Role of implicit and explicit prejudice in cross-racial emotion recogntion

Hutchings, Paul 2009. Role of implicit and explicit prejudice in cross-racial emotion recogntion. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

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Abstract

This thesis examines whether individual differences in implicit and explicit prejudice, and the interaction between them, influence perception of in-group and out-group facial emotion displays. Study One found that viewing dynamic displays of emotion resulted in an in-group advantage (see Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002a), with White participants faster at recognising in-group displays of happiness and anger, and more accurate at recognising in-group anger. Participants high in implicit and explicit prejudice were significantly more accurate at recognising out-group anger than other participants. Study Two examined participants' ability to correctly recognise racial in-group and out-group faces and found no effect of prejudice on recognition accuracy, suggesting that prejudice may influence emotion perception and face perception differentially. Study Three utilised a paradigm devised by Ackerman et al. (2006) to explore this divergence, presenting emotion displays in a face recognition test. High implicit prejudice led to poorer recognition of out-group displays of anger when the facial display was manipulated between learning and test. Study Four examined whether emotion displays would lead to differential arousal dependent upon race of target and found that participants high in explicit prejudice were aroused by negative in- group displays (anger and sadness) and by out-group displays of anger, and an interaction between implicit and explicit prejudice influenced perception of out- group happiness. Finally, Study Five examined perception of emotion displayed by ambiguous race targets and found that participants high in implicit prejudice were more likely to classify an ambiguous angry face as Black, and also reported anger displayed by targets classified as Black as being of greater intensity than those classified as White. Overall, findings suggest that individual differences in implicit and explicit prejudice play a role in the perception of facial emotion however, it is also important to examine the interaction between them.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
ISBN:	9781303189395
Funders:	ESRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	26 Oct 2017 08:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/55841

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