Research

As a member of the Couchiching First Nation who is building a career in healthcare and wants to be trusted by- and fair to- her patients, I am interested in studying how observers perceive Native American women: do they apply positive or negative stereotypes, does hypodescent* occur, does knowing that a subject is Native American change how observers see the subject? If we understand how different stimuli influence us, then we can guard against the negative influences and lean into the positive ones.

To assess this, I designed and ran two consecutive studies using OSU students as participants. Participants viewed photographs of six female models and rated them on positive traits, negative traits, and stereotype-consistent attributes such as likelihood of alcohol abuse or drug-seeking behavior.

Both studies found that labelling significantly shaped perception of the models independent of their appearance and identity.

Study 1 used three Native American models and three ethnically ambiguous ones; the racial differences between the models were subtle). When the models were labeled as Native Americans, participants rated them more positively than when models were not labeled and participants had to rely on their own perception of them. I presented a poster of this study at the 2024 Western Psychological Association Convention in San Francisco, focused on using Psychology to address social problems.

Study 2 used photos of models with more pronounced racial differences (more obviously not Native American). Here the effect of labeling the models as Native American was even more pronounced: when observers couldn't rely on the models' appearance to determine race and evaluate the models, they relied even more on the label applied to the model. They trusted the label more than their own observations. I presented a poster of this study at the 2025 Western Psychological Association Convention in Las Vegas, focused on applications of Psychology to everything.

These studies are included in my Honors College graduation thesis, Name It To Frame It: The Impact of the Label "Native American" on Perceptions of Women. You can read my methodology, results, and discussion, and in Appendix 1 you can find the questionnaires and model photos.

* Hypodescent: the social and legal practice of automatically assigning a person of mixed racial heritage to the racial group that holds a subordinate or lower status in a culture's racial hierarchy.