Meghan G. Bean

Prejudice Concerns and Race-Based Attentional Bias New Evidence From Eyetracking

The present study used eyetracking methodology to assess whether individuals high in external motivation (EM) to appear nonprejudiced exhibit an early bias in visual attention toward Black faces indicative of social threat perception. Drawing on previous work examining visual attention to socially threatening stimuli, the authors predicted that high-EM participants, but not lower-EM participants, would initially look toward Black faces and then subsequently direct their attention away from these faces. Participants viewed pairs of images, some of which consisted of one White and one Black male face, while a desk-mounted eyetracking camera recorded their eye movements. Results showed that, as predicted, high-EM, but not lower-EM, individuals exhibited patterns of visual attention indicative of social threat perception.

Blinding Trust The Effect of Perceived Group Victimhood on Intergroup Trust

Four studies investigate how perceptions that one’s social group has been victimized in society—that is, perceived group victimhood (PGV)—influence intergroup trust. Jewish and politically conservative participants played an economic trust game ostensibly with “partners” from their ingroup and/or a salient outgroup. Across studies, participants dispositionally or primed to be high in PGV revealed greater trust behavior with ingroup than outgroup partners. Control participants and those dispositionally low in PGV did not display such bias. Study 3 revealed, moreover, that high PGV enhanced ingroup trust even after an overt betrayal by an ingroup partner. Results were not explained by fluctuations in group identification, highlighting the novel, independent role of PGV in shaping an important aspect of intergroup relations—that is, trust. Implications of PGV for intergroup relations are discussed.

Evidence of nonconscious stereotyping of Hispanic patients by nursing and medical students.

Background:Current research on nonconscious stereotyping in healthcare is limited by an emphasis on practicing physicians’ beliefs about African American patients and by heavy reliance on a measure of nonconscious processes that allows participants to exert control over their behaviors if they are motivated to appear nonbiased. Objectives:The present research examined whether nursing and medical students exhibit nonconscious activation of stereotypes about Hispanic patients using a task that subliminally primes patient ethnicity. It was hypothesized that participants would exhibit greater activation of noncompliance and health risk stereotypes after subliminal exposure to Hispanic faces compared with non-Hispanic White faces and, because ethnicity was primed outside of conscious awareness, that explicit motivations to control prejudice would not moderate stereotype activation. Methods:Nursing and medical students completed a sequential priming task that measured the speed with which they recognized words related to noncompliance and health risk after subliminal exposure to Hispanic and non-Hispanic White faces. They then completed explicit measures of their motivation to control prejudice against Hispanics. Results:Both nursing and medical students exhibited greater activation of noncompliance and health risk words after subliminal exposure to Hispanic faces, compared with non-Hispanic White faces. Explicit motivations to control prejudice did not moderate stereotype activation. Discussion:These findings show that, regardless of their motivation to treat Hispanics fairly, nursing and medical students exhibit nonconscious activation of negative stereotypes when they encounter Hispanics. Implications are discussed.

Gender moderates the self-regulatory consequences of suppressing emotional reactions to sexism

This study examined whether members of low-status, stigmatized groups are less susceptible to the negative cognitive consequences of suppressing their emotional reactions to prejudice, compared with members of high-status, non-stigmatized groups. Specifically, we examined whether regulating one s emotional reactions to sexist comments—an exercise of self-regulation—leaves women less cognitively depleted than their male counterparts. We hypothesized that the greater practice and experience of suppressing emotional reactions to sexism that women are likely to have relative to men should leave them less cognitively impaired by such emotion suppression. Results were consistent with this hypothesis. Moreover, these results suggest that our social group memberships may play an important role in determining which social demands we find depleting.

Evidence of negative implicit attitudes toward individuals with a tattoo near the face

Three studies examined if people express negative implicit attitudes toward individuals with a tattoo near the face. In Study 1, participants who completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) expressed moderately negative implicit attitudes toward individuals with a tribal tattoo on one side of the neck. Study 2 replicated Study 1 when the tattoo was symmetrical, suggesting that negative affect, and not processing fluency, underlies the implicit negative evaluation of individuals with a tribal tattoo near the face. Study 3 showed dissociation between explicit and implicit attitudes toward individuals with a tribal tattoo near the face, and that the negative implicit evaluation was attenuated if the tattoo image was an objectively positive symbol. The implications for displaying a tattoo near the face are discussed.