On the malleability of automatic attitudes: Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals.

Two experiments examined whether exposure to pictures of admired and disliked exemplars can reduce automatic preference for White over Black Americans and younger over older people. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to either admired Black and disliked White individuals, disliked Black and admired White individuals, or nonracial exemplars. Immediately after exemplar exposure and 24 hr later, they completed an Implicit Association Test that assessed automatic racial attitudes and 2 explicit attitude measures. Results revealed that exposure to admired Black and disliked White exemplars significantly weakened automatic pro-White attitudes for 24 hr beyond the treatment but did not affect explicit racial attitudes. Experiment 2 provided a replication using automatic age-related attitudes. Together, these studies provide a strategy that attempts to change the social context and, through it, to reduce automatic prejudice and preference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The White standard: Racial bias in leader categorization.

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated whether race is perceived to be part of the business leader prototype and, if so, whether it could explain differences in evaluations of White and non-White leaders. The first 2 studies revealed that "being White" is perceived to be an attribute of the business leader prototype, where participants assumed that business leaders more than nonleaders were White, and this inference occurred regardless of base rates about the organization's racial composition (Study 1), the racial composition of organizational roles, the business industry, and the types of racial minority groups in the organization (Study 2). The final 2 studies revealed that a leader categorization explanation could best account for differences in White and non-White leader evaluations, where White targets were evaluated as more effective leaders (Study 3) and as having more leadership potential (Study 4), but only when the leader had recently been given credit for organizational success, consistent with the prediction that leader prototypes are more likely to be used when they confirm and reinforce individualized information about a leader's performance. The results demonstrate a connection between leader race and leadership categorization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remembering race: White racial identity attitudes and two aspects of social memory.

This study investigated whether the White racial identity statuses proposed by J. E. Helms (1984, 1990, 1995) could explain individual differences in how racial stereotypes influence memory for race-related information as measured by memory sensitivity and response bias on a recognition memory task. Participants were 197 White undergraduate and graduate students who read 3 stimulus paragraphs embedded with Black and White stereotypical items. The race of the target character in the stimulus was randomly reported to be Black or White. After a 1-week interval, participants completed a measure of recognition memory, as well as a measure of White racial identity attitudes. Results offer support for the hypothesis that the White racial identity statuses influence how racial stereotypes affect information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mixed motives and racial bias: The impact of legitimate and illegitimate criteria on decision making.

Recent high-profile court rulings addressing the influence of illegitimate information--such as race--on decision making have highlighted the difficulty of establishing whether and when discrimination has occurred. One factor complicating such efforts is that decision makers are often simultaneously influenced by racial and nonracial information. The authors examined the psychological processes underlying such mixed-motive decision making, demonstrating how legitimate information can be manipulated to justify preferences based on illegitimate factors such as race. Study 1 showed that Black candidates were favored over White candidates in hypothetical college admissions decisions, although participants justified their decisions using nonracial information, and further showed that participants' levels of prejudice predicted both which candidate was chosen and how those choices were justified. Study 2 demonstrated that these justifications were not simply strategic and post hoc but also occurred as a natural part of the process of evaluating candidates. Discussion focuses on policy and legal implications for employment discrimination, affirmative action, and courtroom proceedings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

White students reflecting on whiteness: Understanding emotional responses.

In the present investigation, we explored potential predictors of White students' general emotional responses after they reflected on their Whiteness in a semistructured interview (n = 88) or written reflection (n = 187). Specifically, we examined how color-blindness (i.e., awareness of White privilege) and racial affect (i.e., White empathy, White guilt, and White fear), assessed before the interview or written reflection, may predict positive and negative emotional responses, assessed immediately following the interview or written reflection. Furthermore, we considered whether affective costs of racism to Whites moderated the association between racial color-blindness and general positive and negative emotional responses of White students. Findings indicated that affective costs of racism moderated associations between racial color-blindness and general emotional responses. Specifically, White fear moderated associations for the written reflection group whereas White empathy moderated an association in the interview. White guilt did not moderate, but instead directly predicted a negative emotional response in the written reflection group. Findings suggest that the interaction between racial color-blindness and racial affect is important when predicting students' emotional responses to reflecting on their Whiteness. Implications for educators and administrators are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in the activation and control of affective race bias as assessed by startle eyeblink response and self-report.

The activation and control of affective race bias were measured using startle eyeblink responses (Study 1) and self-reports (Study 2) as White American participants viewed White and Black faces. Individual differences in levels of bias were predicted using E. A. Plant and P. G. Devine's (1998) Internal and External Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice scales (IMS/EMS). Among high-IMS participants, those low in EMS exhibited less affective race bias in their blink responses than other participants. In contrast, both groups of high-IMS participants exhibited less affective race bias in self-reported responses compared with low-IMS participants. Results demonstrate individual differences in implicit affective race bias and suggest that controlled, belief-based processes are more effectively implemented in deliberative responses (e.g., self-reports). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: the negativity bias in evaluative categorizations

Negative information tends to influence evaluations more strongly than comparably extreme positive information. To test whether this negativity bias operates at the evaluative categorization stage, the authors recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs), which are more sensitive to the evaluative categorization than the response output stage, as participants viewed positive, negative, and neutral pictures. Results revealed larger amplitude late positive brain potentials during the evaluative categorization of (a) positive and negative stimuli as compared with neutral stimuli and (b) negative as compared with positive stimuli, even though both were equally probable, evaluatively extreme, and arousing. These results provide support for the hypothesis that the negativity bias in affective processing occurs as early as the initial categorization into valence classes.     

Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals.

Individuals who qualify equally for membership in two racial groups provide a rare window into social categorization and perception. In 5 experiments, we tested the extent to which a rule of hypodescent, whereby biracial individuals are assigned the status of their socially subordinate parent group, would govern perceptions of Asian–White and Black–White targets. In Experiment 1, in spite of posing explicit questions concerning Asian–White and Black–White targets, hypodescent was observed in both cases and more strongly in Black–White social categorization. Experiments 2A and 2B used a speeded response task and again revealed evidence of hypodescent in both cases, as well as a stronger effect in the Black–White target condition. In Experiments 3A and 3B, social perception was studied with a face-morphing task. Participants required a face to be lower in proportion minority to be perceived as minority than in proportion White to be perceived as White. Again, the threshold for being perceived as White was higher for Black–White than for Asian–White targets. An independent categorization task in Experiment 3B further confirmed the rule of hypodescent and variation in it that reflected the current racial hierarchy in the United States. These results documenting biases in the social categorization and perception of biracials have implications for resistance to change in the American racial hierarchy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Having an Open Mind: The Impact of Openness to Experience on Interracial Attitudes and Impression Formation.

This article considers how Openness to Experience may mitigate the negative stereotyping of Black people by White perceivers. As expected, White individuals who scored relatively high on Openness to Experience exhibited less prejudice according to self-report measures of explicit racial attitudes. Further, White participants who rated themselves higher on Openness to Experience formed more favorable impressions of a fictitious Black individual. Finally, after observing informal interviews of White and Black targets, White participants who were more open formed more positive impressions of Black interviewees, particularly on dimensions that correspond to negative racial stereotypes. The effect of Openness to Experience was relatively stronger for judgments of Black interviewees than for judgments of White interviewees. Taken together these findings suggest that explicit racial attitudes and impression formation may depend on the individual characteristics of the perceiver, particularly whether she or he is predisposed to consider stereotype-disconfirming information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect regulation and temporal discounting: Interactions between primed, state, and trait affect.

Previous research has largely focused on the influence of experienced affect on decision making; however, other sources of affective information may also shape decisions. In two studies, we examine the interacting influences of affective information, state affect, and personality on temporal discounting rates (i.e., the tendency to choose small rewards today rather than larger rewards in the future). In Study 1, participants were primed with either positive or negative affect adjectives before making reward choices. In Study 2, participants underwent either a positive or negative affect induction before making reward choices. Results in both studies indicate that neuroticism interacts with state unpleasant affect and condition (i.e., positive or negative primes or induction) to predict discounting rates. Moreover, the nature of the interactions depends on the regulatory cues of the affective information available. These results suggest that irrelevant (i.e., primes) and stable (i.e., personality traits) sources of affective information also shape judgments and decision making. Thus, current affect levels are not the only source of affective information that guides individuals when making decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anti-Black prejudice as a function of exposure to the negative behavior of a single Black person.

The authors examined whether the negative behavior of 1 Black male would influence White participants' perceptions of Black Americans and behavior toward another Black person. In Study 1, it was found that participants in the Black-negative condition tended to stereotype Blacks more than participants in the Black-control condition did. It was also found that participants who had observed a negative behavior, whether it was performed by a Black or a White confederate, avoided a subsequently encountered Black person more often than did participants in either the positive condition or the control condition. In a 2nd study, interpersonal interactions with a Black person were minimized only after participants observed the negative behavior of a Black confederate. Study 3 extended the findings of Study 1 by showing that group level stereotypes and the expression of ingroup favoritism resulted from simply overhearing a conversation in which a Black person was alleged to have committed a crime. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect and Issue Framing on Issue Interpretation and Risk Taking

Two studies examined the influence of transient affective states and issue framing on issue interpretation and risk taking within the context of strategic decision making. In Study 1, participants in whom transient positive or negative affective states were induced by reading a short story showed systematic differences in issue interpretation and risk taking in a strategic decision making context. Compared to negative mood participants, those in a positive mood were more likely to interpret the strategic issue as an opportunity and displayed lower levels of risk taking. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by crossing affective states with threat and opportunity frames. Results showed that framing an issue (as a threat or an opportunity) had a stronger impact on issue interpretation among negative affect participants than among positive affect participants. Affective states also moderated the impact of issue framing on risk taking: the effect of framing on risk-taking was stronger under negative rather than positive affect. These results are interpreted via information-processing and motivational effects of affect on a decision maker. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.     

The role of affect in knowledge transfer.

In two experimental studies of two-party information sharing, we demonstrate that affective state plays a role in the knowledge-transfer process. Study 1 (N = 108 MBA students) found that affective state has a larger impact on those in need of knowledge (“receivers”) than on those in possession of knowledge (“senders”), with elated/happy receivers more likely than angry/frustrated receivers to absorb and act on new information. Study 2 (N = 180 undergraduates) replicated this finding and also demonstrated that having receivers and senders in the same high-arousal affective state as each other (affective congruence) enhances knowledge transfer, regardless of whether the affective state is positive (elated/happy) or negative (angry/frustrated). These findings help fill an important gap in the literature regarding the influence of affect on knowledge transfer in groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variability in automatic activation as an unobstrusive measure of racial attitudes: A bona fide pipeline?

The research examines an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes based on the evaluations that are automatically activated from memory on the presentation of Black versus White faces. Study 1, which concerned the technique's validity, obtained different attitude estimates for Black and White participants and also revealed that the variability among White participants was predictive of other race-related judgments and behavior. Study 2 concerned the lack of correspondence between the unobtrusive estimates and Modern Racism Scale (MRS) scores. The reactivity of the MRS was demonstrated in Study 3. Study 4 observed an interaction between the unobtrusive estimates and an individual difference in motivation to control prejudiced reactions when predicting MRS scores. The theoretical implications of the findings for consideration of automatic and controlled components of racial prejudice are discussed, as is the status of the MRS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Racing to help: Racial bias in high emergency helping situations.

The present work explored the influence of emergency severity on racial bias in helping behavior. Three studies placed participants in staged emergencies and measured differences in the speed and quantity of help offered to Black and White victims. Consistent with predictions, as the level of emergency increased, the speed and quality of help White participants offered to Black victims relative to White victims decreased. In line with the authors' predictions based on an integration of aversive racism theory and the arousal: cost-reward perspective on prosocial behavior, severe emergencies with Black victims elicited high levels of aversion from White helpers, and these high levels of aversion were directly related to the slower help offered to Black victims but not to White victims (Study 1). In addition, the bias was related to White individuals' interpretation of the emergency as less severe and themselves as less responsible to help Black victims rather than White victims (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 also illustrated that emergency racial bias is unique to White individuals' responses to Black victims and not evinced by Black helpers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shifts in attention biases in response to acute pain induction: Examination of a model of "conversion" among repressors.

Unlike most people, those who are characterized by a repressive coping style report high levels of physical (sensory) pain but low levels of emotional distress (affective pain), which is a discrepancy that may suggest a “conversion” process. In two studies, we tested an attention allocation model, proposing that repressors direct attention away from threatening negative affective information and toward nonthreatening physical pain information during emotionally arousing (painful) situations. In Study 1, 84 participants underwent a cold pressor and then recovered. Repressors reported greater pain during recovery than low- and high-anxious participants, but they reported lower distress than high-anxious participants. Repressors reported significant and large discrepancies between high pain and low distress, whereas these differences were less pronounced for other groups. In Study 2, 77 participants underwent an ischemic pain task while performing a modified dot-probe task with sensory and negative affective pain words as stimuli. Repressors showed increasing biases away from affective pain words and toward sensory pain words as the pain task continued, whereas low- and high-anxious participants did not show these shifts in attention. The results support the notion that conversion among repressors may involve a process by which attention is directed away from emotional distress during noxious stimulation and is focused instead on sensory information from pain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

White Selves: Conceptualizing and Measuring a Dominant-Group Identity.

This article addresses the nature and measurement of White racial identity. White identification is conceptualized as an automatic association between the self and the White ingroup; this association is fostered through social exposure to non-Whites and serves to link self- and ingroup evaluations. Four studies validated a measure of White identification against criteria derived from this model. In Study 1, the White Identity Centrality Implicit Association Test (WICIAT) predicted response latencies in a task gauging self-ingroup merging. In Study 2, the WICIAT correlated with census data tapping exposure to non-Whites. In Studies 3 and 4, the WICIAT predicted phenomena associated with the linking of self- and ingroup evaluations: identity-related biases in intergroup categorization (Study 3) and self-evaluative emotional reactions to ingroup transgressions (Study 4). Together, the findings shed light on the antecedents and consequences of White identity, an often-neglected individual difference construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Free at last? Social dominance, loss aversion, and white and black Americans' differing assessments of racial progress.

White Americans tend to believe that there has been greater progress toward racial equality than do Black Americans. The authors explain this difference by combining insights from prospect theory and social dominance theory. According to prospect theory, changes seem greater when framed as losses rather than gains. Social dominance theory predicts that White Americans tend to view increases in equality as losses, whereas Black Americans view them as gains. In Studies 1 and 2, the authors experimentally tested whether groups judge the same change differently depending on whether it represents a loss or gain. In Studies 3-6, the authors used experimental methods to test whether White participants who frame equality-promoting changes as losses perceive greater progress toward racial equality. The authors discuss theoretical and political implications for progress toward a just society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prejudice and perception: The role of automatic and controlled processes in misperceiving a weapon.

Two experiments used a priming paradigm to investigate the influence of racial cues on the perceptual identification of weapons. In Experiment 1, participants identified guns faster when primed with Black faces compared with White faces. In Experiment 2, participants were required to respond quickly, causing the racial bias to shift from reaction time to accuracy. Participants misidentified tools as guns more often when primed with a Black face than with a White face. L. L. Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure was applied to demonstrate that racial primes influenced automatic (A) processing, but not controlled (C) processing. The response deadline reduced the C estimate but not the A estimate. The motivation to control prejudice moderated the relationship between explicit prejudice and automatic bias. Implications are discussed on applied and theoretical levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)