Mostly positive: effects of reminding white teens about Latino and Asian American celebrities

ABSTRACT

As individuals accumulate media-based experiences with famous exemplars of racial/ethnic outgroups, subsequent reminders of those exemplars may elicit positive attitudes about the group as a whole. This “generalized appraisal process” was tested in two online experiments (one a replication) with US White 13- to 17-year-olds (N = 167; N = 200), who were randomized to see information about US Latino celebrities, Asian/Asian-American celebrities, or to a no-exposure control condition. Each celebrity condition (relative to control) increased warmth toward the focal group. There were further indirect-only effects of condition on other school-related judgments about each group, via the effect on warmth. In addition, consistent with secondary transfer hypotheses, each celebrity condition (relative to control) positively affected judgments about other racial/ethnic groups, via warmth toward the focal group. There was less support for racial stratification hypotheses.

Acknowledgments

The studies reported here were supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Institute on Race and Ethnicity, administered by the University of Wisconsin System.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Wisconsin Institute for Race and Ethnicity.