Emotions, and Us vs. Them

Social contexts shift implicit attitudes and behavior toward outgroups

Although past work had assumed that implicit attitudes and stereotypes are learned early in life and change slowly, our research shows immense plasticity in people’s implicit attitudes and beliefs toward social groups in response to small changes in local environments.

For example, situations that arouse negative emotions like anger and disgust increase implicit bias. Implicit bias in the mind can translate into behavior when the motivation to be egalitarian is not a high priority or when it’s difficult to control one’s behavior.

On the positive side, we find when people see images and stories of admired members of negatively stereotyped groups (racial and ethnic groups, lesbians and gay men, women leaders, the elderly), they subsequently express less implicit race bias, anti-gay bias, gender bias, and age bias. When people see admired images and stories of some groups (e.g., gays and lesbians) they subsequently express more support for gay and lesbian civil rights.

Interestingly, we find that positive media images of negatively stereotyped groups are especially impactful for people who have little or no real-life contact with members of these groups in their daily life.