Attitudes as Dominant Responses—Why Public Settings Can Exacerbate Racial Prejudice

1. Attitudes as Dominant Responses—Why Public Settings Can Exacerbate Racial Prejudice Alan Lambert Washington University Collaborators: Keith Payne Larry Jacoby Lara Shaffer Alison Chasteen Saera Khan

2. Today’s Talk • Brief literature review • Attitudes as Dominant Response (ADR) Model •   3 Experiments • Experiment 1: Impression formation • Experiment 2: Reaction time • Experiment 3: Stereotypic errors in weapon identification • Unresolved issues/ongoing research

3. Experimental investigations of Private vs. Public Contexts • Common in several domains (accountability, impression management, conformity, attitude change) • Surprisingly understudied in stereotyping area • Blanchard et al, 1991; Dutton & Yee, 1974; Lambert et al. 1996; Monteith et al, 1996; Plant & Devine, 1998 • Mixed implications

4. Attitudes as Dominant Response ModelLambert, Payne, Shaffer, Jacoby, Chasteen, & Khan (under review) • Intuitive assumptions regarding stereotyping and public contexts may not be correct • Attempt to bridge two lines of research: • Impact of actual/imagined presence of others on task performance (e.g. Triplett, 1898) • The literature on “attitude-behavior consistency” (e.g. LaPiere, 1934)

5. Very brief overview of social facilitation literature • Is performance improved or impaired in “public” (audience or co-actor) conditions ? • Zajonc (1965; see also Hull, 1943): Habitual/dominant responses more likely in public • Resolution: • If dominant response yields correct answer: helps performance • If dominant response yields incorrect answer: hurts performance

6. Why would public settings make dominant responses more likely? Audience ? much debate as to exact reason Generalized arousal/anxiety Facilitation of dominant responses Drive/arousal is an “intensifier” in that it “…adds fuel to whatever fire is burning at the time” (Allen et al. 1989)

7. Important class of mental habits: attitudes Attitude object (S)  evaluative reaction (R) Idea of mental habits is not new (James, 1890) but… • We believe that we are the first (?) to make an explicit connection between the social facilitation literature and current research/theory on attitude activation and application

8. Implications of ADR model • Extremely counterintuitive prediction: • If stereotypic attitudes are mental habits, then: • use of these attitudes should be greater in public compared to private, especially among participants high in social anxiety • Thus: stereotype use could be higher in precisely the situation in which you’d think it’d be most unlikely! private Evaluative response

9. Implications of ADR model • Extremely counterintuitive prediction: • If stereotypic attitudes are mental habits, then: • use of these attitudes should be greaterin public compared to private, especially among participants high in social anxiety • Thus: stereotype use could be higher in precisely the situation in which you’d think it’d be most unlikely! public Evaluative response

10. Experiment 1 • Racial attitudes pre-measured two months earlier • Exact way that sentiments are measured doesn’t matter (e.g. modern racism vs. social dominance) • Impression formation task • Subtly identified as Black in all cases • Ambiguous individuating information presented • Dependent variable: evaluative and trait ratings • Participants complete impressions under one of two sets: private vs. anticipated public • Post-test: Trait differences in social anxiety measured

11. Sample of anticipated public instructions Part one: Impression Formation In this part, we will be asking you to form an impression of another individual….. Part Two: Public Discussion In real life, we often share our judgments with other people. Therefore, after you have expressed your judgments, there will be a general discussion session with the other participants in the study today. During this discussion, you will be asked to share and discuss your judgments with the other participants, who also participated in this task today…

12. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger Cognitive Load stronger Reduction of Control stronger

13. Results: Relation between racial attitudes and judgments of target Low anxiety participants High anxiety participants

14. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger Cognitive Load stronger Reduction of Control stronger

15. Experiment 2 • Participants complete Fazio-type attitude RT task for a series of 30 attitude objects spanning large range of topics • (e.g. affirmative action, legalization of marijuana, Al Gore, gun control, etc.) • Main DV: response latency to make “good” or “bad” responses

16. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Consistency of impressions with stereotypic attitudes Experiment 2 Reaction time Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” faster stronger slower Cognitive Load stronger Reduction of Control faster stronger

17. Reduction of Control Hypothesis Automatic processes (Fast and effortless) Presentation of attitude object Physical response Controlled processes (Slow and effortful) Factors that can reduce controlled processing: e.g. response deadlines, motivation and (we believe) public contexts in presence of arousal/anxiety

18. Results: Experiment 2 Regression analyses: F (1,46) = 4.37, p < .05 for 2-way Context X Anxiety interaction High trait anxiety Low trait anxiety Anticipated Public Private Difference -349 1975 1626 +179 1381 1560

19. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Experiment 2 Reaction time Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger faster Cognitive Load stronger slower Reduction of Control stronger faster

20. Experiment 3:Stereotypic errors in weapon identification • Based on paradigm used by Payne (2001, JPSP) • Amidou Diallo case • Congruent • black prime/threatening target • white prime/non-threatening target • Incongruent • black prime/non-threatening target • white prime/threatening target • Goal of our study: • Demonstrate generalizability of our counterintuitive findings • Leverage in teasing apart reason WHY using Jacoby’s (1991) process dissociation procedure

21. DV: Identification of object as gun vs. tool 500 ms 200 ms 100 ms Design: Prime (Black vs. White) Target (gun vs. tool) Context (Private vs. Anticipated public) 550 ms deadline

22. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude behavior consistency Experiment 2 Reaction time Experiment 3 Stereotypic Errors Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger faster more Cognitive Load stronger slower more Reduction of Control more stronger faster

23. Proportion of Errors Private Public Black face White face Race X Target X Context p < .01

24. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Experiment 2 Reaction time Experiment 3 Stereotypic Errors Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger faster more Cognitive Load stronger slower more Reduction of Control more stronger faster

25. Thumbnail sketch of process dissociation assumptions • In this paradigm, participants have the goal of (a) responding “gun” when the target is, in fact, a gun, and (b) of responding “tool” only when the target was actually a tool. • According to PDP, control is operationalized as the ability to flexibly monitor and control one’s responses, therefore to successfully discriminate between guns and lures. • What happens when control fails: • PDP assumes that participants use an alternate basis of responding, based on the most accessible knowledge at the time. (race of prime exerts effect here) • PDP assumes that automatic and controlled processes are two independent bases for responding (cf. Jacoby et al. 1997; Hinztman & Curran, 1997)

26. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Experiment 2 Reaction time Experiment 3 Process dissociation estimates Stereotypic Errors Cognitive control Accessibility bias Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger faster more no change higher Cognitive Load stronger slower more lower no change Reduction of Control more stronger faster lower no change

27. Cognitive Control Estimates Effect of context p < .05; no effect of prime race Prime Race Black White Public Private .44 .45 .54 .51

28. Accessibility bias Estimates probability to respond “gun” when control fails prime race p < .001; no effect of context Prime Race Black White Public Private .38 .33 .41 .35

29. Note double dissociation, consistent with independence assumption: • prime affects accessibility bias, but not control. • context affects control, but not accessibility bias.

30. Predictions for Public Setting (compared to Private) Experiment 1 Attitude-behavior consistency Experiment 2 Reaction time Experiment 3 Process dissociation estimates Stereotypic Errors Cognitive control Accessibility bias Hypothesis “Habit strengthening” stronger faster more no change higher Cognitive Load stronger slower more lower no change Reduction of Control more stronger faster lower no change

31. Role of Anxiety • Further analyses show that effects of context on control are moderated by anxiety (but complicated). • Translation: I couldn’t finish analyses prior to SESP

32. Summary • Across three experiments: greater stereotyping in public compared to private, primarily among high anxiety participants • Tested the viability of three process-level explanations (habit strengthening, cognitive load, reduction of control) • Our results speak more generally to the social facilitation literature. • Theorists have long debated the inability of the cognitive load explanation to fully explain social facilitation effects • The reduction of control hypothesis may provide a more viable explanation (?)

33. Caveats and directions for future research • Explore different kinds of public contexts • Is there something special about anxiety? • Moderation vs. mediation • In the stereotyping area: • Further integrate the “cognitive load” and social facilitation literatures

35. C = control A = accessibility bias Congruent = probability of responding gun on a congruent trial (B prime  gun) C + A (1-C) A (1-C) Incongruent = probability of responding gun on a incongruent trial (B prime  tool) Solving: Estimates of C = congruent – incongruent Estimates of A = incongruent/1-C