Bernadette Park - US grants

This research will look at how impressions of others are formed. An analysis of any particular social event, be it juror decision making, attraction and liking, attitude formation, or stereotyping processes, involves the dynamics of person perception. This process of moving from observable behaviors to inferences about someone's underlying personality has important implications for nearly every aspect of the social world. This research looks in detail at this process of constructing impressions, at the storage of impressions in memory for use at a later point in time,and at the retrieval of these impressions for making subsequent judgments about the person. In earlier work, the researcher has found that the ability of a group of judges to agree on their impression of a target depends on the trait dimension considered, on the information available, and on differences among the judges in the frequency with which various trait dimensions are routinely used in describing others. In particular, judging how extroverted or sociable someone is turns out to be much easier than a judgment of intelligence, responsibleness, or honesty. This research will investigate whether this difference remains when more narrow definitions of the traits are provided (e.g., intelligence in a given context), when the acquaintance takes place over a longer period of time, when the outcome judgment has some important consequences for both judge and target (e.g., admission to graduate school), and if the task is to disconfirm an existing impression rather than to form a new one. In addition, differences in the ease of judging these traits are related to theories of how we make attributions for the causes of others' behavior. Finally, a series of studies will explore the representation of impressions in memory. Specifically, these studies look at how closely tied are memories for the actual behaviors performed by someone to inferences based on these acts about the person's underlying personality. To the extent that inferences are not "bound" to the evidence on which they are based, errors in perception are difficult to correct, and change in impressions is unlikely to occur.//

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the Applicant's Abstract): Social stereotypes can be seen as social categories in which we place ourselves and others. While the use of such categories may increase the efficiency of social judgment processes, stereotypes also have well-known deleterious effects, such as when individuals are categorically derogated. In order to understand stereotypes more fully, it's necessary to understand how social groups are encoded and represented in memory. The research proposed is aimed at clarifying and extending existing models for the representation of social categories, with particular attention devoted to the ability of these models to account for perceived differences in group variability. A secondary goal of the proposed research is to develop a more adequate representational account for the out-group homogeneity effect. Four groups of studies are proposed. In the first, three studies are described to study the role of familiarity in the development of social stereotypes and the perception of group variability. These studies involve both experimental manipulations of familiarity and panel surveys to follow the development of group stereotypes over time. The second set of proposed studies focuses on identifying computational procedures that subjects might employ when deriving variability estimates of groups. Existing models of perceived group variability make a variety of assumptions about such computational procedures that these studies will directly examine. The third set of studies explores in-group/out-group differences in how group information is encoded and retrieved. The investigators posit a motivational difference at both encoding and retrieval that may partially account for the out-group homogeneity effect. Finally, the fourth set of studies focuses on the role of the self in forming judgments of groups to which one belongs.

Social psychology has tended to assume that the most effective means for reducing intergroup hostility is to breakdown social categories. This strategy is problematic, however, both because social categories are natural and useful perceptual tools, and because many group members want to retain their identity as part of their specific social group. We suggest that it may be possible under certain conditions for strong category boundaries and harmonious intergroup relations to simultaneously exist. This depends critically on the context or framing of how to think about group differences. We propose four sets of studies designed to explore two general goals. The first goal is to understand the nature of the relationship between category differentiation and intergroup evaluative bias. That is, we intend to explore the conditions under which these two constructs are and are not related, as well as the causal direction of the relationship. The second goal is to explore a multicultural ideological framing of social interactions as an alternative means for reducing intergroup conflict. A variety of methodologies are utilized including laboratory manipulations of ideological orientation, evaluation of naturally occurring ideological interventions, and a large scale survey assessment of a representative national sample. Knowing whether and under what circumstances such an intervention might be effective in combating prejudice and hostility would result in a substantial contribution both to social psychology and to society at large.

How do people's emotional reactions to Hurricane Katrina influence their evaluation of public policies and governmental bodies such as FEMA, the Presidential Administration, Congress, and local/state governments? How do people's emotional reactions influence their stereotype usage and attitudes toward racial issues regarding Hurricane Katrina? This project will seek answers to questions such as these by building on research indicating that because emotions such as anger are associated with appraisals of certainty whereas emotions such as fear and sadness are associated with appraisals of uncertainty, individuals who experience anger are less likely than those who experience fear or sadness to engage in critical thinking, and are more likely to exhibit stereotypic behavior. The proposal will test three hypotheses: first, individuals in emotional states associated with certainty will exhibit more stereotype usage compared with individuals in emotional states associated with uncertainty; second, individuals in emotional states associated with certainty will exhibit more politically polarized attitudes and policy evaluations compared with individuals in emotional states associated with uncertainty; and, third, that these influences of specific emotions will be accentuated by individuals' physical and social proximity to Hurricane Katrina. The proposal will advance basic scientific knowledge in social psychology, law, and judgment and decision making regarding the interplay between specific emotions, stereotypic behavior, public policy evaluation, and political polarization. Understanding these processes will allow citizens and lawmakers to have more informed discussions and to craft more deliberate laws and policies about these very important issues.

This research explores racial bias in police officers' decisions to shoot by focusing on the impact of training and the importance of complexity of training stimuli. Racial biases influence police officers' willingness and readiness to shoot suspects. The investigators employ a videogame to examine racial bias in shoot/don't-shoot decisions with Black and White suspects who are either armed or unarmed. The experimental paradigm involves the presentation of images of men standing or crouching in various positions against several complicated backgrounds. Participants must identify a small object in the target's hand. Results of these exercises show that participants respond more quickly to targets consistent with stereotypes (armed Blacks, unarmed Whites) than to counter-stereotypic targets (armed Whites, and unarmed Blacks). In addition, these results show that participants set a more lenient threshold for the decision to shoot Black rather than White targets. That is, they are more willing to open fire when the target is Black. Importantly, the PIs' recent work shows that training minimizes racial bias in the Signal Detection threshold such that novices show pronounced bias, but highly trained individuals (police & "expert" participants) do not. Interestingly, training does not affect bias in reaction times as experts and novices both respond more slowly to counter-stereotypic than to stereotypic targets. It therefore seems that experts show some evidence of stereotype-based processing (which delays their responses to counter-stereotypic targets), but that their training enables them to override these stereotypes and, ultimately, execute decisions that are not affected by race. This research seeks to examine the processes through which training may reduce bias. The PIs contend that experts learn to extract task-relevant information from the visual field and use it to guide their decisions. The first section of the research program tests whether training can promote attention and effort. In the second section, whether training (and the control it fosters) can override racial stereotypes is examined. The final set of studies attempts to impair cognitive control through cognitive load, fatigue and fear. By compromising the mechanisms through which training operates, these manipulations should exacerbate bias even among experts. Findings should provide evidence of the conditions under which police officers' capacities are most likely to be impaired. The issues under consideration in this research are interesting and important and the findings are likely to have a significant impact in real-world settings. Together with the obvious educational impacts, the work has important implications for training programs in various domains.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As social scientists, we know quite a lot about current trends regarding differential career and family outcomes for men versus women. The purpose of the current studies is to understand how ingrained cultural expectations regarding gender role distributions combine with efforts to view the self as competent and efficacious, fulfilling core roles that produce a sense of belonging and acceptance, to determine decisions regarding work and family. We argue that an asymmetry exists for the genders such that for men, fulfilling their role as a successful professional simultaneously fulfills the role of successful father. In contrast, for women the roles are in direct conflict. Performing the behavior required for mastery in the professional world necessarily detracts from performing that required for success as a mom. As a result, women who value both roles are required to shift their self-concepts when considering their goals in one role versus the other. We argue this shifting produces a sense of conflict that may contribute to women eventually choosing one identity over the other. The studies in this application examine the feasibility of this analysis by measuring implicit shifts in self- definitions and predicting these as a function of participant gender, identification with the roles, and the strength of implicit role associations pairing women with childcare and men with the professional world. Male and female students in the first two years of graduate and professional training are recruited from five different disciplines that vary in the proportion of males that make up the discipline. Men are argued to enjoy a more consistent definition of the self across the two roles and the more traditional the role associations held by an individual male, the more true this should be, perhaps resulting in even greater differences in experienced shifts in self-definitions by the genders in more male dominated fields. The greater shifts experienced by women are hypothesized to have immediate costs in cognitive functioning, state anxiety, and work-family balance self-efficacy, and over time to generate stress, depression, and lower life satisfaction, at least in the early stages of developing one's identity in the parent and professional domains. The dual roles may provide a buffer to women against threats to the self once a secure identity in each role has been established. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE The past 50 years have witnessed unprecedented changes in the organization of the family with the mass entry of women into the workforce, significantly smaller family sizes, soaring divorce rates, and an increased number of single parent families. Family structure has profound implications for the well-being of individual family members and consequently, public health more generally. Understanding efforts to balance career and parenting roles in the service of preserving a sense of self-worth is a fundamental component of constructing healthy family units.

Despite recent gains, women still remain underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. This is of national concern because of the U.S. STEM workforce is vital to maintaining our status as a global leader and competitor. This research examines the role of gender and ethnic intergroup ideologies in creating an unwelcoming social climate in male-dominated STEM domains. These ideologies are prescriptive sociopolitical beliefs, such as the belief that men and women are naturally suited to do different jobs and they should stick to those areas alone. These beliefs influence attitudes and behaviors, and can result in a negative environment for learning and working. These negative environments can reduce women's interest and persistence in STEM domains. This research crosses dimensions of intergroup perceptions, and examines novel hypotheses in several experiments and a longitudinal study. The proposed studies examine both the effect of experimentally manipulating the ideologies, as well as the effect of naturally occurring variation in ideology endorsement on the experiences of women and ethnic minorities in STEM fields. The goal is to understand factors that affect persistence in STEM fields, and ways to enhance persistence. Ultimately, this research could increase the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM, and U.S. competitiveness in STEM fields.

Across four studies, gender ideology is manipulated experimentally to test whether (1) assimilation (women adapting their behaviors to a male-dominated environment) and segregation (men and women should stick to their areas of expertise) perspectives increase agreement with gendered math and science stereotypes, (2) these perspectives are particularly prevalent where they have the potential to do the most harm - among men in male-dominated STEM fields, and (3) the presence of such perspectives cause women to feel excluded and unwelcome. Two additional studies explore points of overlap and divergence in reactions to gender versus ethnic diversity messages. While women are predicted to respond most favorably to a gender blind perspective, past research shows that ethnic group members respond more positively to a multicultural perspective. Finally, a large-scale longitudinal study examines how naturally occurring variation in gender ideology endorsement relates in a prospective fashion to selecting an academic major. These studies will provide the basis for developing interventions aimed at gender and ethnic ideology beliefs in STEM environments, to promote a culture of inclusion and belonging. They will speak to how beliefs about group differences versus similarities contribute to students' decisions to pursue or avoid STEM majors and careers, and address points of overlap versus divergence in reactions by women versus ethnic students. These findings ultimately could increase participation and innovativeness in STEM fields.