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Setting the Tone: An Investigation of Skin Color Bias in Asia

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Abstract

Social stratification by skin color is evident across the globe. In Asia, the origins of colorism are more obscure, and contemporary patterns are less studied. This paper examines the presence and patterns of colorism in an Asian context. Using data from Project Implicit, Study 1 investigated the extent to which participants associated dark skin color with negative concepts and light skin color with positive concepts. East Asia emerged as the world region with the highest level of skin color bias. Using experiments conducted in Singapore, Studies 2–4 investigated how manipulating skin color impacted the evaluations of job applicants. Studies 2 and 4 documented a modestly sized bias against dark- and medium-skinned applicants relative to light-skinned applicants, driven primarily by female participants. Study 3, which increased the range of applicant credentials, documented an attenuation of skin color bias. Furthermore, stratified models indicated participants from lower socioeconomic status families displayed higher levels of bias.

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Notes

  1. A study of Black American women shows that skin color is a predictor of self-esteem, particularly among women with lower socioeconomic status (Thompson and Keith, 2001).

  2. Examples of good words are pleasing, glorious, and happy. Examples of bad words are selfish, failure, and horrible.

  3. For both Tables 1 and 2, the reference group is North America because it accounts for the majority of research on colorism and accounts for the majority of observations in the dataset (81%). The U.S. makes up almost 97% of the region's observations. Having the same reference group facilitates the comparison of coefficients across the two tables.

  4. We employ the term "economy" in order to remain neutral with regard to the statehood of places in Asia.

  5. Table S2 provides test statistics for Figs. 1 and 2.

  6. We also asked participants what they thought the study was about. In their responses, about one-fifth of participants mentioned the appearance of the person in the photo, and only 2 of 716 participants mentioned skin color specifically. Further analysis suggests that participants’ skin color biases were not impacted by whether they were more or less focused on the photographs as a central part of the research.

  7. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2020), women accounted for 54% of recent bachelor's degrees in marketing and 29% of recent bachelor's degrees in finance. We believe the same pattern holds for Singapore.

  8. Photos were taken with the same equipment and same backdrop. Subjects had neutral facial expressions. They wore the same grey shirt and wore no hats, glasses, jewelry, etc.

  9. To use faces from multiple groups raises the likelihood that participants would misidentify Chinese faces as non-Chinese or would rate faces from one group differently due to the presence of faces from another group.

  10. We decided not to use data on "friendly" because we were focusing primarily on competence. In any case, the empirical results for friendly were similar to those for attractive.

  11. Fixed effects models obviate the need to include fixed participant characteristics as main effects, because such models estimate a set of participant-specific constant terms.

  12. About 87% of participants self-identified as Chinese. About 13% self-identified as Indian, Malay, Other Asian, Multi-Racial, or Non-Asian.

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Author notes

  1. We greatly appreciate research assistance provided by Clara Wong, Kershia Tan, and Ren Wanxuan. Both authors contributed equally to this research.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Jacqueline M. Chen

  2. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 259771, Singapore

    Andrew Francis-Tan

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  1. Jacqueline M. Chen
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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7 Summary statistics for the IAT sample
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Table 8 Regression estimates from studies 2–4, including full set of random and fixed effects
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Chen, J.M., Francis-Tan, A. Setting the Tone: An Investigation of Skin Color Bias in Asia. Race Soc Probl 14, 150–169 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-021-09329-0

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