According to a new study led by psychologists at New York University and Hebrew University in Israel, people are significantly more likely to notice the absence of White people in a group than they are the absence of Black people.
“These findings suggest that underrepresentation can be hard to see — regardless of who you are,” said lead author Rasha Kardosh, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at New York University. “People often notice who stands out, but not who is missing altogether, with these blind spots occurring in everyday settings.”
In a visual experiment, a sample of female and male American participants viewed blocks of faces that primarily mirrored the share of each social group in the U.S. population. Some participants were shown blocks in which White faces were absent and others were shown blocks in which Black faces were absent. When asked about the group that was absent in their test block, participants were 14 times more likely to notice when White faces were absent than when Black faces were absent. A similar result appeared based on gender; participants often failed to notice the absence of women in a group of hypothetical neurosurgeons, as well as the absence of men in a group of kindergarten teachers.
The authors also conducted a survey among faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students at Hebrew University and attendees at an international academic conference held in New York City. Some 86 percent of participants said they did not attend any talks by a Black speaker. Among those participants, 52.9 percent said they did not notice this absence until they were asked about it.
“Our research points to a practical lesson: representation is not always obvious to the eye,” said Kardosh. “This bias in perception can mask inequality and make our environments appear more diverse than they truly are. Simply prompting people to ask ‘Who is missing?’ may change how they see a setting and how they think about possible responses.”
