Measuring Perceived Skin Color: Spillover Effects and Likert-Type Scales

Discrimination based on skin color has been documented as a considerable problem in social science research. Most of this research relies on Likert-type ratings of skin color such as the Massey-Martin Scale (MMS). Scholars have raised questions about measurement error in such scales. We hypothesize that the coding of a person's skin color will vary depending on the race of persons previously coded. We find that the MMS is vulnerable to spillover effects: a person's skin is coded as darker, on average, if he is observed following a sequence of White persons than if he is observed following a sequence of Black persons. We also replicate previous work showing that Black and White coders use the scale differently. Finally, having coders cross-reference the palette at the time of coding, rather than recalling the palette from memory, fails to mitigate either race-of-coder or spillover effects.