Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Taylor Clark

Date

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Stephanie Huette

Committee Member

Gina Caucci

Committee Member

Jia Wei Zhang

Abstract

Racial bias (especially in the context of Black people) in society is as prevalent as ever. Because of this, scientists have developed various ways to measure racial bias against Black people. I propose that mouse tracking is a tool that can be used to predict racially biased behavior accurately. The overall purpose of this exploratory study was to use mouse tracking to investigate whether race impacts participants' mouse movements when categorizing stereotypically sounding Black and White names. As well as to see if participants consistently categorize Black and White names. This experiment showed a significant difference in the number of x flips for Black and White people categorizing stereotypically sounding Black and White names, with that difference being in the direction for Black people for both name types. However, there were confounds with some stimuli (Angel) and stereotype threat. There were no significant differences in maximum horizontal deviations, total area, and maximum speed. Thus, this experiment does not support the utility of mouse tracking in the context of racial attitudes evaluation.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

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