Jennifer A. Richeson

Associate Professor of Psychology and African American Studies
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
PhD, Social Psychology, Harvard University, 2000
jriches@northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Jennifer A. Richeson's research focuses on psychological phenomena associated with diversity. Her work generally concerns the ways in which social group memberships such as race and gender impact the way people think, feel, and behave. More specifically, her research investigates antecedents and consequences of prejudice and stereotyping from dual perspectives: traditionally stigmatized and dominant groups.

She is currently working on three primary lines of research: the dynamics and consequences of interracial contact and diversity; detecting, confronting, and managing the threats associated with prejudice and discrimination; and social categorization and identity management. Through the development of these research streams, Richeson hopes to contribute to a better understanding of intergroup relations, as well as to elucidate pitfalls in current approaches to prejudice reduction.

Her work has been published in various scholarly journals, including Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Nature Neuroscience, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, as well as appearing in popular publications such as The Economist and The New York Times. She was a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Research Institute of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity in 2004-05. She received the 2005 Louise Kidder Early Career Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She was named one of 25 MacArthur Fellows in 2006 for her work as a leader in "highlighting and analyzing major challenges facing all races in America and in the continuing role played by prejudice and stereotyping in our lives." (See MacArthur webpage.)

Current Research

Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Dynamics of Interracial Contact. This work builds upon previous research suggesting that increased contact between members of different racial groups can be accompanied by unintended, negative consequences for both whites and racial minorities. Richeson and her colleagues have found that in addition to being a source of stress, interracial interaction can also undermine cognitive performance. Studies in this line suggest, furthermore, that self-regulation in order to inhibit or modulate behavior, thoughts and urges, seems to play an important role in the effect of contact on the cognitive performance of white individuals. Related projects are investigating other concerns and experiences of interracial contact for both whites and blacks. For instance, how do concerns about being the target of prejudice influence racial minorities' interaction experiences? Richeson and her colleagues are also currently investigating potential interventions that will reduce individuals' deployment of effortful self-regulation during interracial interactions, which should make them less cognitively costly.

Racial Bias Exposure and Mental Health. Past research has shown that contending with issues of racial bias can have a negative effect on the mental health of ethnic minorities. For example, experiences with racial bias over time have a cumulative, negative impact on ethnic minorities' subjective well-being. Many scholars have argued, however, that contemporary racial bias has changed; contemporary bias is thought to be more subtle than more "old-fashioned" and blatant forms of racial bias and is often unintentional and unconscious. Furthermore, most white citizens of the United States are concerned about behaving in nonprejudiced ways. Researchers have only recently begun to consider how these more subtle forms of racial bias and concerns about appearing prejudiced might influence ethnic minorities' well-being. Therefore, a major goal of this project, which is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, is to investigate the impact that whites' racial bias, albeit unintentional and nonconscious, and their concerns with appearing racially biased have on ethnic minorities' mental health. The overarching goal of this research is to bridge basic and clinical research that will ultimately open the door to understanding how racial stressors promote racial disparities in health.

Psychological & Physiological Implications of Managing a Stigmatized Identity. Research suggests that racial minorities and members of other low-status groups might not benefit as much from intergroup contact and diversity, compared with members of dominant social groups (Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005). Given the widespread social, societal, and organizational benefits of increased diversity in educational and employment domains, however, it is important to examine stigmatized individuals' experiences as they attempt to persist and even succeed in the face of token status and negative group stereotypes. This project considers the role of "covering"—a compensatory form of self-regulation in the service of managing a stigmatized identity—in stigmatized group members' persistence in the face of threatening environments. Specifically, this project has two aims: 1) to examine the extent to which racial minority and low-SES students at a predominantly white, private university engage in covering when the value of their group memberships is threatened and/or they are concerned about being the target of prejudice; and 2) to investigate potential intra-personal costs of covering, including physiological stress reactions, feelings of inauthenticity and shame, increased loneliness, and cognitive depletion.

Race and Threat Perceptions. This project examines psychological ramifications of the stereotype that young black men are threatening and dangerous. One line of research considers the extent to which this black-threat stereotype has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, Richeson and her colleagues have found that white individuals reveal biased patterns of attention toward black faces relative to white faces, when the faces are presented only briefly (approximately 30 minutes). They have found that this attentional bias is eliminated, however, when the faces display averted, rather than direct, eye-gaze. That is, when the threat communicated by the black faces is attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue--in this case, averted eye-gaze--they no longer captured perceivers' attention. They also found that the attention bias is more pronounced among individuals who are motivated to control the expression of racial bias because of external, rather than internal, concerns (PC norm conformance v. internalized values). Their on-going research is employing eye-tracking technology to ascertain how race might affect visual attention, as well as employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to explore how eye-gaze direction and other factors may moderate the extent to which black men are perceived to be threatening.

Selected Publications

Richeson, J. A., and S. Trawalter. 2008. The threat of appearing prejudiced and race-based attentional biases. Psychological Science 19: 98-102.  

Richeson, J. A, and J. N. Shelton. 2007. Negotiating interracial interactions: Costs, consequences, and possibilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science 16: 316-320.

Richeson, J. A., and S. Trawalter, 2005. Why do interracial interactions impair executive function? A resource depletion account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88:934-947.

Shelton, J. N., J. A. Richeson, J. Salvatore, and S. Trawalter. 2005. Ironic effects of racial bias during interracial interactions. Psychological Science 16:397-402

Shelton, J. N., and J. A. Richeson, 2005. Pluralistic ignorance and intergroup contact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88:91-107.

Richeson, J. A., and R. J. Nussbaum, 2004. The impact of multiculturalism versus color-blindness on racial bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40:417-23.

Richeson, J. A., A. A. Baird, H. L. Gordon, T. F. Heatherton, C. L. Wyland, S. Trawalter, and J. N. Shelton. 2003. An fMRI examination of the impact of interracial contact on executive function. Nature Neuroscience 6:1323-28.

Richeson, J. A., and J. N. Shelton. 2003. When prejudice does not pay: Effects of interracial contact on executive function. Psychological Science 14:287-90.