Separating threat, rarity, and outgroup accounts of the other-race P2

When White participants view Black (vs. White) faces, their brains produce an enhanced P2 ERP response. This has traditionally been interpreted as increased attention to threat, overlooking two alternative accounts: ingroup–outgroup categorisation, or stimulus distinctiveness effects, pertaining to the relative rarity of Black individuals in many Western contexts. The near-complete omission of Black participants from face-processing research renders these accounts difficult to disentangle. Here, 52 Black and 45 White participants viewed target faces while race (Black/White) and gender (female/male) were manipulated. Early frontal P2 responses emerged only in White participants viewing Black targets, suggesting increased cognitive resource allocation resulting from stimulus rarity, not threat, while late parietal P2 increases arose for all participants to their respective racial outgroup. Our results bear implications for the interpretation of P2 effects as neural markers of social cognition, while highlighting intrinsic limitations of assuming results from homogeneous (WEIRD) samples reflect universal socio-cognitive processes.