Stereotype activation and control of race bias: Cognitive control of inhibition and its impairment by alcohol.

Abstract

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that alcohol increases race-biased responding via impairment of self-regulatory cognitive control. Participants consumed either a placebo or alcohol and then made speeded responses to stereotypic trait words presented after White and Black face primes while behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) data were recorded. Alcohol did not affect stereotype activation in either experiment. Experiment 2 showed that alcohol significantly impaired the ability to inhibit race-biased responses but did not reliably influence control of counterstereotypic responses. This disinhibition appears driven by impairment of regulative cognitive control, as indexed by amplitude of the negative slow wave ERP component. These findings suggest that controlling racial bias can be a function of effective implementation of basic self-regulatory processes in addition to the motivational processes identified in other research.

Bias and regulation of bias in intergroup interactions: Implicit attitudes toward Muslims and interaction quality

“…Of most direct relevance to the current research, responses on implicit measures have been shown to be affected by participants' ability to regulate the influence of automatic associations during completion of the measures (Amodio et al, 2004;Bartholow et al, 2006;Conrey et al, 2005;Sherman et al, 2008). Thus, scores on implicit measures reflect both the strength of automatic associations and people's ability to overcome those associations when completing the measure.…”

“…Previous studies have assessed automatic associations using implicit attitude measures, but these measures do not tap variability in automatic associations alone. A growing body of research has shown that performance on implicit measures reflects multiple processes, both automatic and controlled (Amodio et al, 2004;Bartholow, Dickter, & Sestir, 2006;Conrey, Sherman, Gawronski, Hugenberg, & Groom, 2005;Payne, 2001;Sherman, in press;Sherman et al, 2008). Because implicit attitude measures are not pure reflections of the automatic associations that are hypothesized to drive behavior in intergroup settings, correlations between scores on these measures and behavior in the presence of outgroup members do not necessarily indicate the influence of those associations.…”

Self-Control Over Automatic Associations

“…For example, intoxicated individuals are less able to inhibit distracting thoughts and restrain inappropriate responses on cognitive tasks (Easdon & Vogel-Sprott, 2000). Applying these fi ndings to the domain of social attitudes, Bartholow, Dickter, and Sestir (2006) hypothesized that alcohol increases stereotypic responding by impairing self-regulatory ability. To explore this possibility, they modifi ed a priming measure of implicit racial stereotyping (e.g., Dovidio, Evans, & Tyler, 1986) such that it included "go" trials and "stop" trials.…”

“…In previous research, correlations between scores on implicit attitude measures and interaction behavior (e.g., Dovidio et al, 2002;Dovidio et al, 1997;Fazio et al, 2005;McConnell & Leibold, 2001) have been taken as evidence that automatic associations direct behavior. However, implicit attitude measures are not pure refl ections of the automatic associations that are hypothesized to drive behavior in intergroup settings (Amodio et al, 2004;Bartholow et al, 2006;Conrey et al, 2005;Payne, 2001;Sherman, 2009;Sherman et al, 2008). Th us, correlations between scores on these measures and behavior in the presence of outgroup members do not necessarily indicate the infl uence of those associations.…”

“…Consistent An alternative explanation for age differences in prejudice is that defi cits in selfregulatory ability alter the attitudinal expression of older adults. Given that the ability to inhibit automatically activated stereotypes enables people to behave non-prejudicially (Bartholow et al, 2006;Devine, 1989;Moskowitz, Salomon, & Taylor, 1999), and that inhibitory functioning declines with age (Connelly, Hasher, & Zacks, 1991;Hasher & Zacks, 1988), losses in inhibitory ability may increase stereotyping and prejudice during old age, even if the underlying associations are of equivalent (or even declining) strength across the life span. Consistent with this possibility, von Hippel, Silver, and Lynch (2000) found that losses in inhibitory functioning mediated increases in explicit racial stereotyping among the elderly.…”