Property and prejudice: How racial attitudes and social-evaluative concerns shape property appraisals

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol.

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Property and prejudice: How racial attitudes and social-evaluativeconcerns shape property appraisalsJason C. McIntyre*, Merryn D. Constable*,†,‡ & Fiona Kate Barlow*,§

* School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

† Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

‡ Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

§ School of Applied Psychology and Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Australia

CorrespondenceJason McIntyre, School of Psychology, The

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

E-mail: [email protected]

Received: 27 May 2014

Accepted: 3 April 2015

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2121

Keywords: Prejudice, Ingroup bias, Ownership,

Social evaluation

European Journal of Social Psychology 00 (2015) 00–00 Copy

Abstract

Property evaluations rarely occur in the absence of social context. However,no research has investigated how intergroup processes related to prejudiceextend to concepts of property. In the present research, we propose thatfactors such as group status, prejudice and pressure to mask prejudicedattitudes affect how people value the property of racial ingroup and outgroupmembers. In Study 1,White American andAsianAmerican participantswereasked to appraise a hand-painted mug that was ostensibly created by either aWhite or an Asian person. Asian participants demonstrated an ingroup bias.White participants showed an outgroup bias, but this effect was qualified.Specifically, among White participants, higher racism towards AsianAmericans predicted higher valuations of mugs created by Asian people.Study 2 revealed that White Americans’ prejudice towards Asian Americanspredicted higher valuations of themug created by anAsian person onlywhenparticipants were highly concerned about conveying a non-prejudicedpersonal image. Our results suggest that, ironically, prejudiced majority groupmembers evaluate the property ofminority groupmemberswhom they dislikemore favourably. The current findings provide a foundation for meldingintergroup relations research with research on property and ownership.

The influence of social context on concepts ofownership has historically enjoyed a large amount ofphilosophical and psychological attention (e.g.Hohfeld,1913; James, 1890; Locke, 1690; Sartre, 1943), yet onlyrecently has it become a focal point of experimentalresearch. Much of this research has focussed on com-paring how people value objects they own comparedwith objects others own. A classic example of this isthe endowment effect (Thaler, 1980), whereby simplyowning an item will increase the valuation someoneplaces on it. For an item they own, participants willtypically demandahigher price than theywould bewillingto pay if they were buying the same item (Kahneman,Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990). Thus, people show biasestowards objects that they possess. What is not known,however, is whether valuation biases also emerge whenpeople appraise items owned by an ingroup or outgroupmember, or if such biases exist, why they emerge.

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Research investigating how owner characteristicsinfluence perceptions of property is in its infancy.However, evidence is emerging that suggests informa-tion about the owner of an object may affect how theobject is appraised and treated (Constable, Kritikos, &Bayliss, 2011; Constable, Kritikos, Lipp, & Bayliss, 2014;Ledgerwood, Liviatan, & Carnevale, 2007; Madduxet al., 2010). It has been proposed that objects are per-ceived as an extension of the self (Newman, Bartels, &Smith, 2014), and thus, it is possible that the influenceof intergroup processes on evaluations of ingroup andoutgroup members extends to evaluations of theirrespective property. Here, we test whether the ethnicityof an object’s owner influences how it is appraised andexamine when group-biased property appraisals arise.Specifically, we propose that racial attitudes and normsrelated to prejudice shape how people value itemsowned by racial ingroup and outgroup members.

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J. C. McIntyre et al.Property and prejudice

Property and Ingroup Bias

The mere perception of belonging to a distinct socialgroup promotes ingroup favouritism in a range ofsettings (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Such ingroupbiases require no conflict or difference of opinionbetween groups in order to emerge, and thus,ingroup bias effects are robust across a range ofdifferent social categories, including ethnicity. Al-though contemporary attitudes towards racism havereduced the extent of overt racial ingroup prefer-ence and outgroup discrimination, ingroup biasesare still evident in more subtle forms. For example,studies suggest that people show preferences forsame-race people over other-race people when offi-ciating sporting matches (Price & Wolfers, 2007)and when making legal judgments (Rachlinski,Johnson, Wistrich, & Guthrie, 2008).Few experiments have investigated how group pro-

cesses and biases extend to concepts of property. How-ever, there is evidence that ingroup bias is enhancedwhen an object is closely tied to one’s group identity(Ledgerwood et al., 2007). In their study, Ledgerwoodand colleagues found that buildings highly symbolic ofa group’s identity were valued more highly, and thatpeople who were more committed to group-identitygoals placed greater value on buildings that had ingroupsignificance. Similarly, women have been shown tovalue items more highly when the item is a gift from aclose friend rather than a stranger (Jefferson & Taplin,2011), and valuation biases for ingroup objects areenhanced when one’s social identity is threatened(Dommer & Swaminathan, 2013). Thus, ingroup biasrelated to objects is more likely to occur when the objectis connected to ingroup-identities.Extending on the work presented earlier, in the

present studies, we use an object (hand-painted mug)that is not tied to group identity goals. In doing so, weaim to determine the impact of group processes onobjects that are owned by, but are not symbolic of, eitherthe ingroup or outgroup. Given the clear ingroup biasdemonstrated in several previous studies, one hypothesiswould be that people will value ingroup-owned objectsmore highly than outgroup-owned objects, even if theydo not symbolise or embody the ingroup identity. Fur-ther to this, the extent to which people report prejudicetowards outgroups is reliably associated with ingroupbias. For example, more prejudiced people also reportmore outgroup avoidance (Barlow, Louis, & Hewstone,2009). Thus, should a pattern of favouritism foringroup-owned objects be evident, it is possible thathighly prejudiced people might be the most likely todevalue outgroup-owned objects.

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Prejudice and Overcompensation

In the preceding discussion, we suggested that peoplemight show ingroup bias when evaluating propertyowned by ingroups and outgroups. An alternativehypothesis is that people will show a valuation bias infavour of outgroup objects in an attempt to hideprejudiced attitudes. Although campaigns to eliminateracial discrimination have led to changes in societalnorms surrounding prejudiced attitudes and behav-iours, these shifts have not incontrovertibly changedpeople’s implicit racial attitudes. Thus, people continueto harbour stereotypical or prejudiced attitudes as socie-tal expectations change, but these negative attitudesmay be suppressed in order to maintain unprejudicedpersonal images (Carver, Glass, & Katz, 1978; Muraven,2008; Richeson & Shelton, 2003). This drive to restrainprejudiced attitudes has been found to produce over-compensation among majority group members,whereby people who hold stronger racial biases arethose most likely to go out of their way to not appearprejudiced (Shelton, Richeson, Salvatore, & Trawalter,2005; Vorauer & Turpie, 2004). Indeed, it has beenfound that White participants particularly concernedabout appearing prejudiced overcompensate for racialbiases and expend greater self-regulatory effort in orderto appear tolerant during an interaction with a Blackconfederate (Richeson & Shelton, 2003). Similarly,majority group members who are high in prejudice actmore positively towards minority group memberscompared with less racially biased majority groupmembers (Shelton et al., 2005).Overcompensatory positivity among high bias individ-

uals may be due to social evaluative concerns (Carveret al., 1978). In one study, Carver and colleagues foundthat participants rated an interviewee more favourablywhen he was identified as ‘Black’ compared withwhen the race of the intervieweewas not specified. How-ever, the Black interviewee was rated less favourablycompared with a candidate of unknown race, when par-ticipants were ostensibly informed that the experimenterwould have access to physiological data thatwould revealtheir actual feelings towards the interviewee. Therefore,only when participants thought that they would beunable to hide their beliefs did they evaluate the Blackcandidate negatively. Taken together, past research oninter-racial contact suggests that majority group mem-bers feel social pressure to act favourably towardsminority groups, and that people high in prejudiceattempt to compensate for their negative attitudes withenhanced positivity towards minority group members.Minority group members, on the other hand, are not

under the same pressure to appear non-prejudiced.

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J. C. McIntyre et al. Property and prejudice

Instead, minority group members are typically thetargets (rather than perpetrators) of prejudice. Accord-ingly, majority group members express concerns overappearing prejudiced tominority groupmembers, whileminority group members tend to be more concernedwith threats and devaluation by the majority group(Plant &Devine, 2003; Plant, 2004). Thus, overcompen-satory positivity towards racial outgroup members ismore likely to occur amongmajority rather thanminor-ity group members.

The Present Studies

How overcompensatory or ingroup favouring biasesmight relate to property is an open question. Althoughproperty and ownership are considered to be universalinsofar as property rights can be found across culturesand species (Brown, 1991), it is critical to understandownership from an intergroup perspective, given thatthe rules and regulations surrounding property can varydramatically. Indeed, increasing flexibility in foreignownership laws has led to greater worldwide foreigninvestment in land and corporations. Likewise, the im-migrant share of small business ownership in Americahas increased from 12% to 18% over the past twodecades (Fiscal Policy Institute, 2012). Thus, examininghow intergroup processes influence concepts of prop-erty has implications for a diverse range of disciplines,including intergroup relations, commercial investment,property law and financial market forecasting.In the present research, we investigate the effect of

racial group membership and racial outgroup preju-dice on property appraisals among Asian and WhiteAmericans. As detailed earlier, past research hasproduced conflicting findings in relation to how racialattitudes manifest in behaviour towards ingroup andoutgroup members. In some cases, people demonstratebiases towards ingroups (Price & Wolfers, 2007;Rachlinski et al., 2008; Tajfel & Turner, 1979); in others,people tend to overcompensate for their prejudicedattitudes and evaluate outgroups more positively(Richeson & Shelton, 2003; Shelton et al., 2005;Vorauer & Turpie, 2004). Consequently, we are leftwith two competing hypotheses. The first possible out-come is a traditional ingroup bias effect, whereby wewould predict that people will rate objects owned byracial ingroup members as more valuable. In addition,if ingroup bias processes are present, we would expectstronger ingroup favouritism as prejudice againstoutgroup members increases. The second possibility isthat people will show an outgroup valuation bias inorder to appear racially tolerant. If this is the case, wewould expect outgroup favouritism to be stronger in

European Journal of Social Psychology 00 (2015) 00–00 Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Son

the majority group, because majority group membersare undermore pressure to appear racially tolerant. Fur-ther, valuations of outgroup property should becomehigher as outgroup prejudice increases because it ismore important for highly prejudiced majority groupmembers to mask their underlying attitudes and avoidsocial consequences such as being labelled as ‘racist’.

STUDY 1

In Study 1, we examined how people evaluate propertyowned by racial minority (Asian American) and major-ity (White American) group members. We presentedWhite and Asian participants with a photograph of anitem that had no clear market value (a hand-paintedmug that was of average quality) and was ostensiblyentered into what participants believed was a realonline art contest by either aWhite or Asian artist. Con-sistent with previous research on ownership, we used ahand-painted mug to display clear ownership andpersonal investment in the object. Note also that pastresearch has shown that it is assumed that the creatorof an object is also its owner (Kanngiesser, Gjersoe, &Hood, 2010; Kanngiesser & Hood, 2014). While anonline setting may not precisely simulate the social in-fluences experienced in participants’ daily lives becauseof increased perceptions of anonymity, previousresearch has shown that anonymity has little influenceon responses to measures of personality, psychopa-thology and attitudes (Richman, Kiesler, Weisband, &Drasgow, 1999).Moreover, online responses have beenfound to be comparable to data obtained from otherdata collection methods (Buhrmester, Kwang, &Gosling, 2011). The aim of Study 1 was to determinewhether valuations of racial ingroup and outgroupproperty are subject to ingroup favouritism or over-compensation biases and, further, if prejudice mightbe associated with any observed patterns.

Method

Participants

Sample size was estimated based on recommendationslaid out by Green (1991) for regression analysespredicting small effect sizes. We recruited 300 WhiteAmericans through the SocialSci.com website partici-pant pool. Only participants who identified as Caucasianon their personal profiles were sent a survey link.Twenty-six participants who completed the surveyindicated they were not Caucasian in the demographicssection of the survey, resulting in a final sample size of274 (140 females, 134 males). Participants were aged

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Fig. 1: Example of stimulus presented to participants in both studies

J. C. McIntyre et al.Property and prejudice

between 18 and 74years (M=28.35, SD=9.77) andwere reimbursed with points that could be exchangedfor gift vouchers through the website.Asian Americans were recruited through the

Mechanical Turk website. Our survey link advertisedspecifically for Asian American participants. We alsoincluded an ethnicity item at the end of the survey thatreassured participants they would be fully reimbursedfor their participation if they did not identify as AsianAmerican. Of the 314 respondents, 22 indicated thatthey did not identify as Asian American, resulting in afinal sample size of 292 (145 females, 145 males, 2other). Ages ranged from 18 to 68years (M=27.02,SD=8.13). Participants were reimbursed with $US0.50for their time.There were no significant differences in age (t(561)=

�1.76, p= .078, d=0.15) or socioeconomic status, asmeasured by income (t(561)=�0.54, p= .591, d=0.04)between the two samples. Bothwebsites also report sim-ilar standards of education: Forty per cent of SocialSciparticipants from the USA hold a bachelor’s degree(SocialSci, 2015), which is comparable to MechanicalTurk’s figure of 42% (Ross, Zaldivar, Irani, & Tomlinson,2009). These data suggest that the two websites recruitcomparable cross-sections of the population.

Design and Procedure

Participants completed the study online. The studyemployed a 2 (participant ethnicity: Asian American andWhiteAmerican)×2 (artist ethnicity:Asian andWhite)×2(artist gender: male and female) between-subjects design.After agreeing to the terms of the study, participants

were informed that they would be helping to judge an‘everyday art competition’, which involved art submis-sions from American college students. Participants wereinformed that the rules of the competition stipulatedthat submissions should be based on an object thatpeople use every day. Theywere also informed that theywould be presented with one piece of art at random tojudge, and that they would complete a short survey atthe end of the judging. The art piece was a hand-paintedmug that received moderate pre-ratings on measures oflikability (M=5.15 on a 9-point scale, N=22). A pictureof the piece was presented with a blurb about the sub-mission and basic information about the artist, includingage, gender, college enrolment status and entrant ID(Figure 1). To emphasise personal ownership, we alsoincluded the word ‘owner’ in front of the artist’s name.The image and information were held constant for eachcondition with the exception of the artist’s name, whichwas manipulated to be either a common Asian name ora common Caucasian name. In order to control for

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gender effects, we also varied the gender of the artist,which resulted in participants being randomly allocatedto one of four artist conditions: Asian female (HuifangChan), Asian male (Kuan Hsu), White female (SarahMcDonald), or White male (Adam Chapman).After reading the cover story and viewing the

submission, participants were asked to provide judg-ments about the mug, followed by the blatant racismscale (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995) and demographicquestions. The blatant racism scale was administered af-ter themug evaluation so that participants would not beaware of the racial component of the study while theywere evaluating the mug. The mug, blurb and artist in-formation were presented on the screen throughout themug rating task, but not during the questionnaire. Aftercompleting the survey, participants were fully debriefedon the purpose of the study and use of deception.

Measures

Mug Value. To assess participants’ perceptions of thevalue of the piece, they responded to five items. Forthree of the items, participants rated their level of agree-ment (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree) with thestatements: ‘I think this piece is valuable’, ‘I would bewilling to pay money for this piece’ and ‘I would liketo own this piece’. Participants also indicated the maxi-mum price ($USD) that theywould be willing to pay forthe piece and gave the piece a score out of 10. All itemswere converted to z-scores and then averaged to createa scale that accommodated varying anchor points. Theoverall scale showed good internal consistency, α= .83.

Blatant Racism. The blatant racism scale (BRS) consistsof 9 items, all of which assess discrimination that is

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Table 1. Regression analyses predicting mug valuations in Study 1

Block

1

Block

2

Block

3

Block

4

Participant gender .00 �.03 �.03 �.04

Artist gender �.01 �.00 .00 �.00

Participant ethnicity (PE) �.05 �.05 �.05

Artist ethnicity (AE) .14*** .14*** .18***

Blatant racism (BRS) .23*** .24*** .24***

PA ×AE .07 .07

PE × BRS �.07 �.08

AE × BRS .08 .08

PE × AE × BRS .10*

Fchange .04 16.86*** 2.56 5.37*

R2change .00 .08 .01 .01

R2adjusted �.00 .08 .08 .09

Note:*p< .05;

**p< .01;

***p< .001.

J. C. McIntyre et al. Property and prejudice

explicitly attributable to racial biases. The BRS was cho-sen because it has been used extensively in publishedresearch and has been found to be a reliable measureof outgroup prejudice (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995).Further, items on the BRS are more suitable to adaptto both White and Asian participants compared withother similar scales (e.g. symbolic or modern indices ofprejudice). Both White and Asian participants filledout the BRS with reference to outgroup members. TheBRS includes items such as ‘Asian/White Americanshave jobs that White/Asian Americans should have’and ‘I would not mind if a suitably qualifiedAsian/White American was appointed as my boss’. Par-ticipants rated their level of agreement on a 7-pointscale, 1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree. All itemswere averaged to form a reliable scale, α= .84.

Results

Missing Data

Less than 5% of the data were missing, so we employedlistwise deletion to account for the missing values ineach analysis.

Blatant Racism

To confirm that our manipulation did not affect partici-pants’ blatant racism scores, we conducted a 2 (participantethnicity: Asian and White)×2 (artist ethnicity: Asianand White) between-subjects ANOVA. Results revealedthat artist ethnicity did not affect participants blatantracism scores (F(1561)=0.008, p= .928) nor did theinteraction between artist ethnicity and participantethnicity, F(1,561)=0.864, p= .353.

Mug Valuations

We performed a hierarchical regression to examine theeffects of participant ethnicity (�1=Asian and1=White),artist ethnicity (�1=White and 1=Asian) and blatantracism on mug value (Table 1). To control for the effectsof gender, both participant gender (�1=women and1=men) and artist gender (�1=women and 1=men)were entered at Block 1.1 At Block 2, mug valuation

1In addition to the reported analyses that controlled for artist gender

and participant gender, we conducted a hierarchical regression that in-

cluded artist gender and participant gender as factors. It should be noted

that the data were underpowered to robustly test the interactive effects

of gender. Nevertheless, results of the analysis revealed that all effects

relevant to our hypotheses remained significant in the reported direc-

tions, and that none of the effects relevant to our hypotheses were

moderated by gender.

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was regressed onto the three predictors. Predictors weremean-centred and multiplied by each other to create allpossible two-way interaction terms that were entered atBlock 3. Finally, the three-way interaction between allpredictors was entered at Block 4.There was no effect of participant gender (β = .00,

p= .926) or artist gender (β =�.01, p= .796) on mugvalue at Block 1, R2adj.=�.00, R2ch.= .00, F(2,560)=0.04,p= .964. At Block 2, the inclusion of the individualpredictors contributed significantly to the model,R2

adj. = .08, R2ch. = .08, Fchange(3,557)=16.86, p< .001.

Specifically, there was a significant main effect of artistethnicity on mug value, β = .14, p= .001. Participantsrated the mug owned by an Asian artist as significantlymore valuable than the mug owned by a White artist.There was also a significant main effect of blatant racismon mug value, β = .23, p< .001. Higher blatant racismscores were associated with higher mug values. Therewas no main effect of participant ethnicity on mugvalue, β =�.05, p= .276.At Block 3, the inclusion of the two-way interactions

did not contribute a significant portion of variance to themodel, R2

adj. = .08, R2ch. = .01, Fchange(3,554)=2.56,

p= .054. In particular, the main effect of artist ethnicityon mug value indicating a preference for the mugowned by an Asian artist was not qualified by an inter-action with participant ethnicity, β = .07, p= .108. Theinteraction between artist ethnicity and blatant racismwas also non-significant (β = .08, p= .056), as was theinteraction between participant ethnicity and blatantracism, β =�.07, p= .082.However, the marginal two-way interactions were

qualified by a significant three-way interaction at

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White American Sample Asian American Sample

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Mug

Val

ue (

z sc

ore)

White Artist

Asian Artist

Low Racism High Racism-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Mug

Val

ue (

z sc

ore)

Low Racism High Racism

White Artist

Asian Artist

Fig. 2: Three-way interaction between blatant racism, artist ethnicity and participant ethnicity predicting mug value in Study 1

J. C. McIntyre et al.Property and prejudice

Block 4, R2adj. = .09, R2

ch. = .01, Fchange(1,553)=5.37,p= .021.2 Specifically, the interaction between partici-pant ethnicity, artist ethnicity and blatant racism onmug value was significant and positive, β = .10,p= .021. As shown in Figure 2, follow-up analyses re-vealed that the interaction between artist ethnicityand blatant racism was significant for White partici-pants (β = .20, p= .002), but not for Asian participants,β =�.03, p= .654. Subsequent simple slopes analysesrevealed that higher blatant racism scores predictedhigher mug values when White participants wereevaluating a mug owned by an Asian artist, β = .32,p< .001. Blatant racism and mug values were unre-lated, however, when White participants were ratinga mug owned by a White artist, β =�.03, p= .762.

Discussion

Study 1 found that White and Asian participants placedsignificantly higher valuations on the hand-paintedmug when the artist was Asian compared with whenthe artist was White. Thus, responses among Asianparticipants were consistent with our first ingroup biashypothesis.White participants showed an outgroup biasthat was qualified by outgroup prejudice. Specifically,higher levels of blatant racism predicted higher mugvaluations among White participants valuing the mugowned by anAsian person. However, Asian participantsvalued the Asian-owned mug higher than theWhite-owned mug, irrespective of how they felt aboutWhite Americans in general. Thus, White, but notAsian, participant responses were consistent with our

2We also ran the regression model re-coding artist ethnicity as ingroup

artist (�1) versusoutgroup artist (+1). Coding in thismanner resulted in

the three-way interaction becoming marginally significant, R2adj. = .09,

R2ch. = .01, Fchange(1553) = 3.00, p = .084. All follow-up tests remained

significant in the reported directions.

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overcompensation hypothesis. Unexpectedly, blatantracism emerged as an overall predictor of mug value;however, as predicted, the interaction between blatantracism and artist ethnicity was only evident amongWhite participants.Together, our findings from Study 1 provide support

for ingroup favouritism among Asian Americans andoutgroup favouritism among White Americans. Criti-cally, among White Americans, there was a positiveassociation between prejudice towardsAsianAmericansand valuations of the Asian-ownedmug. Thus, majoritygroup members may be overcompensating for theirracial biases by overvaluing minority group-ownedproperty. Asian Americans, on the other hand,displayed a preference for the mug owned by an Asianartist that was independent of their racial attitudes. Thisfinding is consistent with the notion thatminority groupmembers are not concerned about displaying ingroupfavouritism.

STUDY 2

Thefindings fromStudy1 suggested thatAsianAmericansdisplayed an ingroup bias, while White Americansrated the Asian-owned mug as more valuable as theirlevel of prejudice against Asian Americans increased.The pattern of responses among White participantstherefore provided preliminary support for the secondof our competing hypotheses, that majority groupmembers compensate for racial biases by expressingenhanced positivity towards minority group property.What is not known, however, is whether such ironicbiases among majority group members arise specificallyto compensate for negative attitudes towards theminority group and, consequently, disguise their trueracial attitudes. If it is the case that overcompensationis occurring in the majority group, we would expectthe positive relationship between prejudice and valua-tions of minority group property to be evident only

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J. C. McIntyre et al. Property and prejudice

among people highlymotivated to hide their prejudicedattitudes. In Study 2, we aimed to replicate our findingsfromStudy 1 and testwhether attitudemasking could ex-plain overcompensatory valuations byWhite Americans.We did so by measuring people’s motivation to concealracially prejudiced attitudes.In Study 2, we assessed the impact of artist eth-

nicity, blatant racism and external motivation toappear non-prejudiced on mug valuations amonga White American sample. Given that we proposedour results for White participants in Study 1 werethe result of overcompensation, we hypothesisedthat higher prejudice towards Asian Americanswould be associated with higher valuations of themug owned by an Asian person only when partici-pants were concerned about appearing prejudiced.In Study 1, we post-measured the moderator (blatantracism) so as not to prime race relations prior to therace manipulation. In Study 2, we wanted to establishthat our effect held irrespective of survey order and,thus, administered the blatant racism scale to half ofthe participants before the mug valuation and half ofthe participants following the mug valuation.

Method

Participants

Again, we aimed for a final sample size of 600 partic-ipants in order to achieve adequate power (drawingon recommendations from Green, 1991). We re-cruited 878 online participants through the Mechani-cal Turk website and retained 639 participants whoidentified as White. From this subset of participants,we excluded participants who did not believe the artcompetition cover story. This resulted in a finalsample size of 554 White American participants.Forty-one per cent of the final sample identified asfemale and 59% identified as male (Mage =33.50years,SDage=11.73years). Including participants who didnot believe the art competition cover story did notaffect the direction or the significance of the effectsrelevant to our predictions.

Design and Procedure

Participants completed the study online. Study 2employed a 2 (artist ethnicity: Asian and White)×2(task order: pre-survey and post-survey) between-subjects design. The procedure was identical to Study 1with four exceptions. First, we counterbalancedwhether participants completed the survey measures

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(including the blatant racism scale) before or after theycompleted the art valuations (α= .86), so that we couldexamine task order effects. Second, because some par-ticipants would now be completing measures of preju-dice before the art competition task, we informedparticipants that theywould be completingmultiple un-related tasks, and we included several filler items in thequestionnaire to disguise the purpose of the study. Filleritems were selected at random from existing personal-ity, political attitudes and prejudice scales (unrelated toAsian people). These filler items were chosen for thespecific purpose of disguising the hypotheses. Thus,the items do not form coherent scales and are thereforenot included in any analyses. Third, given that genderdid not impact on our results in Study 1, we usedgender-neutral artist names in the art competition task(Asian artist: Zhang Yu, Caucasian Artist: Ash Webb).Finally, we asked participants whether they believedthe art competition cover story at the end of the study.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire included the blatant racism scaleused in Study 1 (α= .74), an item assessing whetherparticipants believed that the art competition wasauthentic, demographic questions and the ExternalMotivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (EMS;Plant & Devine, 1998). The EMS is a five-item scale de-signed to measure the extent to which people are moti-vated by social pressure to comply with non-prejudicednorms. We adapted the items such that they werespecific to our study’s intergroup context (e.g. ‘I attemptto appear non-prejudiced towards Asian Americans inorder to avoid disapproval from others’; anchors:1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree; α= .86). Theblatant racism scale, EMS, demographic questions andfiller items were randomised.

Results

We performed a hierarchical regression to examine theeffects of artist ethnicity (�1=White, 1=Asian), taskorder (�1=pre-questionnaire, 1=post-questionnaire),blatant racism and external motivation to appear non-prejudiced (EMS) on mug value (Table 2). As less than5% of the data were missing, we employed listwisedeletion to account for missing values in each analysis.Predictors were mean-centred and multiplied by eachother to create all possible two-way, three-way andfour-way interaction terms. All of the individual predic-tors were entered at Block 1. At Block 2, the two-wayinteraction terms were entered into the model. Thethree-way interaction terms were entered at Block 3,

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Table 2. Regression analyses predicting mug valuations in Study 2

Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4

Artist ethnicity (AE) .11* .10 .08 .08

Blatant racism (BRS) .08 �.11* .07 .05

External motivation (EMS) �.01 .01 �.001 .01

Survey order (SO) �.11** �.11* �.11* �.11*

AE × BR �.03 �.05 �.07

AE × EMS .04 .06 .05

AE × SO �.05 �.05 �.03

BR × EMS .08 .08 .09*

BR × SO .09* .10* .10*

EM× SO �.05 �.06 �.05

AE × BRS × EMS .10* .09

AE × BRS × SO <.001 .01

AE × EMS × SO �.03 �.04

BRS × EMS × SO .02 .03

AE × BRS × EMS × SO �.07

Fchange 4.80** 1.76 1.37 2.52

R2change .03 .02 .01 .004

R2adjusted .03 .04 .04 .04

Note:*p< .05;

**p< .01;

***p< .001

J. C. McIntyre et al.Property and prejudice

and the four-way interaction between all predictors wasentered at Block 4. EMS and blatant racism were re-lated, but not highly correlated (r(552)= .27, p< .001),somulticollinearity between predictors was not an issuefor this analysis.At Block 1, the model was significant, R2

adj. = .03,R2

ch. = .03, Fchange(4,549)=4.80, p= .001. We found asignificant main effect of artist ethnicity on mug value,β = .11, p= .011. As in Study 1, participants rated themug owned by the Asian artist as significantly morevaluable than the mug owned by the Caucasian artist.A main effect of survey order also emerged at Block 1,β =�.11, p= .007. Overall, participants who completedthe questionnaire before the art competition task gavehigher mug valuations compared with participants

Asian American Artist

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

Mug

Val

ue (

z sc

ore)

Low EMS

HighEMS

Low Racism High Racism

Fig. 3: Three-way Interaction between blatant racism, artist ethnicity and external m

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who completed the questionnaire after the art competi-tion task. There was also a marginally significantpositive relationship between blatant racism and mugvalue β = .08, p= .055.At Block 2, the inclusion of the two-way interaction

terms did not contribute significantly to the model,R2

adj. = .04, R2ch. =.02, Fchange(6,543)=1.76, p= .105.While the addition of the three-way interaction termsat Block 3 did not reach significance (R2

adj. = .04,R2

ch. =.01, Fchange(4,539)=1.37, p= .242), inspectionof the interaction terms revealed the predictedpattern. Specifically, consistent with predictions, wefound a significant three-way interaction betweenartist ethnicity, EMS, and blatant racism on mugvalue (β = .10, p= .042). As shown in Table 2, no otherthree-way interactions significantly predicted mugvaluation (all βs< .03, all ps> .524). The four-way in-teraction with survey order entered at Block 4 also didnot significantly predict mug valuation, R2

adj. = .04,R2

ch. = .004, Fchange(1,538) = 2.52, p= .113.As shown in Figure 3, planned follow-up analyses of

our predicted significant three-way interaction revealedthat the two-way interaction between EMS and blatantracism emerged among participants evaluating the mugowned by an Asian artist (β = .17, p= .008), but notthose evaluating the mug owned by a White artist,β =�.01, p= .930. Simple slopes indicated that amongparticipants who evaluated the mug owned by an Asianartist, higher blatant racism scores predicted highermugvaluations when participants scored high on EMS(β = .18, p= .020), but not when they scored low onEMS, β =�.13, p= .178.

Discussion

The results of Study 2 were consistent with the hypo-thesis that higher prejudice against Asian Americanswould predict higher valuations of a mug owned by anAsian person but only for participants highly motivated

White American Artist

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

Mug

Val

ue (

z sc

ore)

Low Racism High Racism

Low EMS

High EMS

otivation to appear non-prejudiced (EMS) predicting mug value in Study 2

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J. C. McIntyre et al. Property and prejudice

to appear non-prejudiced to other people. As in Study 1,we also found a preference for the Asian-owned mugamong White participants. Together, the findings fromStudy 2 provide support for overcompensation amongmajority group members rather than our alternativehypothesis of ingroup favouritism. The findings mirrorthose of Study 1 and suggest that majority groupmembers motivated to hide their prejudiced attitudesovercompensate for racial biases by displaying outgroupfavouritism.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

We interact with and evaluate the property of outgroupmembers every day. To date, however, no work hasexamined how racial attitudes and social-evaluativeconcerns affect property valuations among majorityand minority group members. The present researchinvestigated howWhite and Asian Americans appraisedproperty owned by racial ingroup and outgroup mem-bers. Previous literature provided support for twocompeting predictions. First, it was possible that partici-pants would show traditional ingroup favouritism andrate the property of ingroupmembers asmore valuable.Alternatively, it was possible that participants woulddemonstrate an outgroup bias in order to compensatefor racially prejudiced attitudes (overcompensation).Our results showed support for the first hypothesisamongminority groupmembers, but the second amongmajority group members.In Study 1, we found a clear preference for a piece of

art owned by an Asian person among both White andAsian participants. Thus, Asian participants showed aclassic pattern of ingroup preference. White partici-pants, conversely, showed a pattern of valuing minoritygroup-owned property more highly as their level ofprejudice against Asian Americans increased. Theingroup favouritism displayed by Asian Americans isconsistent with theorising that differential social pres-sures exist to appear racially tolerant between majorityand minority group members (Plant & Devine, 2003;Plant, 2004). Asian Americans, like many other minor-ity groups, are typically the target of prejudice. As such,they do not have to be concerned about appearingprejudiced and are therefore under no political pressureto display preferences for outgroups or outgroup ob-jects. On the other hand, our finding that higher levelsof prejudice among White participants predicted highervaluations of the Asian-owned mug in Study 1 sug-gested that majority group members may be compen-sating for racial biases by evaluating the property ofpeople fromminority groups more favourably. In short,they appeared to prefer the Asian-owned mug when

European Journal of Social Psychology 00 (2015) 00–00 Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Son

they had high levels of blatant prejudice that mightrequire disguise. This finding is consistent with researchsuggesting thatmajority groupmembers feel pressure toact in a socially appropriate manner during interracialinteractions and therefore attempt to compensate forracial biases (Carver et al., 1978).If overcompensation was occurring among White

participants in Study 1, then we would expect that theobserved compensatory valuations would be mostevident among White participants who are concernedabout appearing prejudiced to others. The inclusionof a direct measure of motivation to hide prejudiceattitudes in Study 2 revealed that the tendency forhigher prejudice to predict higher mug ratings was onlyevident among White participants who were highlymotivated to not appear racist to others. Taken together,our results suggest that majority group membersconcerned about their personal image may overvalueproperty owned by minority group members to maskprejudiced attitudes.

Implications and Future Directions

Overall, our findings suggest that majority, but not mi-nority, group members feel pressure to hide prejudicedattitudes, and that these effects flow through to interac-tions with personal property. One interesting avenuefor future research involves investigating why ingroupbiases emerge in some contexts, while overcompensa-tion emerges in other contexts. One possibility is thatsituations involving snap decisions, such as rulingsduring sporting matches (Price & Wolfers, 2007), mayyield greater ingroup biases among majority groupmembers. Conversely, when people make slower,more deliberative decisions, social pressures may enterdecision-making processes and make overcompensa-tion more likely. Studies that ask participants to valueproperty under varying time constraints may assist inexplaining these divergent findings.Our results are consistent with work by Shelton et al.

(2005) who observed that among White participants,more prejudiced attitudes predicted better performancein a social interaction with a Black partner. We, how-ever, extend these social lubrication effects to contextsinvolving property appraisals. Given that our studieswere conducted within the context of an art competi-tion where favourable evaluations increased thechances of the fictitious artist winning the contest, ourfindings fit with past research suggesting that possessingstronger negative racial outgroup biases in some casesresults in unexpected positive behaviours towards racialoutgroup members (Shelton et al., 2005; Vorauer &Turpie, 2004).

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J. C. McIntyre et al.Property and prejudice

Our research is the first to show that people frommajority andminority ethnic groups show contrastingvaluation biases when valuing property, which mayreflect the different social pressures experienced bymajority and minority group members. In addition, weidentify two individual difference variables (blatantracism and EMS) that influence valuations of minoritygroup property by majority group members. Whileour work extends on existing ownership literature byinvestigating the factors that lead to valuation biases inintergroup contexts, our studies did not assess theimpact of buying versus selling ingroup andoutgroup objects. Indeed, it is possible that valua-tions may have differed had participants been askedto value the item from a ‘sellers’ rather than a‘buyers’ perspective. It would be of interest toexamine in future studies whether majority groupmembers selling outgroup property show similar over-compensatory biases.Our results also inform research on endowment by

suggesting that economic decisions related to propertymay be influenced by complex interpersonal and inter-group processes. Indeed, the tendency for people toplace higher values on objects once they are given own-ership rights may be influenced by social factors such associal evaluative concerns, prejudice and owner charac-teristics. Because economic decisions are rarely made ina social vacuum, incorporating social constructs intoeconomic models may assist in explaining andpredicting valuation biases in applied settings.The present studies lay a foundation for melding

intergroup relations and ownership research to betterunderstand how intergroup attitudes and socialcontext influence evaluations of property. Oneavenue for future research involves examiningwhether the effects identified in our studies extendto other minority and majority groups. Public displaysof prejudice towards minority groups is becomingincreasingly untolerated, and research examininghow people respond to such social pressures is likelyto burgeon in the coming years. It will also be criticalto examine whether the overcompensatory valuationbiases identified here lead to more favourable physi-cal treatment of ingroup or outgroup property.Studies examining ingroup and outgroup propertytreatment effects using kinematic procedures wouldbe of particular interest.

Limitations and Alternative Explanations

Of course, our suggestion that higher prejudice leadsto outgroup favouritism among majority group

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members could be causally reversed. Past researchhas demonstrated that majority group members whoexpress non-prejudiced behaviour often feel ‘morallylicenced’ to then act in a discriminatory manner(Monin & Miller, 2001). It is therefore possible thatWhite participants who reported high levels of preju-dice but displayed pro-Asian favouritism when evalu-ating the mug owned by an Asian artist felt thatsubsequent expressions of prejudice were justifiedin light of their previous non-prejudiced behaviour.That our effects were not qualified by survey orderin Study 2, however, casts doubt on this alternativeexplanation.The extent to which the present findings generalise

to other majority and minority groups, and otherobjects, should also be taken into account wheninterpreting the current effects. It is possible, for ex-ample, that there is a ‘norm’ amongWhite Americanshigh in racism to favour and overvalue exotic Asianartwork. However, given that our stimulus was ahousehold mug chosen for its average quality andostensibly painted by a university student, thisexplanation seems unlikely. Studies that include bothhand-crafted and designer objects may help toidentify whether norms related to exotic art objectsinfluence property valuations.Caution should also be taken when interpreting the

role of social pressure to appear non-prejudiced inthe context of anonymous online studies. While previ-ous research suggests that online data is comparableto other data collection methods (Richman et al.,1999; Buhrmester et al., 2011), it is possible that differ-ent effects may be found if valuations were made in thepresence of the artist, ingroup members or outgroupmembers. Examining the influence of the presence ofother people in a laboratory setting may assist incoroborating the effects identified in our studies.Finally, it should be noted that the White and Asian

samples recruited in Study 1 were drawn from dif-ferent websites. This variation in sampling techniquerepresents a potential confound of our observed differ-ences between White and Asian participants. However,our data and data provided by the respective websitessuggest that both samples represent similar cross-sections of the population in terms of age, socioeco-nomic status and education. As such, we believe it isunlikely that our observed main effect of ethnicity inStudy 1 can be attributed to systematic differencesbetween participants who custom the two websites.Nonetheless, future research should aim to replicateand extend our core findings drawing samples ofWhite and Asian participants from the same pool ofpeople.

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J. C. McIntyre et al. Property and prejudice

CONCLUSION

The current findings provide evidence that intergroupand interpersonal processes interact to play a centralrole in how property is valued. Counter-intuitively, itappears that more prejudiced attitudes among majoritygroup members are associated with more favourableevaluations of minority group property. Thus, ourresearch suggests that the overcompensatory biasesidentified among majority group members in previousintergroup relations researchmay extend to perceptionsand valuations of objects owned by racial outgroupmembers. Minority group members, on the other hand,may be more likely to value ingroup property morefavourably because they do not feel pressure to hidetheir personal preferences. The present findings haveimplications for global economics markets where prop-erty and companies undergo frequent ownershipchanges, for political negotiations involving disputedterritory and for theoretical models examining thebehavioural scope of intergroup processes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research was supported in part by an AustralianResearch Council Discovery Early Career Award to thelast author (grant number: DE120102068).

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