Reference: Higginbotham, G. D., Shropshire, J., & Johnson, K. L. (2022). You Play a Sport, Right? A Persistent and Pernicious Intersectional Bias in Categorization of Students vs. Student-Athletes. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 48(11), 1531–1547. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211044067 

Abstract: Black male students on college campuses report being frequently misperceived as student-athletes. Across three studies, we tested the role of perceivers’ racial and gendered biases in categorization of Black and White students and student-athletes and the subsequent evaluative consequences. Participants viewed faces of actual Black and White male and female undergraduates who were either non-athlete students or student-athletes and made binary judgments about whether the undergraduate was a student or an athlete. We found an overall bias to judge Black male undergraduates to be student-athletes, driven by Black male students being more likely to be misperceived as student-athletes than White male students. Furthermore, male targets perceived to be student-athletes were rated lower on academic ability (Studies 2 and 3). In contrast, we found an overall bias to judge female undergraduates as students. Implications for how perceiver bias plays a dual role in negatively affecting academic climates for underrepresented groups are discussed.

Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211044067