Over two studies, participants (total N=642) rated photos of Black, White,
and East Asian males' faces on traits related to approachability (i.e.,
friendliness, trustworthiness, and threat). The purpose was to see if the
commonly-used within-subjects research design, in which each participant
evaluates targets of different groups (e.g., ethnicities), may lead to
socially desirable responding to avoid appearing biased. We predicted that
participants in this design would normalize their approachability judgments
across their ratings of ethnic groups in comparison to participants who
rated photos of only one ethnic group, which was the between-subjects
design used in the second study. Results showed that for all three trait
ratings, there was a significant participant x target ethnicity interaction
for the between-subjects study suggesting an in-group bias, but for the
within-subjects study, only threat ratings produced a significant
participant x target ethnicity interaction. These results suggest the
importance of incorporating a diversity of methods. Additional results and
conclusions are discussed.