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Preference is Not Color Blind:
Disentangling Implicit Race and Color Effects
Ioannis Kareklas
Washington State University
Robin A. Coulter
University of Connecticut
Frédéric F. Brunel
Boston University
Author Note
Ioannis Kareklas, Department of Marketing, College of Business, Washington State
University. Robin A. Coulter, Marketing Department, School of Business, University of
Connecticut. Frédéric F. Brunel, Department of Marketing, School of Management, Boston
University.
Corresponding author: Ioannis Kareklas, Department of Marketing, College of Business,
Washington State University, Todd Addition 375, PO Box 644730, Pullman, WA 99164-4730.
E-mail: ioannis.kareklas@wsu.edu
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Abstract
This research draws upon theoretical perspectives related to in-group favoritism and color
symbolism to hypothesize effects of an individual’s implicit color bias (i.e., preference for the
color white vs. the color black) and implicit racial bias (i.e., preference for African American vs.
Caucasian racial stimuli) on their implicit reactions to advertisements featuring endorsers of
different races. Results from Implicit Association Test (IAT) assessments of participants’ color,
racial, and advertising preferences indicate that both African American and Caucasian consumers
exhibit an implicit preference for the color white (as compared to the color black), and that
implicit color preference significantly influences both their racial preferences and advertising
evaluations. These findings document that implicit color bias has a key role in how consumers
react to endorsers of their own and other races, thus highlighting the need to remove its effect
from evaluations of racial stimuli.
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Preference is Not Color Blind: Disentangling Implicit Race and Color Effects
The overall propensity to evaluate members of one’s own group more favorably than
people belonging to other groups (a.k.a., in-group favoritism) is a generally prevalent and wellestablished social-psychological phenomenon (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971). In the
consumer domain, one of the direct consequences of in-group favoritism is that consumers are
likely to favor ad endorsers whom they perceive to belong to their own in-group over endorsers
from other groups. Although this appears to be a robust finding, at least one of the possible bases
for in-group identification, race, leads to more varied results.
Race (e.g., African American or Caucasian American) is a readily noticeable and salient
characteristic of a spokesperson and can serve as a basis for in-group identification and
persuasion (Spira & Whittler, 2004; Whittler & Spira, 2002). However, the body of research
evidence provides mixed results on the effect of race on persuasion. On one end, research using
explicit (i.e., self-report) measures has demonstrated that both African Americans and Caucasian
Americans tend to respond more favorably to persuasive messages delivered by endorsers that
belong to their own racial in-group (Schlinger & Plummer, 1972; Whittler, 1989; Simpson,
Snuggs, Christiansen, & Simples, 2000). Yet, on the other end, psychology and marketing
studies utilizing implicit measures have found that although Caucasians tend to exhibit pro-white
(in-group) preferences, African Americans tend to not exhibit pro-black (in-group) preferences,
and in some instances might even show pro-white preferences (Ashburn-Nardo, Knowles, &
Monteith, 2003; Brunel, Tietje, and Greenwald 2004; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002; SmithMcLallen, Johnson, Dovidio, & Pearson, 2006). This lack of automatic preference for one’s ingroup is perplexing, especially in the context of automatic associations which are supposed to be
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free from social-desirability response biases and tap into automatic attitudes and beliefs
(Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).
System justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994) has been used to explain the absence of
automatic in-group preference for African American respondents. Researchers have proposed
that a long history of discrimination can lead minority individuals to internalize negative
attitudes toward their own group as a means of justifying the status quo (Rudman, Feinberg, &
Fairchild, 2002), and that such attitudes tend to be non-conscious (Jost and Banaji 1994) and can
be unearthed by implicit measures (Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild, 2002).
Although we believe in the merits of system justification theory and the evidence that has
been offered in its support, we also believe that there exist at least one other possible explanation
for the lack of pro-black automatic in-group preference among African Americans. Instead of
offering a historical and sociological discrimination explanation, we propose that there is an even
more fundamental explanation for these results.
In this research, we argue that individuals’ implicit preferences for the color white versus
the color black may impact their evaluations of white versus black faces. We ground our
expectations in work on color preference which has shown that in many cultures, the associations
for the color white are positive, whereas the color black tends to be associated with more
negative connotations (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). Examples include cultural dress codes that
dictate wearing white at weddings and black at funerals (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006), or the
portrayal of villains in black hats and good guys in white clothing in traditional American
Western films (Frank & Gilovich, 1988). Further, white is often used to connote decency and
purity, whereas black is used to connote evil and disgrace (Longshore, 1979). Anthropologists
have argued that the preference for the color white over black can be traced to ancient tribal fears
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for darkness, the night and the unknown versus the fondness for white which is linked to light,
fire or the sun (Mead & Baldwin, 1971). In general, it has been argued that the preference for
white over black is learned from early childhood, is culturally reinforced over time and is a more
fundamental automatic preference than race preference (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006).
In this article, we seek to extend recent results that showed that for Caucasian
respondents an automatic white color preference can be linked to an automatic white racial
preference (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). In particular, we include African Americans in our
studies, and use the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) to
investigate how automatic color preference is linked to automatic racial preference at a
fundamental level. Furthermore, we explore how automatic color preference is linked to two
marketing variables, automatic product preference and automatic spokesperson preference across
both racial groups, by varying the color (i.e., black or white) of products, and the race (i.e.,
African American or Caucasian American) of spokespersons featured in advertisements.
In study 1, we show that both African Americans and Caucasian Americans have prowhite automatic color preferences and pro-white-colored product preferences, and that these
overall implicit color preferences for the color white can be linked to implicit preferences for
white products. In study 2, we replicate the pro-white color preference for both racial groups, but
then we show that only Caucasian Americans respondents appear to have automatic racial and
advertising spokesperson preferences which are consistent with an in-group favoritism
explanation. We also show that for both groups, implicit color preferences are linked to implicit
race and advertising spokespersons preferences. We then statistically “remove” the effect of the
implicit color preference from the implicit race and advertising spokesperson preference
measures and show that once this is done, both racial groups exhibit racial preferences for their
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own in-group. In particular, in contrast to many of the above mentioned studies, the African
American respondents have a pro-black racial preference. Thus, we are able to show that
automatic color preference and in-group-favoritism are directionally similar and additive in
creating automatic racial and Aad preferences for Caucasian Americans. But, for African
American respondents, automatic color preference and in-group-favoritism are countervailing
forces and therefore allow us to explain why, in ours and many other studies, African American
might at first glance appear to lack in in-group favoritism, this being due instead to the fact that
as a group (like most other human beings) they prefer the color white over the color black.
Theoretical background
Implicit racial preference
A focal communicator characteristic of interest in persuasion research has been the
perceived similarity between the endorsers featured in ads and the targeted consumers. Several
studies employing explicit measurement techniques have shown that similar (vs. dissimilar)
endorsers are more influential in changing recipient attitudes (Brock, 1965; Woodside &
Davenport, 1974). The basis of this effect is in-group favoritism (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, &
Flament, 1971), which refers to the propensity to evaluate people who are perceived to belong to
your own group more favorably than people belonging to other groups (Spira & Whittler, 2004).
Hence, recipients are likely to favor endorsers whom they perceive to belong to their racial ingroup over endorsers who belong to other groups. Racial groups represent pre-defined social
categories, hence recipients share socially ascribed group membership with same-race endorsers,
and are likely to exhibit in-group favoritism when evaluating ads featuring endorsers of their
racial in-group compared to ads featuring out-group endorsers.
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Race is a key attribute related to recipients’ perceptions of similarity between themselves
and the endorsers featured in advertisements. Given that race is one of the most noticeable
physical characteristics (especially in terms of skin color), it is likely to influence persuasion
(Spira & Whittler, 2004), and is directly relevant to judgments of similarity. Extant research
using explicit measures tends to affirm this assertion. As previously mentioned, several studies
have shown that both African American and Caucasian consumers evaluate advertisements
featuring same versus different-race endorsers more favorably (e.g., Schlinger & Plummer, 1972;
Whittler, 1989).
However, studies using explicit measures suffer from response biases when the context is
socially sensitive, as in the case of race, because explicit measures allow participants to
consciously control their responses (Ashburn-Nardo et al., 2003). Extant studies utilizing implicit
measures to examine racial associations have found that both Caucasians and African Americans
tend to exhibit implicit pro-Caucasian association bias. For example, Nosek et al. (2002) found
that although African Americans exhibited stronger explicit liking for their own racial group than
Caucasians, participants of both racial groups exhibited a pro-Caucasian (vs. African American)
implicit association bias.
Furthermore, research on the neural basis of social group processing has documented that
indirect measures of race evaluation, such as the IAT, tend to correlate with functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI)-assessed activation of the amygdala. The amygdala is a subcortical
structure involved in emotional learning and evaluation (Phelps et al., 2000), and is implicated in
the automatic evaluation of social stimuli. These results, combined with previous investigations
of intergroup attitudes, suggest that implicit negative associations toward a social group may
result in an automatic emotional response when encountering members of that group. Lieberman
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et al. (2005, p. 722) posit that the amygdala activity that is “associated with race-related
processing may be a reflection of culturally learned negative associations regarding African
American individuals.” This explanation is consistent with system justification theory (Jost &
Banaji, 1994) which has previously been used to explain why African Americans exhibited a
lack of in-group preference in implicit advertising evaluations (Brunel et al., 2004).
System justification theory posits that people are motivated to believe in a just world, and
that a history of discrimination can lead minority individuals to internalize negative attitudes
toward their own group as a means of justifying the status quo (Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild,
2002). Jost and Banaji (1994) emphasize that such attitudes and the motive to sustain them are
likely to be non-conscious. This explains why this phenomenon may not be picked up by selfreport measures, but can be unearthed by implicit measures (Rudman, Feinberg, & Fairchild,
2002) which assess automatic associations that are believed to underlie nonconscious attitudes
and beliefs (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). To summarize, extant research using implicit measures
demonstrates a preference for Caucasian racial stimuli for both African Americans and
Caucasians.
Implicit color preference
Researchers in psychology have theorized about an individual’s color bias; that is, an
implicit color preference for some colors over others (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006). Two
theories have been advanced to explain the development of color preference in young children.
The majority of researchers in this area believe that the emergence of color preference in young
children is due to the cultural socialization of color symbolism. This theory suggests that
children develop a pro-white/anti-black color preference through the verbal learning of color
symbolism in their culture (Duckitt, Wall, & Pokroy, 1999). In other words, as a child’s verbal
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comprehension develops, s/he learns to associate the color white with positive connotations and
the color black with negative connotations. Williams, Tucker, and Dunham (1971) note that the
color white has been used in religion, literature, and the mass media as a symbol of “goodness,”
whereas the color black has been used as a symbol of “badness.” For example, the English
language idiom black sheep is a derogatory term (because black wool is less valuable than white
wool) used to describe an undesirable or disreputable member of a group. In contrast, the term
white knight is used in the management literature to describe a friendly company that is invited
by the target management to outbid an unwanted bidder, and thus protect the company from a
hostile takeover (Jensen & Ruback, 1983). Frank and Gilovich (1988) observed that the terms
“Black Thursday” (referring to Thursday, Oct 24, 1929 when stock values dropped leading to the
Great Depression of the 1930’s), being “blacklisted” or “blackmailed” all carry negative
connotations.
Other researchers favor the early experience theory proposed by Williams and Morland
(1976) as an explanation for the emergence of a pro-white/anti-black color preference in
children. Early experience theory proposes that young children develop a preference for the color
white as compared to the color black as a result of their early experiences with light and
darkness. Specifically, as diurnal beings, we require light to interact effectively with our
environment, and may find darkness to be disorienting and therefore intrinsically aversive
(Williams, Boswell, & Best, 1975). Early experience theory suggests that a child’s early
experiences with the light of day and the darkness of the night lead her/him to develop a
preference for light over darkness, which may then generalize to a preference for the color white
as compared to the color black (Williams et al. 1975).
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As noted, cross-cultural research indicates a prevalence of positive associations with the
color white and negative associations with the color black (Adams & Osgood, 1973). Several
studies have documented the existence of a pro-white/anti-black color preference using
participants from varying social and ethnic backgrounds, indicating that this may be a pancultural phenomenon. For example, Adams and Osgood, (1973) used semantic differential scales
to study the color preferences of adults and found that participants evaluated the color white
more positively than the color black. Others have used an indirect measure called the Color
Meaning Test (CMT II; Williams et al., 1975) to study color preference in children. Researchers
using the CMT II have found support for a pro-white/anti-black color preference in children from
varying cultures including: European-American (Boswell & Williams, 1975), African American
(Williams & Rousseau, 1971), and bi-racial American (Neto & Paiva, 1998). Furthermore, a
cross-cultural study investigating the affective meanings of color in 23 cultures found that the
color black is viewed as the color of evil and death in almost all cultures (Adams & Osgood,
1973). Hence, we expect that:
H1:
Caucasian and African American participants will exhibit an implicit color preference for
the color white as compared to the color black.
Relationship between color preference and product preference
Color is an important component of marketing communications, and its effects have been
widely studied in the areas of advertising, packaging, and store design (Bellizzi, Crowley, &
Hasty, 1983). While a large portion of color research on products by marketers has not been
published due to competitive concerns (Bellizzi et al., 1983), extant published research has
shown that effective use of color can attract attention (Lee & Barnes, 1989), and influence
consumers’ perceptions and behaviors (Aslam, 2006).
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Consumers deliberately choose product colors that complement their desired self-image
(Madden et al., 2000). For example, consumers choose colors for their houses, cars, and clothes
that are consistent with how they want to present themselves (Trinkaus, 1991). We anticipate that
consumers’ implicit product preferences will be consistent with their implicit color preferences.
As noted in the previous section, extant research suggests that consumers from varying
backgrounds have a non-conscious preference for the color white over the color black. Hence,
we expect that:
H2:
Caucasian and African American participants will exhibit an implicit product preference
for white as compared to black colored products.
H3:
Implicit color preference will predict implicit product preference, such that participants
who implicitly prefer the color white (black) will also tend to implicitly prefer white
(black) colored products.
Relationship between color preference and racial preference
Research suggests that individuals develop a preference for the color white over the color
black at an early age, and this contributes to the later development of racial preference (Duckitt,
Wall, & Pokroy, 1999). Correlational studies have found a significant positive relationship
between color and racial preferences, such that participants with a high degree of pro-white/antiblack color preference tend to evaluate dark-skinned people less favorably than light-skinned
people (Williams, 1969; Boswell & Williams, 1975; Neto & Williams, 1997). Livingston and
Brewer (2002) found that Caucasian participants made more negative associations with African
Americans than Caucasians, especially for African Americans with prototypic features such as
darker colored skin. Similarly, Maddox and Gray (2002) report that both Caucasian and African
American participants exhibited stronger associations between stereotypic negative racial
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characteristics (e.g., being criminal, poor, or aggressive) and darker-skinned African Americans.
Furthermore, experimental studies show evidence for a functional relationship between color and
racial preferences (Williams et al., 1975). For example, Williams and Edwards (1969) used
reinforcement procedures to weaken participants’ pro-white/anti-black color preferences, which
subsequently led to a reduction in their pro-Caucasian/anti-Black racial evaluations, and later
studies replicated these findings in different cultures and societies (Duckitt et al., 1999).
The aforementioned theory and research findings suggest that participants’ implicit color
preferences will influence their implicit racial preferences and their implicit evaluations of
advertisements that feature African American or Caucasian endorsers. Hence, we expect:
H4:
Implicit color preference will predict implicit racial preference and implicit advertising
preference, such that participants who implicitly prefer the color white (black) will also
tend to implicitly prefer Caucasian (African American) faces and advertisements
featuring Caucasian (vs. African American) endorsers.
H5:
Implicit racial preference will mediate the effect of implicit color preference on
participants’ implicit advertising preference.
Disentangling color preference from racial and advertising evaluations. As
previously mentioned, studies using implicit measurement techniques such as the IAT generally
find that both Caucasian and African American participants exhibit pro-Caucasian association
bias when responding to racial stimuli (Nosek et al., 2002). This finding is incongruent with the
vast majority of extant studies assessing participants’ advertising preferences in response to ads
featuring in-group versus out-group models. We expect that the influence of color preference on
racial evaluations may partially account for this disparity. Specifically, we disentangle the effect
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of participants’ implicit color preferences from their implicit racial and implicit advertising
preferences, and test the following hypothesis:
H6:
After controlling for color preference, both African American and Caucasian participants
will exhibit implicit racial and advertising preferences in favor of their racial in-group.
Methodology
Recent research in consumer behavior and psychology has acknowledged that
consumption behavior is frequently affected by cognitive processes outside conscious awareness
and control (Bargh, 2002; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Moreover, even when research
participants are aware of their attitudes, they may be unwilling to share them or may
purposefully distort their answers to avoid embarrassment, especially when the topic of interest
is socially sensitive in nature (Mick, 1996). Methodological advances in implicit measurement
techniques have enabled researchers to use indirect measures to examine participants’ racial
associations. Implicit measures provide an indirect estimate of the construct of interest, without
directly asking the participant (Fazio & Olson, 2003). Prominent examples include projective
techniques (Haire, 1950), various forms of priming (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes,
1986), the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998), and the Go/No-Go
Association Task (Nosek & Banaji, 2001).
In our research, we employ the IAT, a well-established and widely used technique for
measuring implicit associations (Fazio & Olson, 2003), to explore whether both African
American and Caucasian respondents exhibit an implicit color preference (ICP) for the color
white as compared to the color black, and an implicit product preference (IPP) for white products
as compared to black products. Furthermore, we examine whether participants’ implicit racial
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preference (IRP) may be partially explained by their implicit color preference (ICP). In addition,
we investigate the effect of these two antecedents of attitude toward the ad (i.e., IRP and ICP) on
participants’ implicit attitudes toward advertisements (IAad) featuring African American and
Caucasian endorsers.
Study 1
Study 1 was designed to test the first three hypotheses. While extant research has shown
that Caucasian participants exhibit an implicit color preference for the color white as compared
to the color black (Smith-McLallen et al., 2006) replicating past studies using explicit measures,
to the best of our knowledge, no other study has examined the color preferences of African
American respondents using an implicit measure. Furthermore, we designed study 1 to test
whether participants’ automatic color preferences are related to their automatic preference for
white versus black colored products.
Participants, Materials and Procedure
We recruited Caucasian and African American participants from an online panel provider
to participate in an IAT experiment. Following the recommendations of Greenwald, Nosek, and
Banaji (2003), individual trial response latencies greater than 10,000 milliseconds, and data from
participants who responded faster than 300 milliseconds on more than 10% of trials were
eliminated. This yielded a total of 219 useable responses from 123 Caucasian (64 female and 59
male) and 96 African American (77 female and 19 male) respondents, with a mean age of 39
years old.
Participants completed two separate IAT procedures: a color IAT, and a product IAT.
Each IAT consisted of seven blocks. Blocks four and seven (counterbalanced) were the
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measurement blocks. Within each of the three IAT tasks, the order in which participants
encountered the black preference blocks (pairing black stimuli with pleasant words, and white
stimuli with unpleasant words) and white preference blocks (pairing white stimuli with pleasant
words, and black stimuli with unpleasant words) was counterbalanced. Categorization labels
(e.g., “Pleasant vs. Unpleasant”) appeared on the top right and the top left of the computer
screen, and a randomly selected stimulus (either an image or a word) from that IAT appeared in
the middle of the screen. Participants were instructed to sort stimuli to the appropriate category
as quickly as they could, while trying to minimize errors. Participants were instructed to press
the “D” key on their computer keyboard if the correct category label for the target stimulus
appeared on the left side of the screen, and the “K” key if the appropriate category label appeared
on the right side of the screen. Whenever participants responded correctly, the next stimulus and
category labels appeared; whenever participants’ responses were incorrect, a red “X” appeared
and remained on the screen until the stimulus was correctly classified.
Stimuli development. All IAT stimuli used a gray background (RGB color code 127 127
127), which is exactly between the colors black and white in the color spectrum to avoid priming
participants with either the color white or black. Additionally, we set the background color of all
experimental procedures to the same color gray. The color IAT assessed participants’ implicit
color preferences for the colors white and black, using pictures of black and white geometric
shapes as color stimuli (see the Appendix for examples of the stimuli used in each IAT), and
words with positive (e.g., “happiness”) and negative (e.g., “misery”) connotations as evaluative
stimuli to represent the two attribute concepts (i.e., Pleasant and Unpleasant). The product IAT
Measurement of IAT effects. As IAT studies are based on latency measures,
participants’ response latencies were recorded (in milliseconds) from the onset of each stimulus
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to its correct classification for the two measured blocks in each IAT. Mean preference scores
were calculated using the improved D score algorithm (Greenwald et al., 2003). Specifically, D
was scored so that higher numbers indicate a stronger association between pleasant words and
Caucasian stimuli on the race IAT and advertising IAT, and white shapes on the color IAT.
Therefore, a positive (negative) D implies that participants paired Caucasian (or white) stimuli
with pleasant words and African American (or black) stimuli with unpleasant words quicker
(slower) than they paired African American (or black) stimuli with pleasant words and
Caucasian (or white) stimuli with unpleasant words. In contrast to the earlier conventional
scoring procedure, the improved algorithm minimizes the effect of having previously completed
one or more IATs on the calculated IAT scores (Greenwald et al., 2003), which is particularly
important for the present experiment where participants were asked to complete three separate
IAT procedures.
Results
Our findings for study 1, the mean D scores, 95% confidence intervals, and correlations
for the two IAT tasks are presented in Table 1. In support of hypothesis 1, both Caucasians (ICP
Mean d = .68, t(122) = 18.48, p <.001) and African Americans (ICP Mean d = .23, t(95) = 4.17,
p <.001) exhibited an implicit preference for the color white as compared to the color black in
the color IAT. In support of hypothesis 2, we found that both Caucasians (IPP Mean d = .48,
t(122) = 15.05, p <.001) and African Americans (IPP Mean d = .17, t(95) = 4.23, p <.001)
exhibited an implicit preference for white as compared to black colored products in the product
IAT. To test the relationship between participants’ implicit color preferences and implicit
product preferences, we performed a regression predicting the product IAT scores from the color
IAT scores. We found that both Caucasians’ (β = .28, p < .01) and African Americans’ (β = .43,
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p < .01) implicit color preferences significantly predicted their implicit product preferences in
support of hypothesis 3. In other words, participants who implicitly preferred the color white
(black) also tended to implicitly prefer white (black) colored products.
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Insert Table 1 about here
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Study 2
The results of study 1 showed that both African American and Caucasian respondents
exhibited an implicit preference for the color white, which was significantly related to their
implicit preference for white colored products. Study 2 was designed to test hypotheses four,
five, and six. Specifically, we designed study 2 to test whether participants’ color preferences
predict their implicit racial and implicit advertising preferences. More importantly, we test
whether removing the effect of color preference from racial and advertising evaluations can yield
responses in favor of respondents’ in-group as documented by many extant studies utilizing
explicit measures. The results of study 1 suggest that both African Americans and Caucasians
prefer the color white over the color black. Hence, we expect that controlling for the effect of
color preference should decrease (increase) Caucasian (African American) participants’ implicit
racial and implicit advertising preferences in favor of their racial in-group as described in H6.
Participants, Materials and Procedure
We recruited from 245 Caucasian (122 female and 123 male) and 81 African American
(49 female and 32 male) undergraduate students, with a mean age of 22 years old to participate
in an IAT experiment. Participants completed three separate IAT procedures: a color IAT, a race
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IAT, and an advertising IAT. All IAT procedures and the measurement of IAT effects were
identical to study 1.
Stimuli development. We used the same color IAT as in study 1. The race IAT assessed
participants’ implicit racial preferences using six pictures of African American faces and six
Caucasian faces as race stimuli. An equal number of female and male models of each race,
photographed in similar poses were used. The advertising IAT assessed overall preference for
advertisements featuring either an African American or a Caucasian athlete as an endorser.
Twelve ads were used, six depicting African American endorsers, and six depicting Caucasian
endorsers in similar poses. The ads as stimuli in the advertising IAT were previously used by
Brunel et al. (2004, study 2), with the only exception that we added a gray background (RGB
color code 127 127 127) to all stimuli. Great care was taken to have an equal representation of
the two featured brands (Etonic and New Balance), and to display each brand name colored
either black or white an equal number of times to ensure that participants were not systematically
exposed to a greater number of white or black colored stimuli.
Results
Our findings for study 2 for the three IAT tasks are presented in Table 2. In support of
hypothesis 1, and replicating the results of study 1, both Caucasians (ICP Mean d = .58, t(244) =
21.79, p <.001) and African Americans (ICP Mean d = .36, t(80) = 6.81, p <.001) exhibited an
implicit preference for the color white as compared to the color black in the color IAT. We also
found that Caucasians exhibited an implicit in-group racial preference in the race IAT (IRP Mean
d = .46, t (244) = 20.60, p <.001), whereas African Americans did not exhibit a significant
implicit racial preference (IRP Mean d = -.02, t(80) = -.44, p = .66). Similarly, and consistent
with Brunel et al. (2004), Caucasians exhibited an implicit in-group advertising preference in the
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advertising IAT, favoring advertisements featuring Caucasian (vs. African American) endorsers
(IAad Mean d = .40, t(244) = 17.59, p <.001), whereas African Americans did not exhibit a
significant implicit advertising preference (IAad Mean d = -.03, t (80) = -.72, p = .47).
––––––––––––––––––––
Insert Table 2 about here
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To test the relationship between participants’ color preferences and racial preferences, we
performed a regression predicting the race IAT scores from the color IAT scores. We found that
both Caucasians’ (β = .35, p < .001) and African Americans’ (β = .23, p < .05) implicit color
preferences significantly predicted their implicit racial preferences in support of hypothesis 4.
Similarly, to test the relationship between participants’ color and advertising preferences we
regressed participants’ advertising IAT preference scores on their color IAT preference scores.
Once again, the regression results lend support to hypothesis 4 as both Caucasians’ (β = .21, p <
.01) and African Americans’ (β = .29, p < .01) implicit color preferences significantly predicted
their implicit advertising preferences. We also regressed participants’ advertising IAT scores on
their racial IAT scores and found that both Caucasians’ (β = .47, p < .001) and African
Americans’ (β = .41, p < .001) implicit racial preferences significantly predicted their implicit
advertising preferences. Hypothesis 5 suggests that IRP will mediate the effect of ICP on IAad.
Consistent with this hypothesis, both Caucasian (Sobel test statistic = 5.32; p < .001) and African
American (Sobel test statistic = 2.19; p < .01) participants’ implicit racial preferences mediated
the effect of their implicit color preferences on their implicit advertising preferences.
To evaluate our final hypothesis, we need to disentangle the effect of ICP on participants’
IRP and IAad. To control for the effect of ICP on IRP, we used a generalized linear model
(GLIM) formulation to estimate equation 1 parameters, which allows for potential correlation
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between ICP and IRP from the same participant through the error term ε1i. The Pearson residual
(ε1i), represents Unique Implicit Racial Preference (UIRP), as it equals to IRP as calculated by
the race IAT with the effect of ICP as calculated by the color IAT removed. To control for the
effect of ICP on IAad, we used equation 2 to obtain the Pearson residual (ε2i), which represents
Unique Implicit Attitude toward the Ad (UIAad), as it equals to IAad as calculated by the
advertising IAT with the effect of ICP as calculated by the color IAT removed.
IRPi = a + b x ICPi + ε1i
IAadi = a + b x ICPi + c x έ1i + ε2i
(1)
(2)
The resulting UIRP and UIAad for Caucasian and African American participants are
presented in Table 2. In support of hypothesis 6, after removing the effect of color preference
from participants’ race IAT preference scores we find that both Caucasian (UIRP Mean d = .10,
t(244) = 4.79, p <.001) and African American (UIRP Mean d = -.30, t(80) = -6.88, p <.001)
participants exhibit a unique implicit racial preference in favor of their racial in-group. Similarly,
after controlling for ICP we find that both Caucasian (UIAad Mean d = .09, t(244) = 4.11, p
<.001) and African American (UIAad Mean d = -.28, t(80) = -7.42, p <.001) participants exhibit
a unique implicit advertising preference for ads depicting endorsers of their racial in-group. In
other words, after controlling for participants’ preference for the color white, Caucasians’ racial
and advertising preferences for Caucasian models decreased, while African Americans’ racial
and advertising preferences for African American models increased, and reached significant
levels. Furthermore, after removing the effect of implicit color preference from participants’
implicit racial and implicit advertising preferences, UIRP and UIAad are significantly correlated
for both African American (r = .38, p <.01) and Caucasian participants (r = .43, p <.01).
PREFERENCE IS NOT COLOR BLIND
21
Discussion
Our research draws much needed attention to consumers’ underlying associations related
to race and color, and contributes to our understanding of their respective individual and joint
effects on consumers’ evaluations of advertisements featuring African American and Caucasian
endorsers. Our experiment is the first to consider consumers’ implicit color preferences in the
context of their advertising preferences for endorsers of different races. We find that both
African American and Caucasian participants exhibit an implicit preference for the color white
(as compared to the color black). This finding is consistent with the extant literature as several
studies have documented the existence of a pro-white color preference using both adults and
children from varying social and ethnic backgrounds (Adams & Osgood, 1973; Boswell &
Williams, 1975; Neto & Williams, 1997). Extant research suggests that the cultural socialization
of color symbolism has a pervasive influence on individuals’ development of racial preferences,
which in turn may affect individuals’ evaluations of advertisements featuring endorsers of
different races. As expected, we document that both Caucasian and African American
participants’ pro-white color preference contributed significantly to their racial and advertising
preferences, suggesting the need to remove the effect of color preference from all evaluations of
racial stimuli.
Theoretical work related to in-group favoritism (Tajfel et al., 1971) suggests that African
Americans (Caucasians) should prefer African American (Caucasian) endorsers when racial
groups are explicitly mentioned. However, extant studies using implicit measures such as the
IAT generally report that both Caucasian and African American participants tend to exhibit
implicit pro-Caucasian association bias when exposed to racial stimuli. Our results suggest that a
PREFERENCE IS NOT COLOR BLIND
22
potential reason for such a disparity is the biasing effect of participants’ pro-white implicit color
preference on implicit measures of racial evaluations.
While there is a rich body of research examining African American and Caucasian
consumers’ advertising reactions to different race endorsers (Schlinger & Plummer, 1972;
Szybillo & Jacoby, 1974; Whittler & Spira, 2002), almost all extant studies have relied on
explicit measures. In addition to our present experiment, the only other study we are aware of
that has used an implicit measure to assess participants’ advertising reactions to Caucasian and
African American endorsers is Brunel et al. (2004; study 2). Our findings, which are based on
IAT responses from 81 African Americans, replicate those of Brunel et al.’s (2004) study, with
IAT responses from 6 African Americans. Both studies found a lack of a significant implicit
preference in the advertising IAT among African American participants, and a pro-Caucasian
advertising preference among Caucasian participants. This result may be attributed to the fact
that mass media advertisements have traditionally featured Caucasian endorsers, at the exclusion
of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups. Importantly however, after controlling
for the effect of implicit color preference, participants of both races exhibited a significant
preference for in-group racial stimuli, both in their race and in their advertising evaluations. Thus
in summary, our results point to the implicit preference for the color white as a key explanatory
variable that has favorably exaggerated the in-group advertising preferences of Caucasians, while
attenuating those of African Americans.
PREFERENCE IS NOT COLOR BLIND
23
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Table 1
Means, confidence intervals, and correlations for IAT tasks in study 1.
Caucasians (N = 123)
African Americans (N = 96)
Correlations
IAT Task
ICP1
IPP2
Mean D
95% CI
.68***
.48***
.61, .76
.42, .54
ICP
.28**
IPP
Correlations
Mean D
95% CI
ICP
.23***
.17***
.12, .34
.09, .24
.43**
IPP
Note: CI = confidence interval; ICP = Implicit Color Preference; IPP = Implicit Product Preference.
Positive (negative) mean D scores indicate an implicit color preference for white (black) geometric shapes.
2
Positive (negative) mean D scores indicate an implicit product preference for white (black) colored products.
** p <.01.
*** p <.001.
1
PREFERENCE IS NOT COLOR BLIND
29
Table 2
Means, confidence intervals, and correlations for IAT tasks in study 2.
Caucasians (N = 245)
African Americans (N = 81)
Correlations
IAT Task
Mean D
95% CI
ICP1
IRP2
IAad3
UIRP2
UIAad3
.58***
.46***
.40***
.10***
.09***
.53, .64
.42, .50
.36, .44
.06, .14
.05, .14
ICP
.35**
.21**
-.07
-.11
IRP
.47**
.91**
.36**
IAad
.41**
.95**
Correlations
UIRP
Mean D
95% CI
ICP
IRP
IAad
UIRP
.43**
.36***
-.02
-.03
-.30***
-.28***
.26, .47
-.11, .07
-.11, .05
-.39, -.22
-.35, -.20
.23*
.29**
-.20
-.09
.41**
.91**
.34**
.29**
.93**
.38**
Note: CI = confidence interval; ICP = Implicit Color Preference; IRP = Implicit Racial Preference; IAad = Implicit Attitude
toward the Ad; UIRP = Unique Implicit Racial Preference; UIAad = Unique Implicit Attitude toward the Ad.
1
Positive (negative) mean D scores indicate an implicit color preference for white (black) geometric shapes.
2
Positive (negative) mean D scores indicate an implicit racial preference for images of Caucasian (African American) individuals.
3
Positive (negative) mean D scores indicate an implicit advertisement preference for Caucasian (African American) endorsers.
* p <.05.
** p <.01.
*** p <.001.
PREFERENCE IS NOT COLOR BLIND
30
Appendix
Examples of IAT stimuli used in studies 1 and 2
Color IAT
(Studies 1 and 2)
Race IAT1
(Studies 1 and 2)
Product IAT
(Study 1)
Advertising IAT1
(Study 2)
Note: All stimuli were presented at a resolution of approximately 250 x 250 pixels, and the background color was gray (RGB color
code 127 127 127).
1
An equal number of women and men from each racial group photographed in similar poses were depicted in both the race and
advertising IATs.