RUI: The Role of Facial Physiognomy in Stereotypic Trait Inference

直到最近，对类别成员之间的目标水平差异的考虑在关于刻板印象的理论中几乎没有发挥出令人惊讶的作用。相反，社会心理学家几乎只专注于将类别成员身份作为刻板印象的基础，基本上忽略了类别内的差异。然而，在过去的十年里，研究人员已经开始研究身体特征(如肤色、鼻型等)的差异。同一类别的人之间的成员关系可能有助于我们对刻板印象的理解--一种被称为基于特征的刻板印象的刻板印象。基于特征的刻板印象的效果不是微不足道的；研究人员已经证明，特征可能会不适当地影响监禁刑期、死刑决定，以及警察开枪的决定，而不是类别的影响。拟议的研究目的是研究面部相貌的差异是否以及如何预测我们对他人的判断，而不仅仅是类别成员身份。目前的研究项目分为三个阶段。在第一阶段，研究人员将建立一个包含500多张面孔的数据库，每一张面孔都在多个维度上进行评级(刻板印象、威胁、男性、女性、娃娃脸、有吸引力、值得信赖、快乐、愤怒、悲伤、厌恶、惊讶、恐惧/害怕和不寻常)。这个数据库将免费提供给任何有兴趣将这些刺激用于研究目的的研究人员，并将为其他人节省大量时间和资源。在第二阶段，研究人员将通过测试更典型的特征是否更容易激活刻板印象来测试基于特征的刻板印象的稳健性，这些测试跨越不同的社会群体、不同的特征和不同的刻板印象特征。最后，第三阶段将调查特征影响特质判断的过程。研究人员将测试特征的影响是通过归类传递的--这是数十年来刻板印象研究的核心假设--还是像一些人最近提出的那样，特征是否可以绕过归类而直接激活刻板印象。这项研究不仅将通过为研究人员开发一套重要的面部刺激来加强科学基础设施，还将促进目前对支配刻板印象的过程的理解。此外，这项研究将促进在一个以本科生和拉美裔服务机构为主的本科生和研究生的培训。

Until somewhat recently, consideration of target-level differences among category members figured surprisingly little into theorizing about stereotyping. Rather, social psychologists have focused almost solely on category membership as the basis for stereotyping, essentially disregarding within-category differences. Over the past decade, however, researchers have begun to examine how differences in physical features (e.g., skin tone, nose shape, etc.) among people who share a category membership may contribute to our understanding of stereotyping -- a form of stereotyping that has been referred to as feature-based stereotyping. The effect of feature-based stereotyping is nontrivial; researchers have evidenced that features may unduly influence prison sentence lengths, capital punishment decisions, and police officers' decision to shoot over and above the influence of categories.The goal of the proposed research is to study whether and how differences in facial physiognomy predict our judgments of others over and above category membership alone. The current research project consists of 3 phases. In Phase 1, the researchers will build a database of over 500 faces, each rated on a number of dimensions (stereotypic, threatening, masculine, feminine, baby-faced, attractive, trustworthy, happy, angry, sad, disgusted, surprised, fearful/afraid, and unusual). This database will be made freely available to any investigator interested in using these stimuli for research purposes and will afford significant time and resource savings to others. In Phase 2, the researchers will test the robustness of feature-based stereotyping by testing whether or not more typical features activate stereotypes more readily, across different social groups, different features, and different stereotyped characteristics.Finally, Phase 3 will investigate the process by which features influence trait judgments. The researchers will test whether the influence of features is mediated through categorization -- a supposition that is has been central to decades of stereotyping research -- or, whether features can bypass categorization and directly activate stereotypes, as some have recently proposed. The research will both enhance scientific infrastructure by developing an important set of facial stimuli for researchers and also advance the current understanding of the processes that govern stereotyping. Moreover, the research will facilitate the training of undergraduate and graduate students at a predominantly undergraduate and Hispanic-serving institution.