Are lighter male faces consciously and perceptually privileged?

Abstract

Abstract Across many non-Western communities, lighter skinned individuals are favorably evaluated over their darker intragroup counterparts (colorism). Three studies explored whether ‘colorist’ biases could be detected across native Melanesian participants along evaluative and perceptual processing levels. All studies presented ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’ emotionally neutral face targets matched along attractiveness, sex and race. Across Study 1, N = 305 participants evaluated target attractiveness using ordinal scales. Across Study 2, N = 153 participants viewed target faces across four brief implicit association tests. Across Study 3, N = 61 participants viewed visually processed faces during sorting tests and as upright/inverted monocular targets during a (breaking) continuous flash suppression task. Lighter, highly attractive upright male variants entered conscious awareness (‘broke suppression’) significantly faster then darker variants. Reliable colorist biases were estimated in the presence of male and (some) female faces following attractiveness ratings and sorting tests viz across measures affording extensive deliberation opportunities. Procedurally constraining deliberation (during implicit tests and flash suppression) revealed colorist biases across attractive male faces only.