To navigate their social worlds successfully, humans must coordinate their own behavior with the ... more To navigate their social worlds successfully, humans must coordinate their own behavior with the behaviors of others. Because human behavior takes place in a complex social world, it imposes high demand on cognitive capacity. Yet the cognitive resources available to humans to meet this demand are relatively limited. Selectivity is a crucial cl~mentelement in social cognition. Only through informational selection are humans able to make decisions that are simultaneously adaptive and efficient. This chapter reviews evidence from social cognition research which demonstrates that humans are selective in the social information they attend to, the manner in which they process this information, nd the behaviors they ultimately enact. This selectivity in social attention, social thinking, and social behavior is an adaptive tool that helps humans successfully maneuver through their complex social worlds.
Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 2015
Empirical evidence reveals that diversity-heterogeneity in race, culture, gender, etc.-has materi... more Empirical evidence reveals that diversity-heterogeneity in race, culture, gender, etc.-has material benefits for organizations, communities, and nations. However, because diversity can also incite detrimental forms of conflict and resentment, its benefits are not always realized. Drawing on research from multiple disciplines, this article offers recommendations for how best to harness the benefits of diversity. First, we highlight how two forms of diversity-the diversity present in groups, communities, and nations, and the diversity acquired by individuals through their personal experiences (e.g., living abroad)-enable effective decision making, innovation, and economic growth by promoting deeper information processing and complex thinking. Second, we identify methods to remove barriers that limit the amount of diversity and opportunity in organizations. Third, we describe practices, including inclusive multiculturalism and perspective taking, that can help manage diversity without ...
Four experiments examined the effects of perspective taking on processes contributing to stereoty... more Four experiments examined the effects of perspective taking on processes contributing to stereotype maintenance: biases in social memory, behavior explanations, and information seeking. The first two experiments explored whether perspective taking influences memory and
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013
The current research adopted a multipronged mediational approach to test an associative self-anch... more The current research adopted a multipronged mediational approach to test an associative self-anchoring account of automatic intergroup evaluation change following perspective taking. We contend that actively contemplating outgroup members' perspectives strengthens associative links between that outgroup and the self, enabling a transfer of positive automatic self-evaluations to the group. A first set of experiments, using both measurement-of-mediation and experimental-causal-chain designs, supported a model in which strengthened self-outgroup associations underlie perspective taking's positive effects on automatic intergroup evaluations. Additional experiments, using a moderation-of-process design, found that the benefits of perspective taking were attenuated when measured or manipulated automatic self-evaluations were relatively negative, preventing positive associative transfer. A final experiment uncovered a practical downstream implication of our causal model, as perspective-taking-induced changes in automatic intergroup evaluations were still evident 1 day later. Overall, these findings supported our associative self-anchoring account; additional analyses found no support for an alternative, empathy-based account.
Despite the continuing, adverse impact of discrimination on the lives of racial and ethnic minori... more Despite the continuing, adverse impact of discrimination on the lives of racial and ethnic minorities, the denial of discrimination is commonplace. Four experiments investigated the efficacy of perspective taking as a strategy for combating discrimination denial. Participants who adopted a Black or Latino target's perspective in an initial context were subsequently more likely to explicitly acknowledge the persistence of intergroup discrimination than were non-perspective takers (Experiments 1-3) or participants who adopted a White target's perspective (Experiment 1). Perspective taking also engendered more positive attitudes toward a social policy designed to redress intergroup inequalities (i.e., affirmative action), and this relationship was mediated by increased recognition of discrimination (Experiments 2a and 2b). Increased identification with the targeted outgroup, as reflected in automatic associations between the self and African Americans, was found to underlie the effect of perspective taking on sensitivity to discrimination (Experiment 3). The collective findings indicate that perspective taking can effectively combat discrimination denial.
Although previous research has found greater activity in the human amygdala in response to Black ... more Although previous research has found greater activity in the human amygdala in response to Black male compared with White male targets, the basis of this effect remains unclear. For example, is it race alone that triggers amygdala activity, or do other stimulus cues, in conjunction with racial group membership, also play a critical role in this regard? To address this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure amygdala activity in response to Black and White male targets displaying different eye-gaze directions (i.e. direct or averted gaze), as gaze cues have been shown to infl uence the socio-emotional aspects of person construal. The results revealed that eye-gaze direction signifi cantly moderates race-related amygdala activity. Specifi cally, Black targets only generated greater amygdala activity than White targets when the faces bore direct gaze. This fi nding is noteworthy as it demonstrates the importance of compound stimulus cues in the appraisal of social targets.
People frequently feel anxious. Although prior research has extensively studied how feeling anxio... more People frequently feel anxious. Although prior research has extensively studied how feeling anxious shapes intrapsychic aspects of cognition, much less is known about how anxiety affects interpersonal aspects of cognition. Here, we examine the influence of incidental experiences of anxiety on perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective taking. Compared with participants experiencing other negative, high-arousal emotions (i.e., anger or disgust) or neutral feelings, anxious participants displayed greater egocentrism in their mental-state reasoning: They were more likely to describe an object using their own spatial perspective, had more difficulty resisting egocentric interference when identifying an object from others' spatial perspectives, and relied more heavily on privileged knowledge when inferring others' beliefs. Using both experimental-causal-chain and measurement-of-mediation approaches, we found that these effects were explained, in part, by uncertainty appraisal tendencies. Further supporting the role of uncertainty, a positive emotion associated with uncertainty (i.e., surprise) produced increases in egocentrism that were similar to anxiety. Collectively, the results suggest that incidentally experiencing emotions associated with uncertainty increase reliance on one's own egocentric perspective when reasoning about the mental states of others.
Implicit attitudes are automatically activated evaluative impulses that are difficult to control ... more Implicit attitudes are automatically activated evaluative impulses that are difficult to control and potentially outside conscious awareness. The association of implicit attitudes toward psychiatric medication with treatment adherence and insight was investigated in 85 persons with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or affective disorders using the Brief Implicit Association Test. Explicit attitudes, insight, perceived need for treatment and adherence were measured by self-report. Implicit, but not explicit, positive attitudes predicted increased insight and perceived need for treatment. Explicit, but not implicit, positive attitudes predicted selfreported adherence. Implicit measures can improve our understanding of medication attitudes and evaluation of interventions to increase treatment adherence.
People with mental illness often internalize negative stereotypes, resulting in self-stigma and l... more People with mental illness often internalize negative stereotypes, resulting in self-stigma and low self-esteem ("People with mental illness are bad and therefore I am bad, too"). Despite strong evidence for self-stigma's negative impact as assessed by self-report measures, it is unclear whether self-stigma operates in an automatic, implicit manner, potentially outside conscious awareness and control. We therefore assessed (i) negative implicit attitudes toward mental illness and (ii) low implicit self-esteem using 2 Brief Implicit Association Tests in 85 people with mental illness. Implicit self-stigma was operationalized as the product of both implicit measures. Explicit self-stigma and quality of life were assessed by self-report. Greater implicit and explicit self-stigma independently predicted lower quality of life after controlling for depressive symptoms, diagnosis, and demographic variables. Our results suggest that implicit self-stigma is a measurable construct and is associated with negative outcomes. Attempts to reduce self-stigma should take implicit processes into account.
The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are thr... more The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are threatening and dangerous has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that Black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, White participants revealed biased attention toward Black faces relative to White faces (Study 1). Because the faces were presented only briefly (30-ms), the bias is thought to reflect the early engagement of attention. The attentional bias was eliminated, however, when the faces displayed averted eye-gaze (Study 2). That is, when the threat communicated by the Black faces was attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue-in this case, averted eye-gaze-they no longer captured perceivers' attention. Broader implications for social cognition, as well as public policies that reify these prevailing perceptions of young Black men are discussed.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2010
Perceived legitimacy of discrimination shapes reactions to mental illness stigma among stigmatize... more Perceived legitimacy of discrimination shapes reactions to mental illness stigma among stigmatized individuals. We assessed deliberately endorsed versus automatic shame-related reactions to mental illness as predictors of change in perceived legitimacy of discrimination over six months among 75 people with mental illness. Automatically activated shame-related associations with mental illness were measured using the Brief Implicit Association Test, deliberately endorsed beliefs via self-report. Controlling for depression and perceived stigma, stronger baseline automatic shame-related associations, but not deliberately endorsed beliefs, predicted higher perceived legitimacy of discrimination after six months. Automatically activated shame reactions may increase vulnerability to mental illness stigma.
People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include infer... more People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include inferences about stable dispositions as well as transitory goal states and social situations. However, models of social inference have rarely considered whether different types of automatic inferences can co-occur. We present three experiments in which participants were incidentally exposed to texts depicting behaviors that afforded inferences about actors' traits and the social situations these actors were experiencing. Results from lexical decision and probe-recognition tasks revealed heightened activation of both trait and situational inferences; furthermore, this co-occurring activation was spontaneous, unconscious, and independent of processing resources or specific impression-formation goals. A fourth experiment extended these findings by showing that when participants were asked to make deliberate attributional judgments of the same set of behaviors, typical goal-directed biases reflecting the selection of either trait or situational interpretations emerged. Implications for social inference processes are discussed.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011
Five experiments investigated the hypothesis that perspective taking--actively contemplating othe... more Five experiments investigated the hypothesis that perspective taking--actively contemplating others' psychological experiences--attenuates automatic expressions of racial bias. Across the first 3 experiments, participants who adopted the perspective of a Black target in an initial context subsequently exhibited more positive automatic interracial evaluations, with changes in automatic evaluations mediating the effect of perspective taking on more deliberate interracial evaluations. Furthermore, unlike other bias-reduction strategies, the interracial positivity resulting from perspective taking was accompanied by increased salience of racial inequalities (Experiment 3). Perspective taking also produced stronger approach-oriented action tendencies toward Blacks (but not Whites; Experiment 4). A final experiment revealed that face-to-face interactions with perspective takers were rated more positively by Black interaction partners than were interactions with nonperspective takers--a relationship that was mediated by perspective takers' increased approach-oriented nonverbal behaviors (as rated by objective, third-party observers). These findings indicate that perspective taking can combat automatic expressions of racial biases without simultaneously decreasing sensitivity to ongoing racial disparities.
To navigate their social worlds successfully, humans must coordinate their own behavior with the ... more To navigate their social worlds successfully, humans must coordinate their own behavior with the behaviors of others. Because human behavior takes place in a complex social world, it imposes high demand on cognitive capacity. Yet the cognitive resources available to humans to meet this demand are relatively limited. Selectivity is a crucial cl~mentelement in social cognition. Only through informational selection are humans able to make decisions that are simultaneously adaptive and efficient. This chapter reviews evidence from social cognition research which demonstrates that humans are selective in the social information they attend to, the manner in which they process this information, nd the behaviors they ultimately enact. This selectivity in social attention, social thinking, and social behavior is an adaptive tool that helps humans successfully maneuver through their complex social worlds.
Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 2015
Empirical evidence reveals that diversity-heterogeneity in race, culture, gender, etc.-has materi... more Empirical evidence reveals that diversity-heterogeneity in race, culture, gender, etc.-has material benefits for organizations, communities, and nations. However, because diversity can also incite detrimental forms of conflict and resentment, its benefits are not always realized. Drawing on research from multiple disciplines, this article offers recommendations for how best to harness the benefits of diversity. First, we highlight how two forms of diversity-the diversity present in groups, communities, and nations, and the diversity acquired by individuals through their personal experiences (e.g., living abroad)-enable effective decision making, innovation, and economic growth by promoting deeper information processing and complex thinking. Second, we identify methods to remove barriers that limit the amount of diversity and opportunity in organizations. Third, we describe practices, including inclusive multiculturalism and perspective taking, that can help manage diversity without ...
Four experiments examined the effects of perspective taking on processes contributing to stereoty... more Four experiments examined the effects of perspective taking on processes contributing to stereotype maintenance: biases in social memory, behavior explanations, and information seeking. The first two experiments explored whether perspective taking influences memory and
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013
The current research adopted a multipronged mediational approach to test an associative self-anch... more The current research adopted a multipronged mediational approach to test an associative self-anchoring account of automatic intergroup evaluation change following perspective taking. We contend that actively contemplating outgroup members' perspectives strengthens associative links between that outgroup and the self, enabling a transfer of positive automatic self-evaluations to the group. A first set of experiments, using both measurement-of-mediation and experimental-causal-chain designs, supported a model in which strengthened self-outgroup associations underlie perspective taking's positive effects on automatic intergroup evaluations. Additional experiments, using a moderation-of-process design, found that the benefits of perspective taking were attenuated when measured or manipulated automatic self-evaluations were relatively negative, preventing positive associative transfer. A final experiment uncovered a practical downstream implication of our causal model, as perspective-taking-induced changes in automatic intergroup evaluations were still evident 1 day later. Overall, these findings supported our associative self-anchoring account; additional analyses found no support for an alternative, empathy-based account.
Despite the continuing, adverse impact of discrimination on the lives of racial and ethnic minori... more Despite the continuing, adverse impact of discrimination on the lives of racial and ethnic minorities, the denial of discrimination is commonplace. Four experiments investigated the efficacy of perspective taking as a strategy for combating discrimination denial. Participants who adopted a Black or Latino target's perspective in an initial context were subsequently more likely to explicitly acknowledge the persistence of intergroup discrimination than were non-perspective takers (Experiments 1-3) or participants who adopted a White target's perspective (Experiment 1). Perspective taking also engendered more positive attitudes toward a social policy designed to redress intergroup inequalities (i.e., affirmative action), and this relationship was mediated by increased recognition of discrimination (Experiments 2a and 2b). Increased identification with the targeted outgroup, as reflected in automatic associations between the self and African Americans, was found to underlie the effect of perspective taking on sensitivity to discrimination (Experiment 3). The collective findings indicate that perspective taking can effectively combat discrimination denial.
Although previous research has found greater activity in the human amygdala in response to Black ... more Although previous research has found greater activity in the human amygdala in response to Black male compared with White male targets, the basis of this effect remains unclear. For example, is it race alone that triggers amygdala activity, or do other stimulus cues, in conjunction with racial group membership, also play a critical role in this regard? To address this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure amygdala activity in response to Black and White male targets displaying different eye-gaze directions (i.e. direct or averted gaze), as gaze cues have been shown to infl uence the socio-emotional aspects of person construal. The results revealed that eye-gaze direction signifi cantly moderates race-related amygdala activity. Specifi cally, Black targets only generated greater amygdala activity than White targets when the faces bore direct gaze. This fi nding is noteworthy as it demonstrates the importance of compound stimulus cues in the appraisal of social targets.
People frequently feel anxious. Although prior research has extensively studied how feeling anxio... more People frequently feel anxious. Although prior research has extensively studied how feeling anxious shapes intrapsychic aspects of cognition, much less is known about how anxiety affects interpersonal aspects of cognition. Here, we examine the influence of incidental experiences of anxiety on perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective taking. Compared with participants experiencing other negative, high-arousal emotions (i.e., anger or disgust) or neutral feelings, anxious participants displayed greater egocentrism in their mental-state reasoning: They were more likely to describe an object using their own spatial perspective, had more difficulty resisting egocentric interference when identifying an object from others' spatial perspectives, and relied more heavily on privileged knowledge when inferring others' beliefs. Using both experimental-causal-chain and measurement-of-mediation approaches, we found that these effects were explained, in part, by uncertainty appraisal tendencies. Further supporting the role of uncertainty, a positive emotion associated with uncertainty (i.e., surprise) produced increases in egocentrism that were similar to anxiety. Collectively, the results suggest that incidentally experiencing emotions associated with uncertainty increase reliance on one's own egocentric perspective when reasoning about the mental states of others.
Implicit attitudes are automatically activated evaluative impulses that are difficult to control ... more Implicit attitudes are automatically activated evaluative impulses that are difficult to control and potentially outside conscious awareness. The association of implicit attitudes toward psychiatric medication with treatment adherence and insight was investigated in 85 persons with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or affective disorders using the Brief Implicit Association Test. Explicit attitudes, insight, perceived need for treatment and adherence were measured by self-report. Implicit, but not explicit, positive attitudes predicted increased insight and perceived need for treatment. Explicit, but not implicit, positive attitudes predicted selfreported adherence. Implicit measures can improve our understanding of medication attitudes and evaluation of interventions to increase treatment adherence.
People with mental illness often internalize negative stereotypes, resulting in self-stigma and l... more People with mental illness often internalize negative stereotypes, resulting in self-stigma and low self-esteem ("People with mental illness are bad and therefore I am bad, too"). Despite strong evidence for self-stigma's negative impact as assessed by self-report measures, it is unclear whether self-stigma operates in an automatic, implicit manner, potentially outside conscious awareness and control. We therefore assessed (i) negative implicit attitudes toward mental illness and (ii) low implicit self-esteem using 2 Brief Implicit Association Tests in 85 people with mental illness. Implicit self-stigma was operationalized as the product of both implicit measures. Explicit self-stigma and quality of life were assessed by self-report. Greater implicit and explicit self-stigma independently predicted lower quality of life after controlling for depressive symptoms, diagnosis, and demographic variables. Our results suggest that implicit self-stigma is a measurable construct and is associated with negative outcomes. Attempts to reduce self-stigma should take implicit processes into account.
The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are thr... more The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are threatening and dangerous has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that Black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, White participants revealed biased attention toward Black faces relative to White faces (Study 1). Because the faces were presented only briefly (30-ms), the bias is thought to reflect the early engagement of attention. The attentional bias was eliminated, however, when the faces displayed averted eye-gaze (Study 2). That is, when the threat communicated by the Black faces was attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue-in this case, averted eye-gaze-they no longer captured perceivers' attention. Broader implications for social cognition, as well as public policies that reify these prevailing perceptions of young Black men are discussed.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2010
Perceived legitimacy of discrimination shapes reactions to mental illness stigma among stigmatize... more Perceived legitimacy of discrimination shapes reactions to mental illness stigma among stigmatized individuals. We assessed deliberately endorsed versus automatic shame-related reactions to mental illness as predictors of change in perceived legitimacy of discrimination over six months among 75 people with mental illness. Automatically activated shame-related associations with mental illness were measured using the Brief Implicit Association Test, deliberately endorsed beliefs via self-report. Controlling for depression and perceived stigma, stronger baseline automatic shame-related associations, but not deliberately endorsed beliefs, predicted higher perceived legitimacy of discrimination after six months. Automatically activated shame reactions may increase vulnerability to mental illness stigma.
People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include infer... more People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include inferences about stable dispositions as well as transitory goal states and social situations. However, models of social inference have rarely considered whether different types of automatic inferences can co-occur. We present three experiments in which participants were incidentally exposed to texts depicting behaviors that afforded inferences about actors' traits and the social situations these actors were experiencing. Results from lexical decision and probe-recognition tasks revealed heightened activation of both trait and situational inferences; furthermore, this co-occurring activation was spontaneous, unconscious, and independent of processing resources or specific impression-formation goals. A fourth experiment extended these findings by showing that when participants were asked to make deliberate attributional judgments of the same set of behaviors, typical goal-directed biases reflecting the selection of either trait or situational interpretations emerged. Implications for social inference processes are discussed.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011
Five experiments investigated the hypothesis that perspective taking--actively contemplating othe... more Five experiments investigated the hypothesis that perspective taking--actively contemplating others' psychological experiences--attenuates automatic expressions of racial bias. Across the first 3 experiments, participants who adopted the perspective of a Black target in an initial context subsequently exhibited more positive automatic interracial evaluations, with changes in automatic evaluations mediating the effect of perspective taking on more deliberate interracial evaluations. Furthermore, unlike other bias-reduction strategies, the interracial positivity resulting from perspective taking was accompanied by increased salience of racial inequalities (Experiment 3). Perspective taking also produced stronger approach-oriented action tendencies toward Blacks (but not Whites; Experiment 4). A final experiment revealed that face-to-face interactions with perspective takers were rated more positively by Black interaction partners than were interactions with nonperspective takers--a relationship that was mediated by perspective takers' increased approach-oriented nonverbal behaviors (as rated by objective, third-party observers). These findings indicate that perspective taking can combat automatic expressions of racial biases without simultaneously decreasing sensitivity to ongoing racial disparities.
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