Gene × environment interaction on intergroup bias: the role of 5-HTTLPR and perceived outgroup threat.

Perceived threat from outgroups is a consistent social-environmental antecedent of intergroup bias (i.e. prejudice, ingroup favoritism). The serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) has been associated with individual variations in sensitivity to context, particularly stressful and threatening situations. Here, we examined how 5-HTTLPR and environmental factors signaling potential outgroup threat dynamically interact to shape intergroup bias. Across two studies, we provide novel evidence for a gene-environment interaction on the acquisition of intergroup bias and prejudice. Greater exposure to signals of outgroup threat, such as negative prior contact with outgroups and perceived danger from the social environment, were more predictive of intergroup bias among participants possessing at least one short allele (vs two long alleles) of 5-HTTLPR. Furthermore, this gene x environment interaction was observed for biases directed at diverse ethnic and arbitrarily-defined outgroups across measures reflecting intergroup biases in evaluation and discriminatory behavior. These findings reveal a candidate genetic mechanism for the acquisition of intergroup bias, and suggest that intergroup bias is dually inherited and transmitted through the interplay of social (i.e. contextual cues of outgroup threat) and biological mechanisms (i.e. genetic sensitivity toward threatening contexts) that regulate perceived intergroup threats.

Can an agentic Black woman get ahead? The impact of race and interpersonal dominance on perceptions of female leaders.

Prior research has demonstrated that the display of agentic behaviors, such as dominance, can produce backlash against female leaders because of the incongruence between these behaviors and prescribed gender roles. The current study was designed to fill a gap in existing research by investigating whether these well-established findings are moderated by race. Results revealed that dominant Black female leaders did not create the same backlash that dominant White female leaders did. Experimental evidence confirmed that White female (and Black male) leaders were conferred lower status when they expressed dominance rather than communality, whereas Black female (and White male) leaders were not. These findings highlight the importance, and complexity, of considering the intersection of gender and race when examining penalties for and proscriptions against dominant behavior of female leaders.

Status conferral in intergroup social dilemmas: behavioral antecedents and consequences of prestige and dominance.

Bridging the literatures on social dilemmas, intergroup conflict, and social hierarchy, the authors systematically varied the intergroup context in which social dilemmas were embedded to investigate how costly contributions to public goods influence status conferral. They predicted that contribution behavior would have opposite effects on 2 forms of status-prestige and dominance-depending on its consequences for the self, in-group and out-group members. When the only way to benefit in-group members was by harming out-group members (Study 1), contributions increased prestige and decreased dominance, compared with free-riding. Adding the option of benefitting in-group members without harming out-group members (Study 2) decreased the prestige and increased the dominance of those who chose to benefit in-group members via intergroup competition. Finally, sharing resources with both in-group and out-group members decreased perceptions of both prestige and dominance, compared with sharing them with in-group members only (Study 3). Prestige and dominance differentially mediated the effects of contribution behavior on leader election, exclusion from the group, and choices of a group representative for an intergroup competition. Taken together, these findings show that the well-established relationship between contribution and status is moderated by both the intergroup context and the conceptualization of status.

The teddy-bear effect: does having a baby face benefit black chief executive officers?

Prior research suggests that having a baby face is negatively correlated with success among White males in high positions of leadership. However, we explored the positive role of such "babyfaceness" in the success of high-ranking Black executives. Two studies revealed that Black chief executive officers (CEOs) were significantly more baby-faced than White CEOs. Black CEOs were also judged as being warmer than White CEOs, even though ordinary Blacks were rated categorically as being less warm than ordinary Whites. In addition, baby-faced Black CEOs tended to lead more prestigious corporations and earned higher salaries than mature-faced Black CEOs; these patterns did not emerge for White CEOs. Taken together, these findings suggest that babyfaceness is a disarming mechanism that facilitates the success of Black leaders by attenuating stereotypical perceptions that Blacks are threatening. Theoretical and practical implications for research on race, gender, and leadership are discussed.

Why are some individuals not racially biased? Susceptibility to affective conditioning predicts nonprejudice toward blacks.

Two studies investigated the psychological underpinnings of racial nonbias, defined as extremely low or null bias on measures of implicit and explicit racial attitudes. In Study 1, racially nonbiased Whites showed differential susceptibility to affective conditioning compared with subjects with greater bias. A significant two-way interaction emerged, indicating that nonbiased individuals were significantly less likely than other individuals to acquire negative affective associations to neutral stimuli in a classical conditioning paradigm, but were more likely than other individuals to acquire positive affective associations to neutral stimuli. This pattern of findings was replicated in Study 2, in which the identification of nonbiased Whites was facilitated by their nomination by an African American acquaintance. Implications for bias formation and prejudice reduction are discussed.

Putting stereotype content in context: image theory and interethnic stereotypes.

Two studies apply intergroup image theory to better understand divergent interethnic images and to highlight the important role of intergroup context and perceived intergroup relations in shaping the content of social stereotypes. Image theory hypothesizes that specific interethnic stereotypes arise from specific patterns of perceived intergroup competition, relative power, and relative cultural status. Results from surveying Black, White, and Native Americans' appraisals of intergroup relations and reported outgroup stereotypes in various intergroup contexts suggest that the content of outgroup stereotypes varies systematically as a function of the perceived state of intergroup relations and the intergroup context in which these groups are situated. The data reported from both studies establish the importance of examining social stereotypes from a functional perspective in the context of intergroup relations.

Prejudice on the stage: self-monitoring and the public expression of group attitudes.

According to self-monitoring theory (Snyder, 1987), high self-monitors tailor their self-presentation for the sake of desired public appearances, whereas low self-monitors are relatively unlikely to practice such situationally guided impression management strategies. It was therefore predicted that, when asked to publicly express their attitudes regarding a social group, high self-monitors would modify their expressive behaviour in a direction consistent with the attitudes attributed to their audience. Conversely, low self-monitors would be unaffected by their audience's attitude towards this group. A study was conducted to test this hypothesis: participants, whose level of self-monitoring and prejudice towards homosexuals had been previously measured, were asked to report their thoughts regarding this group in an open-ended manner. They anticipated discussing these thoughts with an audience perceived as either prejudiced or tolerant, or they expected that their responses would remain private. In line with predictions, high self-monitors expressed more prejudice when the audience was perceived as prejudiced than tolerant, whereas low self-monitors were not affected by the audience's attitude.

What are we really priming? Cue-based versus category-based processing of facial stimuli.

Results from 5 experiments provide converging evidence that automatic evaluation of faces in sequential priming paradigms reflects affective responses to phenotypic features per se rather than evaluation of the racial categories to which the faces belong. Experiment 1 demonstrates that African American facial primes with racially prototypic physical features facilitate more automatic negative evaluations than do other Black faces that are unambiguously categorizable as African American but have less prototypic features. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 further support the hypothesis that these differences reflect direct affective responses to physical features rather than differential categorization. Experiment 5 shows that automatic responses to facial primes correlate with cue-based but not category-based explicit measures of prejudice. Overall, these results suggest the existence of 2 distinct types of prejudice.