Who's Stereotyping Whom: A Conceptual and Analytical Reinterpretation of the Sager and Schofield (1980) Study

Abstract

A recent study by Sager and Schofield (1980), employing a Black and White sample, examined the influence of racial cues on the interpretation of ambiguously aggressive acts. Based on a significant main effect of race permutations on a scale measuring perceived aggression, the authors suggested that the data reflect a general bias by both White and Black subjects against Black actors, and they concluded that be havior ratings by Black students reflect the same "anti-Black bias" as those by White students. The validity of this conclusion is rejected as untenable based on purely logical deductions, and a more tenable interpretation of the data is presented. Examination of the data reveals that the sig nificant differences observed for White and Black judges are a result of two different response sets and not a similar ' 'anti-Black bias" as postulated by Sager and Schofield. The data pattern indicates that although perceived aggression ratings for same race actors (i.e., Whites judging Whites and Blacks judging Blacks) were similar, opposite race ratings (i.e., Whites judging Blacks and Blacks judging Whites) were influenced to a significant degree by racial cues. The present reinterpretation acknowledges the operation of per ceptual categorization in the social cognition of both Blacks and Whites and does not suggest, as does the Sager and Schofield view, that Blacks simply apply White outgroup stereotypes of Blacks onto themselves. It is argued that the original interpretation may reflect an ethnocentric research bias that focuses on only one side of a dyadic process in interpersonal and intergroup perceptions.