The study takes place in a field setting at three different schools. Each group is composed of two black and two white students assigned randomly to either an experimental or control condition. Fourteen groups were run for each condition or a total of 28 groups. In the control condition both blacks and whites receive the same neutral training…

This experiment attempted to alter the effects of race as a diffuse status characteristic. Black subjects were given instructions meant to induce "high competence" on a task performed with white subjects. All subjects were seventh and eighth graders who did not know each other prior to the experiment. Each group comprised two white and…