Face recognition in the presence of angry expressions: A target-race effect rather than a cross-race effect

Perceivers usually recognize the faces of members of their own racial group more accurately than the faces of other races — a difference which is called the cross-race effect (CRE). When showing this effect, research has typically used facial stimuli with neutral emotional expressions. A few studies have examined the effect with faces showing angry expressions (Ackerman et al., 2006; Krumhuber & Manstead, 2011; Young & Hugenberg, 2012), and these have generally shown enhanced recognition of outgroup angry faces, an effect that Ackerman et al. (2006) attributed to greater attention paid to threatening outgroup members. However, these studies suffer from stimulus confounds, in that the Black angry faces were particularly unusual, as revealed in our pretest data. Additionally, only White participants were used in these studies, raising the question of whether the reported effects are truly ingroup–outgroup effects. Reported here are two studies, using first White and then Black participants, that used a novel stimulus set that avoided earlier confounds. Participants studied and later attempted to recognize White and Black faces, varying in their emotional expression (angry versus neutral) both at encoding and testing. Both experiments showed a pro-ingroup CRE. However, contrary to prior research, both participant races had relatively more difficulty recognizing angry Black faces, such that when the faces were angry, the pro-ingroup CRE was strengthened for White participants and weakened for Black participants. We discuss theoretical explanations for these results which substantially qualify past conclusions about the role of facial emotions in cross-race facial recognition.