Do beliefs about emotions and racial biases predict attention for angry and angry African-American faces?

IAT dot-probe

Dennis, Paul Anthony ; Amy Halberstadt, Committee Chair,Tom Hess, Committee Member,Doug Gillan, Committee Member,Dennis, Paul Anthony ; Amy Halberstadt ; Committee Chair ; Tom Hess ; Committee Member ; Doug Gillan ; Committee Member

University:North Carolina State University

关键词: IAT dot-probe;   

Others  :  https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/bitstream/handle/1840.16/1935/etd.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

美国|英语

来源: null

【 摘 要 】

Broadly speaking, attitudes and beliefs shape how we perceive the world around us (Balcetis& Dunning, 2007; Fazio, Chen, McDonel, & Sherman, 1982; Riskind, Moore, & Bowley,1995; Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci, & Proffitt, 2008). For instance, people generally devotemore attention to objects and events about which they feel strongly than to objects and eventsabout which they do not (Roskos-Ewoldsen & Fazio, 1992). This observation was tested as itrelates to people’s beliefs about negative emotions and their racial bias against AfricanAmericans. Specifically, people who believe that negative emotions are dangerous werehypothesized to pay greater attention to negative emotional expressions (as opposed topositive emotional expressions) than people who did not have strong beliefs about the dangerof negative emotions. People who are biased against African Americans were hypothesizedto pay greater attention to angry African Americans (as opposed to angry EuropeanAmericans) than people who are not strongly biased against African Americans. To test thesehypotheses, 138 college students participated in a dot-probe task, which measured the degreeto which participants fixed their attention on angry vs. happy faces and angry African-American vs. angry European-American faces. Contrary to my prediction, participants withstrong beliefs about the danger of negative emotions focused greater attention on happy vs.angry faces than did participants with weak beliefs about the danger of negative emotions,suggesting that participants with strong beliefs focused their attention away from angry facesin avoidance of those faces. There were no significant disparities in attention to angryAfrican-American vs. angry European-American faces as a function of racial bias.