In “Is Race Reflected By Your Outfit?” Pamela Paul talks about a study done by researchers from Tufts, Stanford and the UC Irvine. Participants were asked to determine the race of different people in pictures. Some were well-dressed, pictured wearing business suits, and some were poorly-dressed, pictured wearing a janitor’s outfit, and all were within 13 shades of skin tone color. The question at hand here is the title of the article, “Is race reflected by your outfit?”
According to the study, “Yes, race is reflected by your outfit”. The researchers used mouse-tracking analysis where they measured the speed and position of the mouse when a participant used it. Whenever a white man was shown wearing a suit, the participant immediately the “white” button but when the same man was shown wearing a janitor’s outfit, the participant hesitated to click “white” and even hovered over the “black” button.
I think it is outrageous that people think this way and associate people of darker shades with lower-ranked jobs. Most people think that way though, and this experiment brings to light what people are secretly thinking but don’t say out loud. This study is interesting because even though the researchers aren’t actually reading the participant’s mind, the mouse-tracking analysis shows the thought process of these people.
Paul mentions how most of the participants were “overwhelmingly white” but hardly any African-Americans or Hispanics agreed to participate. In this experiment, there is a big emphasis on race and how different races are viewed in society, which is a touchy subject, but even though Paul is not a reviewer, she keeps a objective tone in this article. If i were the one writing this article, I don’t think I’d be able to keep the objective tone Paul has.