title: The effects of race and racial priming on self-report of contamination anxiety.
abstract: African Americans show unusually high endorsement rates on self-report measures of contamination anxiety. The purpose of this study was to replicate this finding in a nationally representative sample and conduct a randomized experiment to determine the effect of salience of race as a causal factor. Black and White participants were given contamination items from two popular measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder, half prior to being primed about ethnic identity and half after being primed, via the administration of an ethnic identity measure. The experiment took the form of a 2 (Black and White participant) X 2 (ethnicity salient and ethnicity non-salient) double-blind design, with ethnic saliency assigned at random by computer. Participants consisted of a geographically representative US sample of African Americans supplemented with a similar sample of European Americans (N=258). Black participants scored significantly higher than White participants on contamination scales. Participants from Southern states scored higher than those from other regions. Over-endorsements by Black participants were greater when awareness of ethnic and racial identification was increased. Clinical and research implications were discussed; these measures should be used with caution in African Americans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Box 400400, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22904.
authors.forename: Monnica T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Turkheimer
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Magee
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Guterbock