Social Neuroscience Stereotyping & Prejudice Race & Emotion Brenda Kopari Jamie Renspe Mind & Body Connection June 8 th, 2007

The Social Neuroscience of Stereotyping and Prejudice Ito et al, 2006 HHow social category information is perceived? HHow this information, in conjunction with stereotypes, influences behavior?

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

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

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

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

Current Study Part I HHow does race influence the detection of weapons in a first person shooter game? PParticipants viewed white or black men holding a gun or an insignificant object TTold to shoot armed targets and not shoot unarmed targets

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

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

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

Findings  Participants were faster to shoot armed blacks compared to armed whites  They were faster to NOT shoot unarmed whites compared to unarmed blacks

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?

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

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

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

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)

Role of Brain: The Limbic System AAmygdala PPerception, detection and recognition of fearful facial expressions MMedial Frontal Gyri RRecognizing angry expressions BBasal Ganglia EEngaged during recognition of happy expressions

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)

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

Race and the Brain Previous 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

Prior Research Does 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

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

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

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

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

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

 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

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?

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

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

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

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

Discussion WWhat emotions are these people portraying? WWould you want to work with this person?

 Can you control your reactions to different faces and races?  Even though there are equal opportunity employers, do you think that the people hiring can suppress their prejudices?  High versus Low Prejudiced People