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Target Weight and Gender Moderate Anti-Black Bias in Pain Perception
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Description: Perceivers recognize pain less readily on Black (vs. White) faces. The present work investigated whether this perceptual bias is moderated by target weight and gender across three experiments. Anti-Black bias in pain perception was mitigated within heavier-weight (vs. average-weight) male-appearing targets (Experiment 1) but was independent of female-appearing targets’ weight (Experiment 2). A well-powered, pre-registered Experiment 3 replicated these findings, confirming that target weight and gender interactively shaped anti-Black bias in pain perception. Target weight moderated perceptual bias within male targets but not female targets. These findings help illuminate conditions wherein Black individuals are especially vulnerable to biased pain perception and demonstrate the importance of intersectionality when studying social perceptual biases.