A British understanding of racialised gaze-cueing in the context of implicit racial bias, explicit racial identity and self-esteem.

Abstract

Gaze-cueing is subject to social influences; people tend to shift their attention in the same direction as others, but this relationship may be affected by the observer's race and the observed's race. Evidence suggests that Italian (Black and White) and American (Black and White) populations show preferential ingroup gaze-cueing for White participants, but no preferential variance for Black participants. This experimental study aimed to examine the robustness of this effect within a British population, with a secondary aim of understanding processes behind racial differences via the use of implicit racial bias, explicit racial identity and self-esteem measures. Results revealed that Black participants showed an ingroup bias in gaze-cueing, whereas no such bias was observed for White participants, contradicting previous findings. The hypothesised secondary processes did not significantly influence the biases in gaze-cueing between groups. These findings emphasise intergroup variability's importance in gaining a better understanding of how racialised gaze-cueing manifests across different populations.