# No evidence for an other-race effect in dominance and trustworthy judgements from faces

## TL;DR

This study found no evidence that people make different judgments about dominance or trustworthiness based on whether a face is of their own race or another race.

## Contribution

The study introduces a new method for measuring trait judgments of faces and finds no other-race effect for dominance and trustworthiness.

## Key findings

- Judgments of dominance and trustworthiness showed similar reliability for own-race and other-race faces.
- Participants from different races made very similar judgments on individual trials.
- Overall ratings of dominance and trustworthiness did not show an other-race effect.

## Abstract

A variety of evidence shows that social categorization of people based on their race can lead to stereotypical judgements and prejudicial behaviour. Here, we explore the extent to which trait judgements of faces are influenced by race. To address this issue, we measured the reliability of first impressions for own-race and other-race faces in Asian and White participants. Participants viewed pairs of faces and were asked to indicate which of the two faces was more dominant or which of the two faces was more trustworthy. We measured the consistency (or reliability) of these judgements across participants for own-race and other-races faces. We found that judgements of dominance or trustworthiness showed similar levels of reliability for own-race and other-race faces. Moreover, an item analysis showed that the judgements on individual trials were very similar across participants from different races. Next, participants made overall ratings of dominance and trustworthiness from own-race and other-race faces. Again, we found that there was no evidence for an ORE. Together, these results provide a new approach to measuring trait judgements of faces and show that in these conditions there is no ORE for the perception of dominance and trustworthiness.