Theories of emotion and intergroup relations predict a link between fear, outgroup perception, and behavioral intentions toward specific groups. However, surprisingly, past research has not empirically tested the impact of actually experiencing incidental fear on appraisals of in- and outgroups and socially impactful decision-making. Accordingly, the goals of this dissertation were three-fold: (1) to determine whether the experience of incidental fear increases biased decision-making targeted at racial outgroup vs. ingroup members; (2) to investigate whether some individuals are more impacted by fear than others; and (3) to explore the psychological mechanism underlying the biasing impact of fear. In Study 1, fear increased race biased decision-making for female (but not male) participants, and for those who chronically believe the world is a dangerous place. In Study 2, fear shunted attention selectively towards Black over White faces for female (but not male) participants; however, it did not produce race biased decision-making. In Study 3, fear did not modulate attention to danger-relevant stimuli or intergroup decision-making. The implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-6073 |
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| Creators | Hunsinger, Matthew |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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