A rose by any other name?: The consequences of subtyping “African-Americans” from “Blacks”

•We examine the consequences of ethnic labels that represent different SES subtypes.•The ethnic label Black signals lower social class and status than African-American.•Whites rated a Black employee to be lower status than an African-American employee.•Articles that used Black (vs. African-American) had a more negative emotional tone.•Whites perceived a Black suspect more negatively than an African-American suspect.

Racial labels often define how social groups are perceived. The current research utilized both archival and experimental methods to explore the consequences of the “Black” vs. “African-American” racial labels on Whites' evaluations of racial minorities. We argue that the racial label Black evokes a mental representation of a person with lower socioeconomic status than the racial label African-American, and that Whites will react more negatively toward Blacks (vs. African-Americans). In Study 1, we show that the stereotype content for Blacks (vs. African-Americans) is lower in status, positivity, competence, and warmth. In Study 2, Whites view a target as lower status when he is identified as Black vs. African-American. In Study 3, we demonstrate that the use of the label Black vs. African-American in a US Newspaper crime report article is associated with a negative emotional tone in that respective article. Finally, in Study 4, we show that Whites view a criminal suspect more negatively when he is identified as Black vs. African-American. The results establish how racial labels can have material consequences for a group.