'They all look alike to me': prejudice and cross-race face recognition

We investigated whether prejudice level influences the size of the other-race effect (poorer recognition of other-race compared with own-race faces). Previous studies, using self-report measures of prejudice, failed to find a relationship between prejudice and the other-race effect. We used an implicit prejudice measure, developed by Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, and Williams (1995), to determine whether implicit prejudice influences the size of the other-race effect. A self-report measure of prejudice, Walker's (1994) Attitudes to Asians Scale, was also included to replicate previous results. A group of 30 high prejudice and 30 low prejudice Caucasian participants, as determined by the self-report measure, were run through a procedure which assesses implicit prejudice and recognition performance at the same time. Neither implicit nor self-reported prejudice level influenced the size of the other-race effect. Unexpectedly, implicit and self-report prejudice influenced (in opposite ways) recognition of own-race faces. The implications of these results for understanding the other-race effect are discussed.