IMAGES OF BLACK AMERICANS: Then, “Them,” and Now, “Obama!”
Open accessAbstract
Images of Black Americans are becoming remarkably diverse, enabling Barack Obama to defy simple-minded stereotypes and succeed. Understood through the Stereotype Content Model's demonstrably fundamental trait dimensions of perceived warmth and competence, images of Black Americans show three relevant patterns. Stereotyping by omission allows non-Blacks to accentuate the positive, excluding any lingering negativity but implying it by its absence; specifically, describing Black Americans as gregarious and passionate suggests warmth but ignores competence and implies its lack. Obama's credentials prevented him from being cast as incompetent, though the experience debate continued. His legendary calm and passionate charisma saved him on the warmth dimension. Social class subtypes for Black Americans differentiate dramatically between low-income Blacks and Black professionals, among both non-Black and Black samples. Obama clearly fit the moderately warm, highly competent Black-professional subtype. Finally, the campaign's events (and nonevents) allowed voter habituation to overcome non-Blacks' automatic emotional vigilance to Black Americans.
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Rapid and unconscious emotional and neural reactions to blacks occur for most Americans within 100 milliseconds, about one third of the time it takes to blink (300 to 400 milliseconds).
“Research also indicates that rapid and unconscious emotional and neural reactions to blacks occur for most Americans within 100 milliseconds, that is, in about one third of the time that it takes for us to blink our eyes (300 to 400 milliseconds) [70].”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [70]
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- Authors
- Fiske, S. T., Bergsieker, H. B., Russell, A. M., & Williams, L.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fiske, Susan T.
- Venue
- Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 83-101
- ISSN
- 1742-058X (ISSN-L)
- 1742-0598
- PMC
- PMC3825175
- OpenAlex
- W2169666896
- Cited by
- 77
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 10.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Du Bois Review Social Science Research on Race (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD047879)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Keywords
- African Americans, stereotypes, stereotype content model, Barack Obama, perceived warmth, perceived competence, political campaigns
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