(Cornell University)
https://psychology.cornell.edu/amy-r-krosch
Amy Krosch, assistant professor of psychology (PSYCH).
Economic scarcity alters social perception to promote discrimination: Evidence from the brain and behavior
When the economy declines, racial discrimination typically increases. Although this effect is often described as reflecting existing structural and institutional inequalities, here I will explore the psychological and perceptual processes through which scarcity exacerbates discrimination. Specifically, using tools from experimental social psychology, psychophysics, and neuroscience, I will present evidence that scarcity alters the extent to which decision makers perceive and represent Black Americans in a discrimination-promoting fashion. I will further explore the role of egalitarian motivation on discriminatory allocation of scarce resources between groups, as well as the learning mechanisms that give rise to such discrimination over time. Together, my findings support the notion that scarcity influences multiple levels of social perception—from category-level representations of Blackness to early face processing of Black individuals—to proliferate racial disparities during times of economic duress.
The colloquium will be held in Psychology Building 035.