Schemas as Average Conceptions: Skin Tone, Television News Exposure, and Culpability Judgments

Abstract

An experiment examined the extent to which race and skin tone of a perpetrator in a crime news story could influence subsequent culpability judgments of race unidentified suspects. There were no differences in culpability judgments between light news viewers exposed to a white, light-skinned, medium-skinned, or dark-skinned black perpetrator. However, heavy television news viewers exposed to a medium-skinned black perpetrator were more likely than heavy news viewers exposed to a white suspect to find an unambiguously guilty suspect culpable. Heavy news viewers exposed to either light-, medium-, or dark-skinned black suspects were more likely than heavy news viewers exposed to white suspects to find an ambiguously guilty suspect culpable.