Jason C. Deska

The Eyes Are the Windows to the Mind Direct Eye Gaze Triggers the Ascription of Others’ Minds

Eye gaze is a potent source of social information with direct eye gaze signaling the desire to approach and averted eye gaze signaling avoidance. In the current work, we proposed that eye gaze signals whether or not to impute minds into others. Across four studies, we manipulated targets’ eye gaze (i.e., direct vs. averted eye gaze) and measured explicit mind ascriptions (Study 1a, Study 1b, and Study 2) and beliefs about the likelihood of targets having mind (Study 3). In all four studies, we find novel evidence that the ascription of sophisticated humanlike minds to others is signaled by the display of direct eye gaze relative to averted eye gaze. Moreover, we provide evidence suggesting that this differential mentalization is due, at least in part, to beliefs that direct gaze targets are more likely to instigate social interaction. In short, eye contact triggers mind perception.

The face of fear and anger: Facial width-to-height ratio biases recognition of angry and fearful expressions.

The ability to rapidly and accurately decode facial expressions is adaptive for human sociality. Although judgments of emotion are primarily determined by musculature, static face structure can also impact emotion judgments. The current work investigates how facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), a stable feature of all faces, influences perceivers’ judgments of expressive displays of anger and fear (Studies 1a, 1b, & 2), and anger and happiness (Study 3). Across 4 studies, we provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that perceivers more readily see anger on faces with high fWHR compared with those with low fWHR, which instead facilitates the recognition of fear and happiness. This bias emerges when participants are led to believe that targets displaying otherwise neutral faces are attempting to mask an emotion (Studies 1a & 1b), and is evident when faces display an emotion (Studies 2 & 3). Together, these studies suggest that target facial width-to-height ratio biases ascriptions of emotion with consequences for emotion recognition speed and accuracy.

White ≠ Poor Whites Distance, Derogate, and Deny Low-Status Ingroup Members

Throughout society, White people of low socioeconomic status (SES) face prejudice, often from racial ingroup members. The present research tested the ingroup distancing effect, which predicts that Whites’ negative reactions to low-SES ingroup members are motivated responses to perceived threats to their personal and group-level status. To cope with perceived status threats, White people psychologically and physically distance themselves from low-SES Whites. Four studies provide converging support for this theorizing. Among White participants, low-SES Whites elicited derogation, impaired racial categorization and memory, and inflated perceived personal status. White participants explicitly perceived low-SES Whites as greater status threats than low-SES Blacks, and these perceptions of threat predicted increased discomfort in anticipated social situations with low-SES White targets. Moreover, threatened status led Whites who strongly identified with their racial ingroup to physically distance themselves from a low-SES White partner. This research demonstrates that concerns with status motivate prejudice against ingroup members.

Facing humanness:: Facial width-to-height ratio predicts ascriptions of humanity.

The ascription of mind to others is central to social cognition. Most research on the ascription of mind has focused on motivated, top-down processes. The current work provides novel evidence that facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) serves as a bottom-up perceptual signal of humanness. Using a range of well-validated operational definitions of humanness, we provide evidence across 5 studies that target faces with relatively greater fWHR are seen as less than fully human compared with their relatively lower fWHR counterparts. We then present 2 ancillary studies exploring whether the fWHR-to-humanness link is mediated by previously established fWHR-trait links in the literature. Finally, 3 additional studies extend this fWHR-humanness link beyond measurements of humanness, demonstrating that the fWHR-humanness link has consequences for downstream social judgments including the sorts of crimes people are perceived to be guilty of and the social tasks for which they seem helpful. In short, we provide evidence for the hypothesis that individuals with relatively greater facial width-to-height ratio are routinely denied sophisticated, humanlike minds.

Of Mannequins and Men Ascriptions of Mind in Faces Are Bounded by Perceptual and Processing Similarities to Human Faces

Recent research has demonstrated that ascribing minds to humanlike stimuli is a product of both their perceptual similarity to human faces and whether they engaged configural face processing. We present the findings of two experiments in which we both manipulate the amount of humanlike features in faces (in a doll-to-human morph continuum) and manipulate perceivers’ ability to employ configural face processing (via face inversion) while measuring explicit ratings of mind ascription (Study 1) and the spontaneous activation of humanlike concepts (Study 2). In both studies, we find novel evidence that ascribing minds to entities is an interactive product of both having strong perceptual similarity to human faces and being processed using configural processing mechanisms typical of normal face perception. In short, ascribing mind to others is bounded jointly by the featural cues of the target and by processes employed by the perceiver.

Black and White Lies: Race Based Biases in Deception Judgments

In six studies (N = 605), participants made deception judgments about videos of Black and White targets who told truths and lies about interpersonal relationships. In Studies 1a, 1b, 1c, and 2, White participants judged that Black targets were telling the truth more often than they judged that White targets were telling the truth. This truth bias was predicted by Whites’ motivation to respond without prejudice. For Black participants, however, motives to respond without prejudice did not moderate responses (Study 2). In Study 3, we found similar effects with a manipulation of the targets’ apparent race. Finally, in Study 4, we used eye-tracking techniques to demonstrate that Whites’ truth bias for Black targets is likely the result of late-stage correction processes: Despite ultimately judging that Black targets were telling the truth more often than White targets, Whites were faster to fixate on the on-screen “lie” response box when targets were Black than when targets were White. These systematic race-based biases have important theoretical implications (e.g., for lie detection and improving intergroup communication and relations) and practical implications (e.g., for reducing racial bias in law enforcement).

Advancing Our Understanding of the Interface Between Perception and Intergroup Relations

We are delighted to have the opportunity to respond to Y. Jenny Xiao, G eraldine Coppin, and Jay J. Van Bavel’s (this issue) perceptual model of intergroup relations. We see this model as filling an important void in the literature between the resurgent interest in motivated perception and the long-standing interest in social psychology in intergroup relations. Xiao and colleagues propose that social groups, identities, and contexts can alter perception across multiple modalities; in turn, these perceptions influence intergroup attitudes, judgments, and behaviors. Although noting that there is relatively little empirical support for the reverse causal pathway, they also postulate that the model may be bidirectional, suggesting that intergroup relations may influence perceptual processes, which may in turn affect social identity. Thus, the crux of the proposed model is that “social identification influences perception” (p. 257). The authors suggest that this particular link has been, until recently, understudied in social psychology, a point to which we return. We find much to like in Xiao and colleagues’ (this issue) theory. Specific to their model, we appreciated the relatively unique focus on multiple modalities. To our knowledge, no extant model of intergroup relations or social identification explicitly includes visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory perception as components. Indeed, as the authors note, much of the work in this area has focused on visual perception (e.g., Social Vision; Johnson & Adams, 2013). Nevertheless, perception is not limited to vision; therefore, any theory focusing on how perception, broadly defined, mediates the relationship between social identity and intergroup relations should be multimodal. Moreover, the focus onmultiple modalities serves only to underscore the relative dearth of work in this area focusing on modalities other than vision. Related, perceptual modalities are rarely isolated in vivo, regardless of how they are studied in psychology laboratories. Hence, we appreciated the authors’ inclusion of cross-modal perception in their model as well as in their review of the literature. Second, we found the authors’ review of the extant literature to be particularly inclusive and informative. The authors review the important role social identity and fundamental motivations for belonging have on cognition, as well as note that perception is socially constructed. In addition, the authors review recent research on visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory perception, providing a concise summary while acknowledging where areas for future research exist. Finally, on the whole, we believe the perceptual model of intergroup relations is defensible given the current data. Indeed much of our own work, and other related work at the interface of perception and intergroup relations, corroborates the authors’ arguments. For example, speaking to the effects of social identities on perception (Pathway C), we have demonstrated that target race alters perception of physicality. White perceivers evaluate Black men as more physically formidable and as more muscular than White men matched in height, weight, and strength (Wilson, Hugenberg, & Rule, 2016). In a separate demonstration, Fincher and Tetlock (2016) provided compelling evidence for the perception to intergroup relations pathway (Pathway D), showing that perceptual dehumanization (i.e., withholding face-typical processing) facilitates extreme punishment (i.e., death penalty sentencing). Other work speaks to the proposed bidirectional nature of the model, specifically how intergroup relations can influence perception (Pathway F). Black perceivers who believe Whites are primarily externally motivated to respond without prejudice (i.e., Black perceivers who are suspicious of Whites motives) perceive White faces to be more threatening than their nonsuspicious counterparts (Kunstman, Tuscherer, Trawalter, & Lloyd, 2016). This was documented both in explicit judgments of threat and in patterns of visual attention. Inzlicht, Kaiser, and Major (2008) strengthened this intergroup relations to perception link, demonstrating that individual differences in stigma consciousness affect emotion perception. Women who expect to be treated with prejudice perceive contempt lingering on male faces. Finally, compelling evidence for the final link (perception to social membership; Pathway E) comes from research indicating that perceptual fluency facilitates ingroup categorizations and thereby ingroup advantages (i.e., liking; Claypool, Housley, Hugenberg, Bernstein, & Mackie, 2012) and that fluency can explain when prejudice arises (e.g., Lick & Johnson, 2013). Thus, taken together, we think that there is robust evidence to support many of the core claims of this model. Although we believe the model espoused by Xiao and colleagues (this issue) is important and drives forward our understanding of the interface between perception and intergroup relations, we next note several areas where this model may be