TITLE:
To Treat or Not to Treat: The Impact of Hairstyle on Implicit and Explicit Perceptions of African American Women’s Competence
AUTHORS:
Boluwatife H. Aladesuru, Debby Cheng, Dana Harris, Arielle Mindel, Madalina Vlasceanu
KEYWORDS:
Afrocentric Hair, Perceived Competence, Bias, Discrimination
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.10,
September
30,
2020
ABSTRACT: African American women wearing their natural Afrocentric hair without
altering its texture have long been
discriminated against in the workplace, at school, in the military, in the
justice system, and more. This phenomenon has been found to be mainly driven by
the notion that African American women wearing their natural hair are less
professional than African American women wearing chemically treated,
Eurocentric hair. In prior work, dimensions such as perceived dominance, intelligence,
and unpleasantness have been explored as potential mechanisms playing a role in the relationship between African American hair and perceived
professionalism. Here, we explore an additional such dimension: perceived
competence. In a sample of 186 predominantly Caucasian Cloud Research
participants, we found that African American women wearing their natural
Afrocentric hair were perceived both implicitly and explicitly as being less
competent than African American women wearing Eurocentric hair, and that the implicit and explicit
attitudes were not correlated. These findings are relevant to understanding
barriers that may hinder African American women in their academic and
professional careers.