Do individuation instructions reduce the cross-race effect? A registered replication of Hugenberg, Miller, and Claypool (2007)
Abstract
People usually have less accurate memory for cross-race (CR) than for same-race (SR) faces, a robust and consequential phenomenon known as the Cross-Race Effect (CRE). In an influential paper, Hugenberg et al. (2007) showed that the CRE can be eliminated when participants are instructed to individuate CR faces in order to avoid displaying this effect. This finding has received widespread attention, and many studies have attempted to replicate it, with mixed results. In the present research, we attempted to replicate the effect of the individuation instructions in eliminating the CRE (Hugenberg et al., 2007) in two pre-registered experiments in two different cultures – the United States and Portugal. The results of both experiments found no evidence that instructing participants to individuate CR faces eliminates or even attenuates the CRE. Additionally, we also examined and failed to find support for the idea that these individuation instructions are more effective for the participants who report greater contact with CR faces (Young & Hugenberg, 2012). Finally, we also did not find evidence that the cultural setting moderates the effect of the individuation instructions of the CRE. We critically discuss the potential reasons for the lack of impact on the individuation instructions in the CRE and its implications for a prominent motivational account of this effect.
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Francisco Cruz
Invited Assistant Professor
Francisco Cruz is an invited assistant professor in psychology, statistics, and methods at the Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, and Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Europeia. Junior Consulting Editor at the Journal of European Social Psychology, 2025-present. Social Psychology Ph.D. on lay beliefs about science, supervised by Prof. André Mata (Universidade de Lisboa) and Prof. Tania Lombrozo (Princeton University), 2022-2025. Visiting Student Research Collaborator at Princeton University, 2023-2024. Society for General Psychology and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Fulbright Portugal, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia awardee. His research interests include lay beliefs about science (i.e., what people believe that science can or cannot explain and why), motivated beliefs in science (i.e., the contexts in which people are more prone to accepting scientific explanations), representation of social groups (i.e., how people integrate information to provide judgments on shared homogeneity vs. heterogeneity across group members), epistemic trespassing (i.e., when people provide judgments on domains beyond those in which they are experts), intuitive mind-body dualism (i.e., a natural tendency to see the world as split in material and immaterial portions), and face perception (i.e., features driving the advantage in recall for own- vs. other-race faces).