Skin tone effects on others' pain estimation: Moderation by a colour stereotype

Abstract

We tested whether skin tone would influence pain estimation and whether a colour stereotype (i.e., “darker‐is‐stronger”) moderates the relationship. We manipulated targets' skin tone into three levels (darker/medium/lighter). Participants estimated how much physical or emotional pain the targets would feel in various adverse situations and answered how much they believed objects with darker colours are stronger. Although the differences in estimated pain between the three skin tone conditions were not statistically significant, we found the moderation effect of the colour stereotype on the relationship between skin tone and pain estimation (for physical pain only). Specifically, participants with a stronger colour stereotype expected that darker‐skinned targets would feel less physical pain than lighter skinned ones.