Social Neuroscience Stereotyping & Prejudice Race & Emotion

1. Social NeuroscienceStereotyping & PrejudiceRace & Emotion Brenda Kopari Jamie Renspe Mind & Body Connection June 8th, 2007

2. The Social Neuroscience of Stereotyping and PrejudiceIto et al, 2006 • How social category information is perceived? • How this information, in conjunction with stereotypes, influences behavior?

3. Stereotyping • If we categorize an individual as belonging to a particular social group, stereotypical beliefs and prejudicial reactions associated with the entire group can become activated • This information can influence how we respond to an individual

6. Is stereotype activation decreased at lower levels of analysis? • Encoding of category membership is attenuated; blocking activation of stereotypes and prejudice • Category membership is encoded, but activation of stereotypes and prejudice is attenuated • Category membership is encoded and stereotypes and prejudice are activated, but their application is attenuated

7. Prior methods of research • Participants viewed pictures of black and white males and females • Identify as introverted or extroverted • Indicated what vegetables the people in the pictures would like

8. Findings of Prior Research • Increasing the visual complexity slowed down the process of racial and gender stereotyping • Directing participants’ attention to other social cues does not inhibit racial and gender perceptions

11. Current StudyPart I • How does race influence the detection of weapons in a first person shooter game? • Participants viewed white or black men holding a gun or an insignificant object • Told to shoot armed targets and not shoot unarmed targets

13. Findings • Consistent bias against blacks • More accurate and faster in shooting armed blacks compared to armed whites • Faster and more accurate in not shooting unarmed whites compared to unarmed blacks • Unarmed blacks were more likely to be erroneously shot than unarmed whites

16. Findings Continued • Shooting a person who is not associated with violence (white) generated the greatest conflict • Shooting someone stereotypically associated with violence (black) was not more problematic than not shooting him • Shooting a black person did not create conflict regardless of their arms

18. Increased time allowance for response of the video game study Current Study Part II

19. Findings • Participants were faster to shoot armed blacks compared to armed whites • They were faster to NOT shoot unarmed whites compared to unarmed blacks

20. Discussion Questions • Out of the three white people how many had guns? • Out of the two black people how many had guns? • Do you think stereotyping and prejudice are of your own free will? • Automatic response?

21. Race & Emotion • To understand others successfully you need to recognize how they feel • Tone of voice • Facial expressions

22. Racial or Cultural Experience • Social experience can moderate how well one can recognize emotions • Differences are possibly why difficulties arise during interracial interactions

23. Origins of Emotion Recognition • Evidence that being able to express and recognize emotions in peoples faces has evolutionary roots, it is shared across cultures, and has dedicated neural machinery

24. Origins of Emotion Recognition • Innate human ability to express and recognize emotions in a person’s face • Know if positive or negative expression • Innate • For example, children who are blind and deaf still communicate their emotions with similar facial expressions as other children (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1970) • Also, people from other cultures can recognize facial expressions at above chance levels of accuracy (Ekman, 1992)

25. Role of Brain:The Limbic System • Amygdala • Perception, detection and recognition of fearful facial expressions • Medial Frontal Gyri • Recognizing angry expressions • Basal Ganglia • Engaged during recognition of happy expressions

26. Role of Brain • How do these regions of the brain interact during emotion recognition? • Neural processes associated with recognition of emotions occur early • For example, perceiving fear in facial expressions modulates neural responses in frontocentral regions at about 120msec (Eimer & Holmes, 2002)

27. Social Experience Influences the Process of Emotion Recognition • Face • Social information like age, gender and race influence how you see yourself and how others see you • Again, you can recognize emotions in faces from all cultures fairly accurately, but you recognize emotions most accurately with members of the same cultural group • Possibly because different levels of familiarity • know own culture more

28. Race and the BrainPrevious Research • Examine neutral (no emotion) faces of different races • Both race and emotion likely to influence neural and behavioral responses • N. Ambady et al. conducted fMRIs and ERPs • Showed the impact of race on emotional processing • Influence of emotional expression on evaluation of in-group and out-group members

30. Prior ResearchDoes race affect brain processes during emotion recognition? • Chiao et al. (2004) • fMRI in 8 Caucasians (4 men, 4 women) • Explicitly identified fear, anger and neutral expressions in faces of Caucasians, Asian-Americans and African Americans (both men and women) • Each facial expression shown for 750 msec • Responded within 2500 msec • Prediction: Would recognize all expressions, but most accurate at recognizing faces of the same race

31. Findings • All expressions recognized at better than chance levels • Caucasians recognized neutral faces better than fearful and angry faces • Also better at recognizing emotions (fear and anger) in Caucasian and Asian Americans more so than African Americans • Neural regions specifically involved in fear and anger show differences in signal change depending on the race of the person expressing the emotion

33. Findings • Neuroimaging • Greater amygdala activity in response to Caucasian and Asian American faces • Caucasian expressions of anger elicited increased signal change in medial front cortex

35. Hypothesis • Race of facial target would influence basic structural face processing about 170 msec after stimulus onset • Can observe this in the amplitude of the Vertex Positive Potential (VPP) • Emotional expression being processed would affect the extent to which race influenced neural processing • Self-report exposure to races • Most exposure to Caucasians • Least to African Americans

36. Findings • Detected angry expressions most accurately in African Americans and Caucasians • Recognized fear most accurately in Caucasians • Neutral faces recognized equally across the races

38. Findings continued • VPP amplitude sensitive to race and emotion of face • Greater for African American faces regardless of emotion being expressed • Neuroimaging and ERP data suggest that race affects brain processes involved in recognizing fear and anger • Regions important in recognition of fear and anger show modulation of signal change based on the race of expressor • Not all out-group faces processed alike • Why?

39. The emotional expression of a racially salient target influences processing of different out-group members at not only the behavioral but also the physiological level

40. Studied • Cortical and behavioral responses of high and low prejudiced individuals to in-group and out-group emotional stimuli • Employed an active evaluation task • Participants were asked to make a socially relevant judgment regarding in-group and out-group members • Do I want to work with this person?

41. Findings • High and low prejudiced individuals are differently influenced by the affective relevance of in-group and out-group members • Affective nature of target stimuli may be especially salient for low prejudiced individuals • Low prejudiced individuals showed an increased contingent negative variation (CNV) to angry out-group stimuli and in anticipation of angry faces • Supports idea that individuals monitor automatic reactions to negative stereotypes elicited by out-group stimuli

42. High Prejudice Groups • Showed decrease in CNV in anticipation of angry Black targets compared with all other targets • Showed enhanced CNV in anticipation of happy White faces • Extra effort to make individuating responses when required to evaluate in-group stimuli • Supports ideas that those high in prejudice have less of a motivation or need to monitor prejudice responses • Absence of effort to suppress prejudice

43. Findings • CNV amplitudes illustrate low prejudiced individuals show greater cortical activity to angry Black targets • Evidence raced based information may trigger a societally constrained conceptual representation of race but also the manifestation of prejudice depends on how individuals process this information

44. Findings • Facial expressions of emotion affect both neural and behavioral responses to in-group and out-group faces

45. Discussion • What emotions are these people portraying? • Would you want to work with this person?