Daniël H. J. Wigboldus

Presentation and validation of the Radboud Faces Database

Many research fields concerned with the processing of information contained in human faces would benefit from face stimulus sets in which specific facial characteristics are systematically varied while other important picture characteristics are kept constant. Specifically, a face database in which displayed expressions, gaze direction, and head orientation are parametrically varied in a complete factorial design would be highly useful in many research domains. Furthermore, these stimuli should be standardised in several important, technical aspects. The present article presents the freely available Radboud Faces Database offering such a stimulus set, containing both Caucasian adult and children images. This face database is described both procedurally and in terms of content, and a validation study concerning its most important characteristics is presented. In the validation study, all frontal images were rated with respect to the shown facial expression, intensity of expression, clarity of expression, genuineness of expression, attractiveness, and valence. The results show very high recognition of the intended facial expressions.

Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures

The authors argue that complementary hostile and benevolent components of sexism exist across cultures. Male dominance creates hostile sexism (HS), but mens dependence on women fosters benevolent sexism (BS)--subjectively positive attitudes that put women on a pedestal but reinforce their subordination. Research with 15,000 men and women in 19 nations showed that (a) HS and BS are coherent constructs that correlate positively across nations, but (b) HS predicts the ascription of negative and BS the ascription of positive traits to women, (c) relative to men, women are more likely to reject HS than BS, especially when overall levels of sexism in a culture are high, and (d) national averages on BS and HS predict gender inequality across nations. These results challenge prevailing notions of prejudice as an antipathy in that BS (an affectionate, patronizing ideology) reflects inequality and is a cross-culturally pervasive complement to HS.

How do we communicate stereotypes? Linguistic bases and inferential consequences.

The linguistic expectancy bias is defined as the tendency to describe expectancy-consistent information at a higher level of abstraction than expectancy-inconsistent information. The communicative consequences of this bias were examined in 3 experiments. Analyses of judgments that recipients made on the basis of linguistically biased information generated by transmitters indicated that behavior in expectancy-consistent messages was attributed more to dispositional and less to situational factors than behavior in expectancy-inconsistent messages. Moreover, this effect was mediated by the level of linguistic abstraction of the messages. These findings provide direct evidence for the hypothesis that recipients are sensitive to variations in linguistic abstraction in spontaneous language use because of stereotypes. Results are discussed with respect to the interpersonal aspects of stereotyping.

Convergent and divergent responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup

In the present research, we test the assumption that emotional mimicry and contagion are moderated by group membership. We report two studies using facial electromyography (EMG; Study 1), Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Study 2), and self-reported emotions (Study 2) as dependent measures. As predicted, both studies show that ingroup anger and fear displays were mimicked to a greater extent than outgroup displays of these emotions. The self-report data in Study 2 further showed specific divergent reactions to outgroup anger and fear displays. Outgroup anger evoked fear, and outgroup fear evoked aversion. Interestingly, mimicry increased liking for ingroup models but not for outgroup models. The findings are discussed in terms of the social functions of emotions in group contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

What It Takes to Forgive: When and Why Executive Functioning Facilitates Forgiveness

To establish what it takes to forgive, the present research focused on the cognitive underpinnings of the forgiveness process. We conducted four studies that examined and supported the prediction that executive functioning (a set of cognitive control processes) facilitates forgiveness. First, a correlational study revealed a positive relation between executive functioning and dispositional forgiveness (Study 1). Second, a longitudinal study demonstrated that executive functioning predicts the development of forgiveness over a period of 5 weeks after the offense (Study 2). Finally, two experiments examined when and why executive functioning facilitates forgiveness. Specifically, and in line with predictions, Studies 3 and 4 showed that executive functioning facilitates forgiveness only in the case of relatively severe (as compared with mild) offenses. Furthermore, Study 4 provided evidence for a psychological mechanism underlying the relation between executive functioning and forgiveness by demonstrating the mediating role of rumination about the offense. Implications of these findings for the literature on forgiveness and the role of executive functioning in interpersonal relationships more generally are discussed.

Emotional consequences of categorizing victims of negative outgroup behavior as ingroup or outgroup.

This research examined whether people experience anger after perceiving intentional and unfair behavior of an outgroup which has negative consequences for others, but not for themselves. It was predicted that such outgroup behavior causes anger in the observer, dependent on the categorization of the victims as part of its own group or as part of another group. Participants were primed with information that made either differences or similarities between them and the victims salient, after which they were confronted with negative behavior of an outgroup. Results confirmed the prediction that the same information concerning unfair and intentional behavior of an outgroup harming others led to more anger in the observer when the victims were perceived as ingroup rather than outgroup. Moreover, anxiety was not affected by perception of victims as part of the ingroup or outgroup, suggesting that specific emotions rather than just negative affect were influenced.

Visualizing Minimal Ingroup and Outgroup Faces: Implications for Impressions, Attitudes, and Behavior

More than 40 years of research have shown that people favor members of their ingroup in their impressions, attitudes, and behaviors. Here, we propose that people also form different mental images of minimal ingroup and outgroup members, and we test the hypothesis that differences in these mental images contribute to the well-established biases that arise from minimal group categorization. In Study 1, participants were assigned to 1 of 2 groups using a classic minimal group paradigm. Next, a reverse correlation image classification procedure was used to create visual renderings of ingroup and outgroup face representations. Subsequently, a 2nd sample naive to the face generation stage rated these faces on a series of trait dimensions. The results indicated that the ingroup face was significantly more likely than the outgroup face to elicit favorable impressions (e.g., trusting, caring, intelligent, attractive). Extending this finding, Study 2 revealed that ingroup face representations elicited more favorable implicitly measured attitudes than did outgroup representations, and Study 3 showed that ingroup faces were trusted more than outgroup faces during an economic game. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that facial physiognomy associated with trustworthiness more closely resembled the facial structure of the average ingroup than outgroup face representation. Together, these studies suggest that minimal group distinctions can elicit different mental representations, and that this visual bias is sufficient to elicit ingroup favoritism in impressions, attitudes and behaviors.

The role of affect in attitudes toward organ donation and donor-relevant decisions

We argue that affect plays a vital role in attitudes toward organ donation and that reluctance to become an organ donor is likely to be related to the experience of affective ambivalence. Assessing the affect associated with organ donation could help to predict donor-relevant decisions. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis on 464 students showed that affective evaluations can be distinguished both from cognitive evaluations and from overall evaluations. As expected, affective evaluations revealed ambivalence (using the ‘Griffin’ measure of ambivalence) toward organ donation, whereas the two other types of evaluations did not. Results of a follow-up study using logistic regression (n = 85), showed that affective evaluations predicted donor-relevant decisions six months later. The present findings support the proposal to include separate affective evaluations in measures of attitudes to organ donation. More general implications for the measurement and structure of attitudes in health related domains are discussed.

When Do We Communicate Stereotypes? Influence of the Social Context on the Linguistic Expectancy Bias

The linguistic expectancy bias (LEB) refers to the tendency to describe expectancy consistent information at a higher level of linguistic abstraction than expectancy inconsistent information. Two experiments examined the influence of the social communicative context on the production of this linguistic bias by manipulating the group membership of the actor in, and the recipient of, stereotypical information. Results supported the prediction that an LEB effect based on stereotypes is especially pronounced in an intergroup social communicative context in which either the actor in or the recipient of the stereotypical information is an outgroup member.

From task characteristics to learning: A systematic review

Although many theoretical approaches propose that job characteristics affect employee learning, the question is why and how job characteristics influence learning. The present study reviews the evidence on the relationships among learning antecedents (i.e., job characteristics: demands, variety, autonomy and feedback), learning processes (including motivational, meta-cognitive, cognitive and behavioral processes) and learning consequences. Building on an integrative heuristic model, we quantitatively reviewed 85 studies published between 1969 and 2005. Our analyses revealed strong evidence for a positive relation between job demands and autonomy on the one hand and motivational and meta-cognitive learning processes on the other. Furthermore, these learning processes were positively related to learning consequences.