Profession Comm. 8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Black people are convicted more for being

black than for being poor: The role of social

norms and cultural prejudice on biased racial

judgments

Tiago Jessé Souza de LimaID 1*, Cicero Roberto PereiraID

2,3 , Ana Raquel Rosas Torres

2 ,

Luana Elayne Cunha de Souza 1 , Iara Maribondo Albuquerque

2

1 Department of Psychology, Universidade de Fortaleza, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, 2 Department of

Psychology, Universidade Federal da Paraı́ba, João Pessoa, Paraı́ba, Brazil, 3 Institute of Social Sciences, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

* [email protected]

Abstract

Black and poor people are more frequently convicted of committing crimes. However, the

specific role played by skin color and social class in convicting a person has yet to be clari-

fied. This article aims to elucidate this issue by proposing that belonging to a lower social

class facilitates the conviction of black targets and that this phenomenon is because infor-

mation about social class dissimulates racial bias. Study 1 (N = 160) demonstrated that

information about belonging to the lower classes increases agreement with a criminal sus-

pect being sentenced to prison only when described as being black. Furthermore, Studies 2

(N = 170) and 3 (N = 174) show that the anti-prejudice norm inhibits discrimination against

the black target when participants were asked to express individual racial prejudice, but not

when they expressed cultural racial prejudice. Finally, Study 4 (N = 134) demonstrated that

lower-class black targets were discriminated against to a greater degree when participants

expressed either individual or cultural prejudice and showed that this occurs when racial

and class anti-prejudice norms are salient. The results suggest that social class negatively

affects judgments of black targets because judgment based on lower class mitigates the

racist motivation of discrimination.

Introduction

Black and poor people are disproportionately more convicted of crimes for which judges

assign longer sentences [1] so they are strikingly overrepresented in the prison population. For

instance, in the USA, black Americans are incarcerated at a rate of more than five times that of

whites [2]. In Portugal, in which this study was carried out, this scenario is no different. Due to

its colonial past, Portugal has historically been a destination for immigration of black people

mainly from the former Portuguese-Speaking African Colonies (PSAC). Although predomi-

nates in the Portuguese imaginary the luso-tropicalism ideology, referring to the idea of a

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222874 September 20, 2019 1 / 24

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OPEN ACCESS

Citation: de Lima TJS, Pereira CR, Rosas Torres

AR, Cunha de Souza LE, Albuquerque IM (2019)

Black people are convicted more for being black

than for being poor: The role of social norms and

cultural prejudice on biased racial judgments. PLoS

ONE 14(9): e0222874. https://doi.org/10.1371/

journal.pone.0222874

Editor: Kimmo Eriksson, Mälardalen University,

SWEDEN

Received: May 2, 2019

Accepted: September 8, 2019

Published: September 20, 2019

Copyright: © 2019 de Lima et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the

Creative Commons Attribution License, which

permits unrestricted use, distribution, and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original

author and source are credited.

Data Availability Statement: All data files are

available from the Open Science Framework (OSF)

database in the following URL: WWW.OSF.IO/

AR7WP.

Funding: This research had the financial support of

CAPES granted to the first author (grant number:

5420/13-0).

Competing interests: The authors have declared

that no competing interests exist.

supposed Portuguese ability for biological and cultural miscegenation with the peoples from

tropics constituting a harmonious multiracial society [3], Portugal is not an exception in the

scenario of racial attitudes and behaviors. Data from 2016 show that, proportionally, the rate

of incarceration among the PSAC immigrants and PSAC descendants is 10 times higher com-

pared with Portuguese citizens [4]. In addition, the proportion of black and white incarcera-

tion in Portugal may be even more unequal, since the Portuguese Constitution prohibits

collecting ethnic-racial data in official surveys.

A similar phenomenon occurs with people from low social class, with these people from

lower classes being more incarcerated than people from the upper classes [5,6]. The disparity

becomes more pronounced when the two categories are combined, revealing a racially based

class disparity in imprisonment: black Americans from the low social classes are much more

incarcerated than white people from any social class [7]. This is ubiquitous in the world [1,7],

which clearly suggests that racial and class inequalities in the prison population are a pervasive

phenomenon. However, this has not yet been satisfactorily addressed from a social psychologi-

cal point of view. In fact, social class has received less attention in studies on discrimination,

particularly in terms of its interaction with skin color [8], highlighting a gap in the prejudice-

discrimination literature, which has only recently been addressed [9,10].

One possible explanation for race-based social class disparity in prisons might be merely

formal. At first sight, black people from lower social classes would be more often convicted

because they cannot afford good lawyers. That is, black individuals would be convicted at

higher rates more for being poor than for being black. Indeed, although we find white and

black people in all social classes, official data indicate there is a correlation between being black

and belonging to more disadvantaged social classes [11]. In light of this social reality, it is com-

mon for individuals to associate characteristics related to the lower social class with stereotypes

about blacks [10,12]. This effect is in line with what Jones [13] claimed in his classic textbook

Prejudice and Racism: “one of the big difficulties we have is disentangling race from class, given that (. . .) blacks, in particular, and ethnic minorities in general, are found disproportion-

ately in the lower economic strata” (p. 441).

This difficulty seems to be more prominent in the context of racially based class disparity

when convicting individuals accused of crimes. For instance, if both categories—skin color

and social class—exert an influence independent of the other [14], then one would find similar

proportions of black and white individuals from lower social classes in the prison population,

which is not the case [7]. Since lower-class black people are proportionally more incarcerated

than white ones from the same social class, it is very probable that skin color is a primary factor

in convicting decisions, which can indicate that black people are convicted more for being

black than for being poor. Thus, it necessary to take into account together information about

social class and skin color in the process of making a decision [10,15,16], especially about con-

victing individuals accused of crimes.

The current work presents a research program with the objective of better understanding

the effects of skin color and socioeconomic class in convicting black and white individuals in

a Portuguese context. Studies that have addressed the relationship between skin color and

social class were conducted predominantly in an USA context [9,10], exposing a gap of studies

about this subject in other contexts, such as in Portugal. In this sense, the present study aims to

evaluate the effect of skin color and socioeconomic class in conviction in a previously under-

researched cultural context within social psychology literature of prejudice and discrimination.

There is no clear evidence to which extent psychological biases toward the effect of skin color

and social class in conviction observed in USA context are the same observed in Portugal or in

which extent they differ between these two contexts, since race relations in these two countries

have historically occurred in different ways.

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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Despite these differences, in both contexts the proportion of convicted poor black people is

much higher than that of their white counterparts, then information about social class is likely

to affect black and white targets differently. This disproportion suggests that belonging to the

lower social class facilitates the conviction of black defendants, increasing the disparity of

color in prisons. Accordingly, we propose that information about belonging to a lower socio-

economic class negatively affects judgments of black people but not white people. This differ-

ential effect can occur because of at least two main reasons. First, it is already known that

when more than one social category of a target is salient, people need to integrate multiple

pieces of information to form an overall impression about the target, especially in the absence

of any contextual dominance of one category over the other (i.e., the cross-categorization

effect) [17]. The cross-categorization between skin color and socioeconomic class can create

salient stereotyped information for a target in both dimensions (lower class black). In this case,

the effects of each dimension are integrated [18], which means that people can discriminate

more against a person who belongs to multiple disadvantaged out-groups (lower class black),

as opposed to someone who belongs to a single out-group (black without information of their

social class) or to someone who belongs to a positive in-group in a less-favored dimension

(i.e., lower class white).

Second, given that the proportion of poor blacks convicted is much higher than that of

whites, social class information is likely to affect blacks and whites differently. This dispropor-

tion suggests that the social class facilitates the conviction of blacks, increasing the disparity

between black and whites in prisons. Thus, it is likely that belonging to the lower classes can

facilitate discrimination against black people because it can mitigate the racial motivation to

convict a black target. In this sense, prejudiced people can discriminate against a lower-class

black target, using a non-racist justification, even in social contexts where the anti-prejudice

norm prohibits racial discrimination [19,20]. Moreover, we go further by proposing that the

race-based class disparity in prison sentences is motivated by cultural prejudice (stereotypes

and prejudices that are culturally shared) amplifying the discrimination toward black people

and lower classes, despite the anti-prejudice norm.

Social norms and the cultural expression of prejudice

Social psychology research on prejudice and discrimination has shown that people take social

norms into account when behaving towards minority groups. Social norms can be understood

as rules that define patterns of thinking and acting that are appropriate or desirable for mem-

bers of a group by prescribing attitudes and forms of social behavior that are structured by

social values [21]. According to Sherif [21], individual ideologies and belief systems are based

on the social norms of the groups with which the person identifies, such that individual views

are largely a reflection of the group norms that have been internalized by the individual. The

internalization of the anti-prejudice norm in the system of personal beliefs differentiates peo-

ple with low and high prejudice [22], so that the internalization of the norm is associated with

an internal motivation to respond without prejudice. On the other hand, people who have

not internalized the anti-prejudice norm may seek to appear non-prejudiced, which does not

reflect their internalized attitudes, but reveals a conformity to the social norm. There is as an

external source of motivation to respond without prejudice [23,24], in a situation in which

there is an information bias concerning both race and class targets [25,26].

Accordingly, because of the pressure of the anti-prejudice norm, individuals probably try to

avoid supporting the conviction of a black person accused of crimes when the social context

clearly proscribes expressing negative racial attitudes [27]. Instead, since individuals are moti-

vated to appear as not prejudiced, they explicitly evaluate white targets more negatively than

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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black targets when believing that prejudiced attitudes are being evaluated, while implicitly

discriminating against blacks when they do not think that prejudiced attitudes are being evalu-

ated [28]. In fact, research within the framework of the aversive racism theory [29] has demon-

strated that prejudiced individuals avoid discriminating against black people in situations

where recognition of prejudiced motivation for discrimination is obvious, but they still dis-

criminate when it is socially appropriate, i.e., in situations in which normative responses are

less clearly delineated insofar as they can be justified based on a factor other than race [30,31].

That is, prejudiced people behave in accordance with their prejudice in the presence of a facili-

tating factor for discrimination, focusing on a non-racial attribute to make biased judgments

about other people [25].

In the current study we aimed to take a new look at the role played by social class in dis-

crimination. We propose that information about low social class functions as a facilitating

factor for convicting a black person, since the motivation for conviction can be attributed to a

different factor than race. Indeed, maybe this is what motivates the idea that “black individuals

are convicted more for being poor than for being black”. In other words, information about

lower socioeconomic class facilitates the expression of racial prejudice and discriminatory

behavior. If this is the case, then the selective use of the information about socioeconomic class

to penalize a black target, but not a white target, should be influenced by racial prejudice since

social class can mitigate normative pressure to avoid convicting a black target for racial rea-

sons. This effect will be amplified especially in a situation where the anti-prejudice norm does

not suppress it, which occurs when individuals exhibit cultural prejudice, that is, when people

make evaluations based in negative cultural stereotypes associated with black people.

In fact, individuals are conscious of and understand the stereotypes and prejudices that are

culturally shared [32]. According to Devine [33], prejudice is based on culture, i.e., it is socially

created and shared among members of a particular group. Individuals within a society are con-

scious of prejudice against certain target groups, i.e., cultural prejudice against certain groups

is salient and often internalized by the members of that society. For example, in a study con-

ducted by Chateignier et al. [32], the participants were asked to respond to a scale on intelli-

gence, motivation, and proficiency in the French language among students of Arab-French or

French descent, based on both personal opinion and the opinion of French society. The results

indicated that the participants were conscious of the negative cultural stereotypes associated

with Arab-French students. However, when the students were asked to give their personal

opinion, there were no differences between the characteristics attributed to the two groups.

Camino, Silva, Machado and Pereira [34] obtained similar results in a study of racial prejudice

in Brazil. In their study, the participants were asked to evaluate black and white people using

adjectives, based on their personal opinion (individual prejudice) or the opinion of Brazilian

society (cultural prejudice). When the participants were asked to make the evaluation based

on their personal opinion, they attributed more positive and fewer negative adjectives to black

people. However, when the answers were given based on the opinion of Brazilian society, the

opposite pattern was observed, with more negative and fewer positive adjectives attributed to

black people.

This effect occurred because the anti-prejudice norm influences the expression of prejudice

at an individual level but does not exert pressure on the cultural expression of prejudice [35].

Thus, prejudice will be more easily expressed when people attribute this view to others. When

they are focused on their own opinion, they tend to deny that they are prejudiced [34]. Accord-

ingly, individuals only avoid expressing racial prejudice at an individual level and have no

problem expressing it at a cultural level. According to our rationale, if the information about

social class functions as a facilitating factor for convicting a black person even under the pres-

sure of the anti-prejudice norm, then this facilitating effect will be amplified in the context of

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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cultural prejudice where this normative pressure is attenuated. This is an important innovative

aspect in the literature on prejudice and discrimination, since as far as we know, there are no

experimental studies evaluating the influence of individual/cultural expression of prejudice on

the race-based social class disparity in judgments of black and white targets regarding crimes.

Overview of the studies

Over the course of four studies, we sought to evaluate whether information about belonging to

the lower classes facilitates social support for convicting a black person of an offense and how

individual/cultural prejudice and the anti-prejudice norm influence this phenomenon. In

Study 1, we tested the hypothesis that information about belonging to the lower class affects

judgments of black and white targets differently, leading to harsher judgments for the black

target. In Studies 2 and 3, we attempted to replicate the previous study and advance the

hypothesis by evaluating how the anti-prejudice norm affects the effect of information about

belonging to the lower classes on judgments of black and white targets. Because the anti-preju-

dice norm suppresses expression of prejudice at an individual level, but not at a cultural one

[33], Study 4 aimed to analyze the facilitating role played by being in a lower socioeconomic

class in a situation where the pressure to suppress prejudiced attitudes is weaker, i.e., when

people can freely express prejudice without being restricted by social norms. Those studies

were carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Conselho Nacional de Saúde

(Brazil) and Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal). All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. They were

informed their answers are anonymous and cannot be linked to any personal information.

Due to the nature of the data collected in these studies (database with aggregated information,

with no possibility of individual identification), this research is exempt from appreciation by

an ethics committee, according to Resolution 510/2016 of the Conselho Nacional de Saúde

(Brazil).

Study 1

Study 1 aimed to test the hypothesis that information about belonging to the lower socioeco-

nomic classes increases agreement with the black target’s conviction, but not the white target’s

conviction. The participants were presented with a scenario concerning the trial of a person

who clearly committed a crime. This scenario provided them with information about the skin

color (black vs. white) and socioeconomic class of the suspect (lower class vs. control). The

participants’ task was to indicate their agreement with the conviction of the suspect. We elabo-

rated this judgment-scenario in order to confront the participants with evidence of target guilt

and the need to express an anti-prejudiced response. We predicted that if information about

the social class plays a facilitating role in convicting blacks, then participants should agree

more strongly with the conviction of a black target from the lower classes than of one without

information about social class. We also predicted that information on social class should not

facilitate the conviction of the white target because the situation does not put participants in

the normative conflict between the evidence of target guilt and the need to appear unpreju-

diced when judging a white target.

Methods

Participants and design. This study included the participation of 160 Portuguese univer-

sity students from a university predominantly of white students (mean age of 23.5 years,

SD = 5.9; and 65.6% male). The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (skin color: black or white) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control) factorial design.

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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A post-hoc sensitivity analysis [36,37] for main effects and interactions determined this

research design and the sample size provided 80% power to detect an effect size of d = 0.44 or

higher (equivalent to η2p = 0.046 for interaction effects) as calculated by WebPower [38]. Procedure. The participants were recruited and asked to collaborate in a study of people’s

opinions about everyday situations reported in major newspapers. The participants’ task was

to read a newspaper article and respond to questions about the facts presented in the article

(S1 Fig). One article showed the arrest of a man who had attempted to bribe a police officer

to avoid a traffic ticket. In this scenario, the manipulation of information related to socioeco-

nomic class occurred through indicating the characteristics of the car driven by the target,

which could be either a Fiat Uno 45 (a common cheap and old car in Portugal used by very

poor people), in the lower-class condition, or only the word “vehicle”, in the control condition.

Access to a car, and more recently, the quality of the car, since ownership has become more

widespread across society, has shown to be a reliable indicator of socioeconomic status [39],

and has been used in other experiments in social psychology to manipulate social class [40].

The manipulation of skin color occurred through a photo of the target, which could be a photo

of a white or black person.

Dependent variable. The participants were asked to answer a question regarding the

extent to which they agreed that the suspect should be convicted and sentenced to prison for

attempting to bribe the police officer. The response scale used to answer the question ranged

from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This variable was called the prison sentence.

Manipulation check. To test whether the manipulation used in the study was effective,

the participants were required to report the target’s skin color and socioeconomic class at the

end of the study. The manipulation of skin color was verified through a question, answered on

a scale ranging from 1 (black) to 7 (white). The manipulation of socioeconomic class was veri-

fied through a question in which the participant reported the target’s socioeconomic class,

answered on a scale ranging from 1 (low) to 7 (high). A t-test for independent samples showed that the manipulation of skin color was effective, t(158) = 37.3, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 5.89, with a mean of 6.47 (SD = 0.94) for the white condition and a mean of 1.38 (SD = 0.78) for the black condition. Another t-test for independent samples indicated that the manipulation of the socioeconomic class did not reach the p value cut-off point of .05, although it was very close, t(158) = 1.89, p = .06, Cohen’s d = 0.29; the mean for the lower-class condition was 3.75 (SD = 1.14), and the mean for the control condition was 4.08 (SD = 1.07). Importantly, for the lower-class condition, the mean was marginally significantly lower than the midpoint of the

scale, t(70) = -1.87, p = .065, Cohen’s d = 0.44, which was not true for the control condition, t(88) = 0.69, p = .49, Cohen’s d = 0.14.

Results

Initially, a 2 x 2 factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a significant interaction

between skin color and socioeconomic class for the prison sentence variable, F(1, 156) = 13.1, p < .001, η2p = 0.08 (Cohen’s d = 0.59). The main effects of skin color, F(1, 156) = 1.45, p = .23, Cohen’s d = 0.19, and socioeconomic class, F(1, 156) = 0.04, p = .84, Cohen’s d = 0.0, were not significant.

Analyzing the effect of information about socioeconomic class on judgments of targets

based on skin color, the pairwise comparisons indicated significant differences in the black

and white conditions. For the black condition, agreement with the black target’s conviction

was higher when he was described as lower-class (M = 6.52; SE = 0.20) than when there was no information about his social class (M = 5.82; SE = 0.15), t(156) = 2,34, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.37. For the white condition, agreement with conviction of the lower-class condition

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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(M = 5.63; SE = 0.18) was lower than that for the control condition (M = 6.26; SE = 0.19), t(156) = 2.78, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.44. The means for the conditions are shown in Fig 1. Ana- lyzing the interaction from another perspective, we found that support for the conviction of a

lower-class black target was higher than that for a lower-class white target, t(156) = 3.26, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.52. When the participants had no information about social class, there was a tendency to favor the black target, with support for his conviction being lower than support

for the conviction of the white target, t(156) = 1.79. p = .07, Cohen’s d = 0.28, although this effect wasn’t significant.

Discussion

The results observed provide the first experimental evidence for the hypotheses that the infor-

mation that a person who committed a crime belongs to a lower socioeconomic class increases

support for the target conviction only for black targets, but not for whites. These results cor-

roborate with other studies in the literature that have indicated the importance of considering

information about more than one characteristic of an individual [18,41] when judging a partic-

ular target, in this case, socioeconomic class and skin color [14,42]. Results also indicate that

Fig 1. Agreement with prison conviction as a function of skin color and socioeconomic class.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222874.g001

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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individuals’ tend to differently consider information about belonging to the lower classes

when judging blacks and whites.

One possible explanation for this effect is that when individuals are put in a motivational

conflict between the evidence of guilt and the need to appear unprejudiced, they use informa-

tion about belonging to the lower classes to mitigate the effect of the racial anti-prejudice

norm [43]. In fact, participants showed a tendency to convict with lesser intensity the black

target in a scenario without information about class, although the result (p = .07) did not reach the cut-off level of significance. This tendency probably reflects the effect of the anti-prejudice

norm that is not observed in the condition in which there is information about belonging to

the lower class. Furthermore, literature about the internal and external motivation to respond

without prejudice determines that externally motivated individuals experience discomfort

when judging situations related to race, encouraging a tendency to focus on attributes other

than race, such as social attributes [23,26]. In this sense, Study 2 aims to evaluate the effect of

social class more directly by reinforcing the salience of the anti-prejudice norm in judgments

of black and white suspects.

Study 2

This study aims to replicate the findings of the previous study and advance them, seeking to

evaluate how the activation of the anti-prejudice norm influences the effect of information

about belonging to the lower classes on judgments of black and white targets. Social norms

such as the racial anti-prejudice norm directly influence the expression of prejudice and dis-

crimination against social groups [44] because certain forms of prejudice are anti-normative

or socially condemned [43]. In this study, the anti-prejudice norm is activated prior to the

manipulation of skin color and socioeconomic class by giving clues to the participants that

the study involved an analysis of racial issues. As in Study 1, we predicted that the participants

would be more favorable to a conviction of a black suspect from a lower class than one without

information about social class. Because individuals are motivated to appear unprejudiced

when the anti-prejudice norm is present, we expected individuals to agree to a lesser extent

with the black target’s conviction, independent of any information about socioeconomic class.

Indeed, the racial anti-prejudice norm leads people to avoid prejudiced personal attitudes [45]

and does this by reinforcing positive attributes about devalued out-groups [28].

Method

Participants and design. This study included the participation of 170 Portuguese students

from a university predominantly of white students. However, four participants missed the

manipulation check, so the final sample was 166 students, with a mean age of 20.6 years

(SD = 2.43), the majority of whom were female (58.4%). Most of the participants reported that they were white (90.3%) and middle-class (72.3%). The participants were randomly assigned

to one of eight conditions in a 2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or

control) x 2 (anti-prejudice norm: salient or control) between-subjects factorial design. Post-

hoc sensitivity analysis determined this research design and sample size provided 80% power

to detect a medium effect size of d = 0.43 or higher (i.e., η2p = 0.04 for interaction effects) as calculated by WebPower for main or interaction effects [38].

Procedure. We used a procedure similar to that used in Study 1 to manipulate the skin

color and social class in which the task to be performed by the participants was to read a news

item and answer some questions about the narrated facts. Since the manipulation of the socio-

economic class did not achieve a sufficient robust effect size in Study 1, some modifications

were made to the manipulation used in this study. First, the news item used in this study is

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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shorter and more accurate than that of the previous study, portraying a driver who runs over a

pedestrian and drives away from the accident scene (S2 Fig). Second, the socioeconomic class

was manipulated by giving information about the car driven by the target, as in Study 1, but

we provided additional information about the characteristics of the car being in the lower-

class condition (old, beat up car). Finally, the neighborhood where the target lived was also

presented. So, in lower class condition, it was reported that the target was arrested at his home

in a poor neighborhood. In the control condition, it was reported only that the target was

arrested in his home, without giving information about the neighborhood.

The manipulation of the anti-prejudice norm was performed by presenting a racial preju-

dice scale prior to the manipulation (S1 Table). For the condition in which the norm was

salient, the participants responded to a questionnaire about racial prejudice at the beginning of

the study. When responding to questions about their prejudice, the participants would bear

the norm in mind. For the control condition, the participants responded to racially neutral

questions that addressed the importance of reading in the contemporary world. The racial

prejudice questionnaire was expected to function as an activator of the anti-prejudice norm

because it made information about skin color more salient and gave clues to the participants

that the study might infer their level of prejudice. Furthermore, participants who indicated

that they had taken part in similar previous studies were considered not eligible for this study.

Dependent variable. The dependent variable used was the same as that in the previous

study. The participants indicated the extent to which they agreed that the suspect should be

convicted and sentenced to prison. The response scale used to answer the question ranged

from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Manipulation check. To verify the effectiveness of the manipulations, the participants

reported the skin color and socioeconomic class of the article’s subject at the end of the study,

using the same scales described in Study 1. Independent sample t-tests showed that the manip- ulations of skin color and social class were effective. The participants of the white condition

reported a higher mean (M = 6.04; SD = 1.24) than those of the black condition (M = 1.54; SD = 0.76), t(164) = 27.73, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 4.37. Participants of the lower-class condition (M = 2.03; SD = 0.77) reported a lower mean than those of the class control condition (M = 3.74; SD = 0.77), t(164) = 14.06, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 2.22, indicating that the manipula- tion of the class was stronger and more effective than that used in Study 1. To verify the effec-

tiveness of the norm’s activation, the participants answered a question on their opinion about

the study’s real purpose. A chi-square test indicated a significant difference between the condi-

tions, χ2 (3) = 67,7, p < 0,001. For the condition in which the anti-prejudice norm was active, 84.1% of the participants reported that the study was about racism, whereas only 13.6% of the

participants in the control condition gave this answer. Therefore, this effect provided evidence

that the salience of the anti-prejudice norm was effective.

Results

A 2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control) x 2 (anti-prejudice

norm: salient or control) between-subjects factorial ANOVA indicated the main effect of skin

color, F(1, 158) = 4.70, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.35, and the anti-prejudice norm, F(1, 158) = 4.77, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.35, are significant. The main effect of socioeconomic class was not significant, F(1, 158) = 0.06, p = .81, Cohen’s d = 0.04. Regarding the effect of skin color, the results indicated that agreement with the white target’s conviction (M = 5.80; SE = 0.17) was higher compared to the black target (M = 5.30; SE = 0.15). The effect of the anti-prejudice norm indicated that, in general, when the norm was active, agreement with the target’s convic-

tion was lower (M = 5.30; SE = 0.16) compared to the condition when the norm was not active

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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(M = 5.80; SE = 0.16). The non-significant effect of socioeconomic class may have occurred because manipulation of the social norm has made the skin color category more central to the

social judgment.

However, these main effects were qualified by interaction effects. A first interaction was

observed between skin color and socioeconomic class, F(1, 158) = 6.27, p < .05, η2p = 0.04 (Cohen’s d = 0.41). Although the mean difference did not reach the desirable level of signifi- cance using a two-tailed level of decision, pairwise comparisons indicated that participants

have a tendency to agree more strongly with the conviction of a black target in the lower socio-

economic class condition (M = 5.56; SE = 0.23) than in the class control condition (M = 5.04; SE = 0.21), t(158) = 1.70, p = .091, Cohen’s d = 0.27. When the target was white, the participants have a tendency to agree less with their conviction in the lower-class condition (M = 5.48; SE = 0.27) than in the control condition (M = 6.11; SE = 0.21), t(158) = 1.83, p = .069, Cohen’s d = 0.29. These results are shown in Fig 2(a). It is possible that the smaller effect sizes observed have attenuated any significant differences and this might be due to the way the social norm

was manipulated, since predominance of skin color was given in the categorization process.

A second interaction effect occurred between skin color and the anti-prejudice norm, F(1, 158) = 6.03, p < .05, η2p = 0.04. The pairwise comparisons indicated that the black target’s con- viction was lower in the condition in which the norm was salient (M = 4.77; SE = 0.21) than in the condition in which the norm was not salient (M = 5.83; SE = 0.22), t(158) = 3.48, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.55. Regarding the white target, no significant differences were observed between the conditions in which the norm was salient (M = 5.83; SE = 0.25) and not salient (M = 5.77; SE = 0.23), t(158) = 0.18, p = .86, Cohen’s d = 0.03. These results are presented in Fig 2(b), which shows that the activation of the anti-prejudice norm inhibited the black target’s conviction.

The interaction between socioeconomic class and anti-prejudice norm was not significant,

F(1, 158) = 0.01, p = .91, η2p = 0.00. Also, the three-way interaction between color, class, and anti-prejudice norm was not reliable, F(1, 158) = 0.57, p = .45, η2p = 0.00. Once again, it is pos- sible that the absence of significant effects associated with social class is due to the predomi-

nance of skin color in the categorization process, which will be addressed in Study 4.

Discussion

These results provided partial support for the hypothesis that information about belonging to

the lower socioeconomic class harms blacks in situations involving social judgments. More-

over, this study also demonstrates that when the anti-racial prejudice norm is salient, partici-

pants tend to favor the black target. In this scenario, the participants tended to agree to a lesser

extent with the black target’s conviction for the condition in which the norm was explicitly

active compared to the condition in which the norm was not salient, which is in accordance

with previous evidence that social norms are directly linked to the expression of prejudice and

discrimination, and conforming to the norm leads to the suppression of prejudice and dis-

crimination [45].

The pressure of the anti-prejudice norm causes people to avoid behaving in a way that

could be assumed to be prejudiced. However, when individuals are in a situation in which

prejudiced behavior is not likely to be credited to them, they can exhibit prejudice and dis-

crimination against black people. Such a situation occurs when the individuals’ implication

with the anti-prejudice norm was nullified, similar to what was observed by Camino et al [34],

in a study in which the participants evaluated black and white targets according to personal

opinion or society’s opinion. As noted previously, Devine [33] also made a distinction between

individual and cultural prejudice. Accordingly, expressing individual prejudice is strongly sup-

pressed by the anti-prejudice norm, while manifesting cultural prejudice is not, so individuals

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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feel free to discriminate because they believe that their action will not be credited to their prej-

udiced motives. In the next study we analyze this possibility by asking the participants to judge

the targets according to their own opinion (individual prejudice) and according to society’s

opinion (cultural prejudice), in a context in which the anti-prejudice norm is explicitly active.

Study 3

Previous studies have shown that information about belonging to the lower classes facilitates

conviction of black targets but not white ones, however, in situations in which the anti-racial

prejudice norm is explicitly salient, the participants tend to favor black targets, despite infor-

mation about their socioeconomic class. What differentiates the individuals’ expression of a

prejudiced or unprejudiced answer is the salience of the anti-prejudice norm [43], though

prejudiced and unprejudiced individuals are conscious of culturally shared stereotypes and

prejudices [33]. In a study conducted by Devine [33], the participants were asked to list stereo-

types related to black people and were told that the study was interested in what society thinks

about these stereotypes rather than in the participant’s personal opinion. Results showed that

participants exhibited blatantly negative stereotypes against black people at the cultural level,

but not when asked to express their personal attitudes. That is, Devine’s [33] study developed

an efficient experimental paradigm for suspending the pressure of the anti-prejudice norm to

suppress prejudice responses.

Based on the paradigm developed by Devine [33], some studies have shown that people

tend to freely express prejudice against blacks [34] and immigrants [32,35] when they respond

on the behalf of society (cultural prejudice) but not when they respond for themselves (individ-

ual prejudice). According to Camino et al. [34] and Nunes [35], what explains these results is

the fact that the anti-prejudice norm does not influence the expression of cultural prejudice,

only the expression of individual prejudice. Individuals thus feel free to express prejudiced

judgments insofar as they ascribe it to the culture and not to themselves.

Based on these findings, the current study aims to test whether the manipulation of

prejudice (individual or cultural) affects judgments of targets based on their skin color and

socioeconomic class when the anti-prejudice norm is clearly salient. So, we kept the anti-preju-

dice norm constant, while providing the participants with information about the race and

Fig 2. Agreement with prison conviction.

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social class of the target and manipulated the cultural prejudice (vs. individual). For the indi-

vidual prejudice condition, we expected to observe results similar to those obtained in Study 2,

i.e., lesser support for conviction of the black target than the white one, independent of infor-

mation about social class. We further predicted that if using information about social class to

convict the black target is motivated by prejudice, even in an anti-prejudice normative context,

then the participants will agree to a greater extent with the lower-class black target’s conviction

compared to the black target in the class control condition when they are asked to express cul-

tural prejudice. On the other hand, information about belonging to the lower classes will not

lead to greater discrimination against the white target in any of the prejudice conditions

because information about belonging to lower social class to evaluate the white target is not

motivated by prejudice, so convicting or not does not confront the anti-prejudice norm.

Method

Participants and design. This study included the participation of 174 Portuguese students

from a university predominantly of white students, with a mean age of 22.2 years (SD = 3.59),

the majority of whom were female (53.4%). Most of them self-identified as white (95.3%) and

middle-class (80.1%). The participants were randomly allocated to one of eight conditions in a

2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control) x 2 (prejudice: indi-

vidual or cultural) between-subjects factorial design. This research design and sample size

provided 80% power to detect a medium effect size of d = 0.42 or higher (i.e., η2p = 0.042 for interaction effects) as calculated by WebPower [38] for main and interaction effects.

Procedure. To make the anti-racial prejudice norm salient, a procedure similar to Study 2

was adopted. First, for all conditions, participants responded to a questionnaire about racism.

The racial prejudice questionnaire was expected to function as an activator of the anti-preju-

dice norm because it made information about skin color more salient and gave clues to the

participants so that the study might infer their level of prejudice. Then, we manipulated the

skin color and social class by following the same procedure as Study 2. The manipulation of

prejudice was done by adapting the procedure used by Devine [33] and previously used by

Camino et al. [34], Fiske et al. [12] and Nunes [35] to manipulate cultural prejudice or stereo-

types (S2 Table). The manipulation consisted of a response statement presented on the first

page of the questionnaire. For the individual prejudice condition, the participants were

instructed to respond based on their personal opinion. For the cultural prejudice condition,

the participants were instructed to respond based on how society would respond. For this con-

dition, it was reinforced that the objective was not to discover the participants’ personal opin-

ion but rather what society thinks about the case. Furthermore, participants who indicated

that they had taken part in similar previous studies were considered not eligible for this study.

Dependent variable. The dependent variable was the same as that used in Study 1. The

participants indicated the extent to which they agreed that the suspect should be convicted and

sentenced to prison. The response scale used to answer the question ranged from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Manipulation check. To verify the effectiveness of the manipulations, the participants

were asked to indicate the skin color and socioeconomic class of the suspect presented in the

article at the end of the study, using the same scales described in Study 1. Independent sample

t-tests indicated that the manipulation of both skin color, t(153.6) = 35.6, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 5.31, and socioeconomic class, t(172) = 7.25, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.15, were effective. The mean reported by the participants for the white condition (M = 6.26; SD = 1.13) was higher than the mean for the black condition (M = 1.30; SD = 0.68). That is, the participants perceived the black target as actually black and the white target as really white. For the lower-

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class condition, the participants perceived the target as belonging to the lower class, given that

the reported mean (M = 2.59; SD = 1.09) was significantly lower than that for the control con- dition (M = 3.74; SD = 0.90). To verify the effectiveness of the manipulation of prejudice, the participants responded to an adapted version of the Subtle and Blatant Prejudice Scale [22,46].

A t-test for independent samples confirmed the effectiveness of the manipulation used. The participants of the cultural prejudice condition (M = 3.41; SD = 1.37) presented a significantly higher mean than those of the individual prejudice condition (M = 1.91; SD = 1.03), t(153.9) = -8.04, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.22.

Regarding the activation of the anti-racial prejudice norm, the participants responded to

the same question presented in the previous study. Approximately 85% of the participants

reported that the study was about racism. Therefore, we believe that the activation of the anti-

racial prejudice norm was effective.

Results

A 2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control) x 2 (prejudice: indi-

vidual or cultural) between-subjects factorial ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of the

manipulation of prejudice, F(1, 173) = 7.59, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.43. In general, the respon- dents presented a higher mean of agreement with conviction for the cultural prejudice condi-

tion (M = 5.76; SE = 0.13) than for the individual prejudice condition (M = 5.26; SE = 0.13). The main effects of skin color, F(1, 173) = 0.64, p = .42, Cohen’s d = 0.13, and socioeconomic class, F(1, 173) = 1.57, p = .21, Cohen’s d = 0.19, were not significant. Unlike Study 2, the main effect of skin color was not reliable, possibly due to the manipulation of prejudice (cultural vs.

individual) introduced in this study.

Importantly, we found a three-way interaction between skin color, class, and prejudice in

the prison sentence, F(3, 173) = 2.92, p < .05, η2p = 0.04 (Cohen’s d = 0.39). The decomposi- tion of this interaction showed that the race�class two-way interaction for the individual preju-

dice condition was not significant, F(1, 173) = 1.28, p = .26, η2p = 0.007. However, pairwise comparisons indicated that for the individual prejudice condition, no significant differences in

agreement with the black targets’ conviction were observed between the lower class (M = 5.05, SD = 0.28) and control conditions (M = 5.58, SD = 0.24), t(173) = 1.43, p = .15, Cohen’s d = 0.22. That is, when the anti-prejudice norm was clearly reinforced, the information about social class did not facilitate conviction of the black target. For the condition in which the

target was white, there were also no differences observed between the lower class (M = 5.42; SE = 0.24) and control conditions (M = 5.00; SE = 0.24), t(173) = 1.20, p = .23, Cohen’s d = 0.19. These results are shown in Fig 3(a).

For the cultural prejudice condition, the race�class interaction was also non-significant,

F(1, 173) = 0.005, p = .94, η2p = 0.00003. However, participants agreed strongly with the lower-class black target’s conviction (M = 5.94, SE = 0.29) compared to when there was no information about class (M = 5.18, SE = 0.25), t(173) = 1.98, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.79, i.e., the facilitating role played by lower social class was motivated by cultural prejudice. In the white

condition, as expected, no significant differences were observed between the lower class

(M = 6.09; SE = 0.25) and control conditions (M = 5.83; SE = 0.24), t(173) = 0.73, p = .46, Cohen’s d = 0.11. The results are shown in Fig 3(b).

Discussion

The results obtained in this study clarify the findings of the previous study by showing that the

conviction of black targets occurs when the participants are instructed to respond according to

how society would respond. This effect is facilitated by information about the target belonging

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to the lower social classes. Furthermore, this study makes progress by demonstrating that even

in a context in which the anti-prejudice norm is reinforced, cultural prejudice influences the

evaluation of blacks and it is facilitated by information about the target’s socioeconomic class.

As in Study 2, this facilitating effect of social class disappeared when the anti-prejudice

norm was clearly salient, such as what occurred for the individual prejudice condition in

which, besides knowing that the study involved evaluating racial prejudice, participants were

asked to express their personal attitudes. In fact, the main element that was highlighted in

the condition of cultural prejudice was the absence of normative pressure for non-prejudice.

For this reason, participants felt free to convict the black target, especially the poor one, even

though they knew that the study was about prejudice.

Accordingly, the results of this study demonstrate that one of the reasons why cultural attri-

butions occur is because they allow individuals to distance themselves from socially undesir-

able behaviors, offering a non-racial motivation for this behavior that serves as a protective

factor for the ego [47]. According to our rationale, information about the lower socioeconomic

class should contribute to this ego-protective effect because it is helpful to mitigate the preju-

diced motivation in convicting the black target in the anti-prejudice normative context. This

mitigating effect was not obtained from the individual prejudice condition, which means that

the pressure exerted by the norm was so strong that it did not allow the social class information

to have an effect. However, it is possible that the effect of socioeconomic class was weakened

by the greater salience of the skin color category, when we made only the racial anti-prejudice

norm salient, with little information given about the target’s class. It is possible that if both cat-

egories were equally salient in the context, the effect of the anti-prejudice norm could be atten-

uated by the information about socioeconomic class, allowing individuals to express their

personal attitudes because social class provides them with a non-racial motivation for convict-

ing the black target who clearly committed a crime. Study 4 seeks to address this possibility.

Study 4

This study aims to replicate the racial-based class effect and develop its comprehension by ana-

lyzing whether reinforced information about social class facilitates the conviction of the black

target even when the anti-prejudice norm is clearly salient. We specifically proposed that,

when the participants have an equal quantity of information about race and class, they will

Fig 3. Agreement with prison conviction.

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Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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agree to a greater extent with the conviction of the lower-class black target compared to the

target with no information about class, for both the individual prejudice condition and the cul-

tural prejudice condition.

Method

Participants and design. This study included the participation of 134 Portuguese univer-

sity students from a university predominantly of white students, with a mean age of 19.8 years

(SD = 2.26), the majority of whom were female (63.4%). Most of the participants self-identified as white (90.3%) and middle-class (91%). The participants were randomly allocated to one of

eight conditions in a 2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control)

x 2 (prejudice: individual or cultural) between-subjects factorial design. For all conditions, the

anti-prejudice norms of color and class were salient. This research design and sample size pro-

vided 80% power to detect a medium effect size of d = 0.48 or higher (i.e., equivalent to η2p = 0.05 for interaction effects) as calculated by WebPower [38].

Procedure. To make the norm salient, a procedure similar to that in Study 2 was adopted.

Prior to the manipulation, the participants responded to a racial prejudice measurement (S1

Table) and a class prejudice measurement (S2 Table). We expected that the racial prejudice

and class prejudice scales would function to activate the anti-prejudice norm because they

made information about skin color and class more salient and gave clues to the participants in

regard to the inference of their level of racism and classism. We reasoned that answering ques-

tions about attitudes to class would inhibit participants’ perception of the racial focus of the

study, allowing information about social class to have more of an influence. Thus, we manipu-

lated the skin color and social class of the targets by following the same procedure adopted in

Study 2. The manipulation of anti-prejudice followed the same procedure as Study 3. Further-

more, participants who indicated that they had taken part in similar previous studies were con-

sidered not eligible for this study.

Dependent variable. The dependent variable was the same as that used in Study 1.

Manipulation check. The manipulation check was performed through questions about

the suspect’s skin color and socioeconomic class, answered at the end of the questionnaire,

using the same measurements described in Study 1. A t-test for independent samples showed that the manipulation of skin color was effective, t(113.5) = 25.5, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 4.47, and that the participants of the white condition (M = 6.13; SD = 1.21) reported a higher mean than those of the black condition (M = 1.38; SD = 0.90), indicating that the white target was perceived as white and the black target as black. Regarding the manipulation of socioeconomic

class, a t-test for independent samples also indicated that the manipulation was effective, t(119.5) = 6.91, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.21, with the participants of the lower-class condition (M = 2.60; SD = 1.14) reporting a lower mean than those of the control condition (M = 3.80; SD = 0.79).

To check the effectiveness of the manipulation of prejudice, the participants responded to

a racial prejudice scale and a class prejudice scale. These scales were adapted from the Subtle

and Blatant Prejudice Scale [22,46]. The participants of the cultural racial prejudice condition

(M = 3.62; SD = 1.5) presented a significantly higher mean than those of the individual racial prejudice condition (M = 2.24; SD = 0.99), t(118.7) = -6.20, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.07. The participants of the cultural class prejudice condition presented a significantly higher mean

(M = 3.67; SD = 1.28) than those of the individual class prejudice condition (M = 2.60; SD = 0.97), t(132) = -5.46, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.95. Therefore, the manipulations of individ- ual and cultural prejudice were effective.

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Results

A 2 (skin color: white or black) x 2 (socioeconomic class: lower or control) x 2 (prejudice: indi-

vidual or cultural) between-subjects factorial ANOVA indicated significant main effects of

skin color, F(1, 133) = 3.98, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.35, socioeconomic class, F(1, 133) = 8.24, p < .01, Cohen’s d = 0.50, and prejudice, F(1, 133) = 13.98, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.67. Regard- ing skin color, a higher agreement with the black target’s conviction (M = 5.66; SE = 0.13) was observed compared to the white target (M = 5.28; SE = 0.14). Concerning class, agreement with conviction for the lower-class condition (M = 5.74; SE = 0.13) was higher than for the control condition (M = 5.20; SE = 0.13). For prejudice, the respondents presented higher agreement with conviction for the cultural prejudice condition (M = 5.82; SE = 0.13) than for the individual prejudice condition (M = 5.11; SE = 0.14). However, these results were qualified by a significant two-way interaction between skin color and social class, F(1, 133) = 11,1, p < .01, η2p = 0.08 (Cohen’s d = 0.59). Pairwise comparisons indicated that participants agree more strongly with the conviction of a black target of the lower socioeconomic class condition

(M = 6.24; SE = 0.17) than with the class control condition (M = 5.07; SE = 0.19), t(126) = 4.49, p < .001. When the target was white, no differences were observed between lower-class condition (M = 5.24; SE = 0.20) and the control condition (M = 5.34; SE = 0.21), t(126) = 0.32, p = .75.

However, there was a three-way interaction between skin color, social class, and prejudice

in the prison sentence, F(3, 126) = 2.16, p = .096, η2p = 0.049 (Cohen’s d = 0.45), although not reaching the desirable level of significance, which would indicate significant differences

between the conditions. The decomposition of this interaction showed a reliable race�class

two-way interaction for the individual prejudice condition, F(1, 126) = 7.67, p < .01, η2p = 0.056. For the individual prejudice condition, the planned comparisons indicated a significant

difference in judgments of the targets of the black condition, t(126) = 4.19, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.74, with the participants agreeing to a greater extent with conviction of the lower-class condition (M = 5.91; SE = 0.24) compared to the control condition (M = 4.31; SE = 0.30). For the condition in which the target was white, no significant differences were observed, t(126) = 0.27, p = .78, Cohen’s d = 0.05, between the lower class (M = 5.07; SE = 0.29) and control con- ditions (M = 5.18; SE = 0.26). Results are presented in Fig 4(a), which shows that information about belonging to the lower social classes facilitated the conviction of the black target but not

the white target.

Subsequently, for the cultural prejudice condition, the decomposition of this interaction

showed a reliable race�class two-way interaction for the individual prejudice condition, F(1, 126) = 7.46, p < .01, η2p = 0.055. Participants agreed to a greater extent with the black target’s conviction of the lower-class condition (M = 6.58; SE = 0.25) compared to the control condi- tion (M = 5.83; SE = 0.25), t(126) = 2.09, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.37. For the condition in which the target was white, no significant differences were observed, t(126) = 0.18, p = .85, Cohen’s d = 0.03, between the lower class (M = 5.40; SD = 0.28) and control conditions (M = 5.47; SD = 0.26). These results are shown in Fig 4(b).

Discussion

Results observed in this study provide supplementary evidence for our main hypothesis that

information about social class facilitates conviction of black targets for a crime in the anti-prej-

udice normative context. In fact, in a context in which the racial and class information were

equally salient, individuals agreed to a greater extent with convicting the lower-class black tar-

get, for both the individual prejudice and cultural prejudice conditions. Moreover, results pro-

vide further support for the prejudiced motivation for convicting the black target, since for the

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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cultural prejudice condition this target was convicted to a greater extent than the white target.

Results also replicate studies 1 and 2 in which the black target with no information about class

was favored by the racial anti-prejudice norm for the individual prejudice condition. In other

words, with this condition, individuals feel pressured to suppress discriminatory judgment to

avoid violating the racial anti-prejudice norm [43]. However, when information about class is

available and the class anti-prejudice norm is salient, individuals tend to convict the lower-

class black target to a greater extent. For this condition, the pressure exerted by the racial anti-

prejudice norm is mitigated, allowing participants to be free to convict a black target who

clearly had committed a crime. Another aspect reinforcing this conclusion is the fact that

information about class was used differently in judgments of white and black targets. If it

were merely a matter of class prejudice, both white and black targets alike would be harmed.

However, what we observed is that only black targets were harmed by this information, which

leads us to believe that socioeconomic class serves as a facilitator of the expression of racial

prejudice.

These results are even more compelling for the cultural prejudice condition. Although, for

the individual prejudice condition, black targets (with no information about class) are pro-

tected by the norm, for the cultural condition, they are more discriminated against because

individuals avoid responsibility for expressing racial prejudice individually but do not present

a problem in expressing it at a cultural level, because they cannot be personally blamed for

inflicting the anti-prejudice norm [34]. For this condition, information about belonging to the

lower class facilitates discriminatory judgment because even when in a reinforced anti-preju-

diced normative context, agreement with the black lower-class target’s conviction is higher

than when there is no information about class. This pattern of results is in accordance with

our prediction that convicting a black person from a lower social class in motivated by preju-

dice. This motivation influences individuals’ behavior when they feel free to judge a target

believing that their judgment will not be attributed to racial motives.

General discussion

Over the course of four experimental studies, we analyzed how belonging to the lower socio-

economic class affects judgments of black and white targets in a Portuguese context. In Study

Fig 4. Agreement with prison conviction.

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Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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1, we evaluated how information about belonging to the lower class directly affects judgments

of white and black targets. In Study 2, we evaluated how the anti-prejudice norm affects the

judgments of black and white targets from a lower-social class. Finally, in Studies 3 and 4 we

manipulated prejudice (cultural vs. individual) to evaluate the effect of information about

belonging to the lower class when the anti-prejudice norm is activated. Our results show that

information about belonging to the lower class increases agreement with a prison sentence for

the black target (Studies 1, 2, 3, and 4), while reducing (Studies 1 and 2) or not affecting (Stud-

ies 3 and 4) agreement with conviction for the white target. Furthermore, when the partici-

pants did not have information about the target’s class, they tended to favor the black target

compared to the white target (Studies 1, 2, and 3). These results indicate that information

about belonging to the lower classes facilitates convicting black targets.

The results also show that the racial anti-prejudice norm decreases agreement with the

black target’s conviction (Studies 2 and 3). When we made both the racial and class anti-preju-

dice norms salient, agreement with the conviction of the lower-class black target was higher

than that of the black target without any identified class (Study 4). We also observed that agree-

ment with the conviction of the black target and lower-class black target is motivated by cul-

tural prejudice (Studies 3 and 4).

Theoretical implications

Although previous studies have demonstrated the importance of considering social class

both independently of and in conjunction with skin color in a USA context [8,9], the results

observed to date have not provided sufficient evidence in regard to what extent the effect of

information about belonging to the lower classes has on judgments of black and white people

[14,42,48], especially in the Portuguese context. The consistency of our results over four stud-

ies, in which different manipulations were performed, provides evidence for the hypothesis

that belonging to the lower social classes will facilitate the conviction of the black target but

not the white one.

The set of studies presented here also elucidates the effect of the anti-prejudice norm on the

evaluation of targets belonging to more than a single social category (e.g., a lower-class black

person), with one category being strongly protected by a norm [43]. When the racial anti-prej-

udice norm was salient, the participants tended to favor the black target, agreeing less with his

conviction, compared to the condition in which the norm was not active (Studies 2 and 3).

When skin color was the most salient category, the manipulation of the racial anti-prejudice

norm was effective, leading to less agreement with the conviction of the black individual. Social

norms are thus directly linked to the expression of prejudice and discrimination, suppressing

the expression of prejudiced personal attitudes against groups protected by the norm [45].

However, although the anti-prejudice norm protects the black target, this effect occurs only

in the absence of other factors than race to explain individuals’ behavior [27]. When other pos-

sible factors for discrimination exist (e.g., belonging a lower social class), individuals tend to

convict the lower-class black target to a greater extent (Study 4). Although the manipulation

we used for the racial anti-prejudice norm was effective, it made the skin color category more

salient than socioeconomic class in Studies 2 and 3. Some studies on intergroup bias, in multi-

ple categorization contexts, show that a number of factors can cause bias patterns that deviate

from the frequently observed additive pattern (e.g., adding the effect of being lower-class to

the effect of being black). In other words, increasing the salience of one of the categories or

dimensions involved in the process can very often lead to the dominance of the category that is

made more salient (e.g., predominance of categorization by color) [49]. In this sense, the acti-

vation of the racial anti-prejudice norm may have made the skin color category dominant in

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

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the judgment process, leading the participants to respond in a more egalitarian manner

because the social context made clear that expressing negative racial attitudes is inappropriate.

Furthermore, this work provides evidence of individual and cultural expressions of preju-

dice in the Portuguese context. Our results show that when the anti-prejudice norm was active,

the participants tended to favor the black target (with no information about class) compared

to the white target, with regard to the expression of prejudice at an individual level (Studies 3

and 4). When they responded based on the judgments of society (cultural prejudice), this ten-

dency disappeared, and the lower-class black target was convicted to a greater extent, suggest-

ing that the facilitating effect of social class is motivated by racial prejudice.

The manipulation of the cultural or individual expression of prejudice provides results that

are consistent with earlier studies on stereotypes about blacks and immigrants [32–34] and dis-

crimination against immigrants [35] observed in other cultural contexts, like in France [32]

and Brazil [34]. In our findings, the participants tended to favor the black target (with no infor-

mation about class) when their judgments were based on individual opinion. When they made

judgments based on Portuguese society’s opinion, they tended to convict the black target to a

greater extent. This occurred because the racial anti-prejudice norm influences the expression

of individual prejudice rather than the expression of cultural prejudice, i.e., the expression of

cultural prejudice is not pressured by the anti-prejudice norm.

These findings also provide new insights concerning differences in the expression of indi-

vidual and cultural prejudice. The cultural expression of prejudice allows for discrimination

against the lower-class black target, even in a situation in which the norm is active and skin

color is the most salient category (Study 3). However, in Study 4, in which we made equally

salient both the race-based and class-based target categorizations prior to participants reading

the scenario, we observed that the participants tended to convict the lower-class black target

(but not the control) for both conditions—individual and cultural—though they convicted to a

greater extent in the cultural condition.

The present research also advances prior investigations into the relationship between preju-

dice and discrimination. Indeed, the results indicate that information about belonging to the

lower classes facilitates discrimination against black targets, in the expression of both individ-

ual and cultural prejudice. This proposition is also supported by our observations that belong-

ing to the lower classes only harms the black target. The reason for this facilitation may be that

the information about the socioeconomic class provided an unprejudiced reason for convict-

ing a black target who clearly committed a crime. Specifically, it is possible that social class acts

as a non-racist justification for discrimination in the Portuguese context, which is consistent

with other studies that have shown that prejudice and discrimination against black people

persist because people develop indirect ways to discriminate that do not confront the racial

anti-prejudice norm [43]. The use of non-racist justifications to discriminate against black

people is consistent with the myth of luso-tropicalism that permeates the vision of race rela-

tions in Portuguese society. If the Portuguese see themselves as an harmonious people seeking

a benevolent and peaceful coexistence with people of different ethnic backgrounds [3,50], dis-

crimination against black people will not occur on grounds that might be viewed as racist, but

will be justified if the criteria to discriminate is seen as non-racist, like discrimination based on

social class.

In fact, social status has long been used as a non-discriminatory justification for perpetuat-

ing or denying inequalities between whites and blacks. Many argue that “race” and ethnicity

are not evaluative dimensions that are appropriate for addressing the problem of inequality

because these differences are a product of socioeconomic disparities [51]. This possibility,

based on beliefs in the integrative power of economic development and refined over several

different iterations, is one of the pillars of the ideology of racial democracy, which is often

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222874 September 20, 2019 19 / 24

evoked as an explanation of the undeniable inequalities between blacks and whites [52]. How-

ever, different studies have shown that “race” continues to have significant importance for the

perpetuation of inequalities [52–54], and the results obtained here add to this evidence.

Limitations and future directions

Although we present a set of four consistent studies, the results and conclusions obtained here

so far are limited to the Portuguese context. Future research is needed to examine whether the

results obtained here can be generalized to contexts with a history of racial relations closer to

that observed in Portugal, as in Brazil, in which the ideology of racial democracy (similar to

the ideology of Portuguese luso-tropicalism) prevails, characterized by a myth that blacks and

whites live harmoniously in a multicultural society [55]; as well as in more well-studied social

contexts, historically marked by segregated race relations, like the USA context.

Another limitation is the fact that we did not have a control for the effect of participants’

skin color and socioeconomic class. Although the study was conducted with white participants

and we randomly distributed the participants between the experimental conditions, it is possi-

ble that some observed effects, such as favoring the white target (with a higher status), were

purely due to a tendency towards favoring the in-group [56]. Future studies with a more

diverse sample are needed to address how differences in participants’ in-groups affect

responses towards their out-groups. Another limitation is related to the manipulation of the

anti-prejudice norm in Studies 2 and 3. In these studies, the manipulation of the racial anti-

prejudice norm made the skin color category more salient than the social class category. It

could thus be argued that the effect attributed to the anti-prejudice norm could be better

explained by the salience of the category, i.e., the participants ignored socioeconomic class

and focused only on the target’s skin color, leading to one category’s dominance over the other

rather than the expected interaction effect [17]. Additionally, a pre-test was not performed on

the photos used as stimuli to manipulate skin color. Some studies have indicated that features

inferred from the face, such as trustworthiness and competence can influence social judgment

[57,58]. Further research can counterbalance the salience of both categories and control the

possible effect of trustworthiness and competence of the facial stimuli.

We also did not evaluate the stereotypical content of the subgroups used in our manipula-

tions. Due to the important role of stereotypes, future studies should evaluate stereotypical

content in multiple categorization contexts, helping to elucidate the similarities and differences

between the class and skin color categories, and consequently whether the similarity in stereo-

types shared by different groups (e.g., black people and poor people) are the basis of discrimi-

nation against this subgroup. Furthermore, elucidating stereotypes in this context can provide

evidence for the additive effect of these two categories. We also did not consider other variables

that could provide alternative explanations for our results. Other studies might test the role of

system justification as a mediator between multiple categorizations and discrimination. Per-

haps this mechanism can explain discrimination against low-status subgroups that have con-

gruent stereotypes, perpetuating the existing social status quo. Future studies can also use the

manipulation of individual and cultural prejudice to show differences between individual and

social judgments in other contexts.

Conclusions

In several cultural contexts across the world, the penal system has imprisoned more poor black

than white people, independent of their social class. Analyzing this racially-based class dispar-

ity from a social-psychological point of view, our research provided sufficient experimental

evidence for the hypothesis that white individuals have a tendency to support more easily the

Black people are convicted more for being black than for being poor

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222874 September 20, 2019 20 / 24

conviction of black people from lower social classes when they commit a crime. This tendency

was not observed in judgment of white targets committing the same crime. Furthermore, this

set of studies provides the first evidence regarding how the anti-prejudice norm and cultural

and individual expressions of prejudice act to suppress or motivate the racially-based class

disparity in sentencing a target to prison. When the racial anti-prejudice norm is salient,

the black target is favored in individual but not in cultural judgments. Moreover, when the

racial and the class anti-prejudice norm makes skin color and class salient, individuals discrim-

inate against the lower-class black target to a greater extent, in both individual and cultural

judgments.

Supporting information

S1 Fig. Manipulation of skin color and socioeconomic class—Study 1.

(DOCX)

S2 Fig. Manipulation of skin color and socioeconomic class—Studies 2, 3 and 4.

(DOCX)

S1 Table. Manipulation of individual and cultural prejudice.

(DOCX)

S2 Table. Manipulation of the racial anti-prejudice norm.

(DOCX)

S3 Table. Manipulation of the social class anti-prejudice norm.

(DOCX)

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima, Cicero Roberto Pereira, Ana Raquel Rosas

Torres.

Data curation: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima, Luana Elayne Cunha de Souza, Iara Maribondo

Albuquerque.

Formal analysis: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima, Cicero Roberto Pereira.

Funding acquisition: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima.

Investigation: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima.

Methodology: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima.

Supervision: Cicero Roberto Pereira, Ana Raquel Rosas Torres.

Writing – original draft: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima, Cicero Roberto Pereira.

Writing – review & editing: Tiago Jessé Souza de Lima, Cicero Roberto Pereira, Ana Raquel

Rosas Torres, Luana Elayne Cunha de Souza, Iara Maribondo Albuquerque.

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