Abstract
Racial discrimination can be observed in a wide range of psychological processes, including even the earliest phases of face detection. It remains unclear, however, whether racially-biased low-level face processing is influenced by ideologies, such as right wing authoritarianism or social dominance orientation. In the current study, we hypothesized that socio-political ideologies such as these can substantially predict perceptive racial bias during early perception. To test this hypothesis, 67 participants detected faces within arrays of neutral objects. The faces were either Caucasian (in-group) or North African (out-group) and either had a neutral or angry expression. Results showed that participants with higher self-reported right-wing authoritarianism were more likely to show slower response times for detecting out- vs. in-groups faces. We interpreted our results according to the Dual Process Motivational Model and suggest that socio-political ideologies may foster early racial bias via attentional disengagement.
Highlights
North and Sub Saharan African immigrants and children of immigrants are among the most discriminated individuals in Western Europe [1]
This study was designed to investigate the association between socio-political ideologies and racial biases in a face detection task
We found evidence to support such an association: Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) predicted longer response times for detecting NA vs. CA faces
Summary
North and Sub Saharan African immigrants and children of immigrants are among the most discriminated individuals in Western Europe [1]. Discrimination arises from prejudices, defined as positive and negative attitudes shaped by individual experience. Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) are substantial predictors of inter-group prejudices. RWA describes the tendency for an individual to submit to authorities, exert authoritarian aggression, and adhere to social conventions. SDO describes the extent to which an individual prefers social hierarchy [2]. These two personality traits are positively correlated, they are underpinned by distinct mechanisms [3]. RWA is mainly linked to social conformity and threat perception, whereas SDO centers on competition and hierarchy. There is consistent evidence to support this dual process of RWA and SDO in contributing to prejudice; it is still not clearly understood how this dual process influences early information processing, such as face detection
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