Implicit evaluations of faces depend on emotional expression and group membership☆
Section snippets
Overview
In three experiments, we used facial images of White-Caucasian and Middle-Eastern young men, showing a happy or fearful emotional expression. Group choice was based on previous findings that in Germany, men of Middle-Eastern appearance are evaluated more negatively than White-Caucasian men (e.g., Degner & Wentura, 2011; Degner, Wentura, Gniewosz, & Noack, 2007; Neumann & Seibt, 2001; Wagner, van Dick, Pettigrew, & Christ, 2003) and are associated with low warmth (e.g., Asbrock, 2010). Most
Experiment 1
In Experiment 1, we made group membership more salient compared to a standard evaluative priming task. Unlike Craig et al. (2014), who used a race-focused task, we enhanced salience by means of a group categorization task that preceded the evaluative priming task, in order to keep the priming task in its usual format.
Participants
Participants were 83 non-psychology undergraduate students (40 females, 43 males; age Md = 22.5 years, range: 18–32) from Saarland University, recruited on campus and via an electronic sign-up system. Participants received four euros for participation. Following the procedure outlined in Experiment 1, the data of seven participants were excluded because they were not German native speakers (n = 1) or White-Caucasian (n = 5), or because the rate of trials with response times in the range of 100
Experiment 3
Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 2 with two changes: First, we restricted the target word set to other-relevant adjectives. Second, and more important, we instructed participants to categorize targets from an other-relevant perspective.
Across-experiments analyses
To get a better indication of which between-experiments differences deserve further discussion, we conducted a 2 (group: Middle-Eastern vs. White-Caucasian) × 2 (emotion: happy vs. fearful) × 3 (experiment) mixed ANOVA, with the first two factors varied within participants and experiment as a between-participants factor, and priming scores as the dependent variable. The analysis yielded significant main effects of group and emotion, F(1,251) = 39.93, p < .001, ηp2 = .137 (dZ = 0.39; 95% CI
General discussion
We started with the observation that only few studies have examined how faces varying on more than one evaluative dimension influence automatic evaluative responses. Two recent articles that examined this issue (without directing participant attention to one of the two dimensions) left readers with conflicting conclusions. While Weisbuch and Ambady (2008) found evidence that group membership and emotional expression are instantaneously amalgamated in the evaluation process, the results of Craig
Theoretical implications for further research
Based on the accumulated evidence regarding the influence of emotional expression and group membership on evaluative processes, which conclusion can be drawn? Are emotional expression and group membership evaluated independently or do they interact? How can the results observed in our experiments and by Craig et al. (2014) be reconciled with those found by Weisbuch and Ambady (2008) as well as Paulus and Wentura (2014)?
Craig et al. (2014) proposed that top down influences might serve to explain
Conclusion
In three well-powered experiments, we examined the research question how faces varying on more than one evaluative aspect influence evaluative reactions. The results of all three experiments were clear-cut: group membership as well as emotional expression influenced reactions in an evaluative priming paradigm. However, no interaction between these two features emerged. Our results therefore show that fast and (potentially) involuntary reactions are influenced by various aspects of a face.
Open practices
The experiments presented in this article earned Open Materials and Open Data badges for transparent practices.
Materials and data are available at https://osf.io/9p6t5.
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One plus one is more than two: The interactive influence of group membership and emotional facial expressions on the modulation of the affective startle reflex
2019, Biological PsychologyCitation Excerpt :Based on the above-cited evidence, one might suggest that emotional expression and group membership should also have an interactive influence on the startle reflex. However, a number of studies – again focusing on evaluative measures other than the startle reflex – have examined the simultaneous influence of group membership (employing different ethnicities) and emotional expression and found only main effects of emotion (Craig, Lipp, & Mallan, 2014) or emotion and group (Paulus & Wentura, 2018), but no interaction. Therefore it is not clear whether – and if so, how – the two factors emotional expression and group membership influence the startle response if they are present concurrently.
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2023, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and PerformanceGroup membership moderates the process of making trust judgments based on facial cues
2022, Journal of Social Psychology
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This research was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (WE 2284/14-1) to Dirk Wentura and Andrea Paulus.
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Both authors contributed equally to this work.