people who try to avoid race are perceived by others to be less friendly. Our research also suggests that Whites and Blacks often have different ideas regarding appropriate behavior during interracial interactions (and concerning what it means to be racially biased in the first place). |  |
References
Apfelbaum, E. P., & Sommers, S. R. (2009). Liberating effects of losing executive control: When regulatory strategies turn maladaptive. Psychological Science, 20, 139-143.View pdf
Apfelbaum, E. P., Pauker, K., Ambady, N., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Learning (not) to talk about race: When older children underperform in social categorization. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1513-1518.View pdf
Apfelbaum, E. P., Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating strategic colorblindness in social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 918-932.View pdf
Sommers, S. R., Warp, L. S., & Mahoney, C. C. (in press). Cognitive effects of racial diversity: White individuals' information processing in heterogeneous groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology .View pdf
Sommers. S. R. (2008). Beyond information exchange: New perspectives on the benefits of racial diversity for group performance. In E. A. Mannix, M. A. Neale, & K. W. Phillips (Eds.), Research on Managing Groups and Teams (Volume 11; pp. 195-220). Oxford: Elsevier Science Press.View pdf
Norton, M. I., Sommers, S. R., Apfelbaum, E. P., Pura, N. & Ariely, D. (2006). Colorblindness and interracial interaction: Playing the political correctness game. Psychological Science, 17, 949-953.View pdf
Sommers, S. R. (2006). On racial diversity and group decision-making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597-612.View pdf
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2006). Lay theories about White racists: What constitutes racism (and what doesn’t). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.View pdf
| Some of the most controversial issues in contemporary society revolve around the relationship between race and social judgment. For example, in the wake of a recent spate of high-profile trials, pundits and scholars have debated the extent to which a race affects the decision-making of juries, not to mention the jury selection tendencies of attorneys. These are both issues that I have studied empirically. |  |
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In several mock juror experiments I have found that the race of a defendant affects White and Black mock jurors’ judgments. For White jurors, bias against Black defendants does not tend to emerge in racially-charged cases as one might expect, but rather in trials without blatantly racial issues, a finding consistent with psychological theories of modern prejudice. I have also examined the influence of race on the jury selection tendencies of attorneys. Despite a Supreme Court prohibition against considering race in the use of peremptory challenges—the practice by which attorneys can remove a juror without any explanation—my research using experimental research methods has demonstrated not only that such challenges are indeed influenced by race, but also the facility with which attorneys are able to provide plausible race-neutral justifications for these judgments. |
| Another real-world domain in which I have examined the influence of race is the popular media. The extent to which race influences the nature of media depictions—not to mention the decision whether to even cover an event in the first place—is often the topic of public debate. Such discourse typically relies on intuition and anecdotal data, but I believe that psychological theory and methodology have much to offer this analysis. In one such example, I and some graduate student collaborators recently wrote an article evaluating the impact of race on media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, with a particular focus on media language use and exaggeration of violence. |  |
References
Sommers, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2009). “Race salience” in juror decision-making: Misconceptions, clarifications, and unanswered questions. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 27, 599-609.View pdf
Sommers, S. R. (2008). Determinants and consequences of jury racial diversity: Empirical findings, implications, and directions for future research. Social Issues and Policy Review, 2, 65-102. View pdf
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Race and jury selection: Psychological perspectives on the peremptory challenge debate. American Psychologist, 63, 527-539.View pdf
Norton, M. I., Sommers, S. R., & Brauner, S. (2007). Bias in jury selection: Justifying prohibited peremptory challenges. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 467-479.View pdf
Sommers, S. R. (2007). Race and the decision-making of juries. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 171-187.View pdf
Sommers, S. R., Apfelbaum, E. P., Dukes, K. N., Toosi, N., & Wang, E. J. (2006). Race and media coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, implications, and future research questions. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 6, 39-55. .View pdf
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (2007). Race-based judgments, race-neutral justifications: Experimental examination of peremptory use and the Batson challenge procedure. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 261-273.View pdf
Sommers, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2001). White juror bias: An investigation of racial prejudice against Black defendants in the American courtroom. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7, 201-229.View pdf View Trial Materials for this Study
Sommers, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2000). Race in the courtroom: Perceptions of guilt and dispositional attributions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1367-1379. Viewpdf View Trial Materials for Study 1 View Trial Materials for Study 2
| In addition to my research on race and legal judgment, I am also interested more generally in the intersection of psychology and the law. This a growing discipline in large part because of the allure of applying psychology to the topics of practical importance. But I also find that the legal system is an idea domain for testing and extending many of the theoretical issues of interest to social psychologists. Juror judgments provide an engaging and realistic means for examining person perception, the jury is an ideal vehicle for studying group processes, and much of what we know about the malleability of human memory derives from investigations of eyewitness testimony. |  |
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My initial research in psychology and law focused on extralegal influences on juror decision-making, such as inadmissible evidence and pre-trial publicity. These are areas in which I continue to have interest. More recently, I have begun projects examining the factors that influence people’s evaluations of alibis—a critical issue in the attempt to better understand and prevent wrongful convictions—as well as the role of expectation on the performance and confidence of eyewitnesses. One of the most exciting aspects of psycholegal research is that every year seems to produce a new “Case of the Century” and the emergence of new legal issues in need of empirical examination. |
References
Sommers, S. R., & Douglass, A. B. (2007). Context matters: Alibi strength varies according to evaluator perspective. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 41-54. View pdf
Sommers, S. R., & Kassin, S. M. (2001). On the many impacts of inadmissible testimony: Selective compliance, need for cognition, and the overcorrection bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1368-1377. View pdf
Fein, S., Morgan, S. J., Norton, M. I., & Sommers, S. R. (1997). Hype and suspicion: Effects of pretrial publicity, race, and suspicion on jurors’ verdicts. Journal of Social Issues, 53, 487-502. View pdf
Kassin, S. M., & Sommers, S. R. (1997). Inadmissible testimony, instructions to disregard, and the jury: Substantive versus procedural considerations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1046-1054. View pdf