Doctoral Dissertation Research: Explaining Public Opposition to Government Assistance Programs

政治科学和心理学的大量研究表明，种族偏见是基于种族的政策反对的重要组成部分。一些研究表明，当种族诉求微妙而隐蔽时，偏见最有可能发挥作用。其他研究认为，当种族明确时，人们会使用更高层次的认知过程来抑制偏见本能，遵守平等主义的社会规范。换句话说，当人们被鼓励更多地思考种族政策时，他们应该能够识别并抑制可能影响他们观点的种族偏见。本研究检验了高水平认知过程降低偏见作用的论点，而不是研究假设，即在某些情况下，由于有意识地拒绝平等主义规范，高水平认知过程可能会加强甚至加剧偏见的作用。本项目以社会神经科学研究为基础，利用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）直接观察偏见影响政策态度的神经机制。一个2（种族：白人vs黑人）x 2（有意识意识：内隐/无意识种族启动与外显/有意识启动）的被试实验被用来检验种族偏见对支持各种政府援助项目的影响，当项目接受者的种族是有意识的还是潜意识的。PI假设，当种族是隐性的时候，种族偏见会更强烈，这种关系是通过杏仁核和右岛的活动增加和前额叶皮层和前扣带皮层的活动减少来调节的。然而，PI预计，当种族明确时，种族偏见就会存在。如果减少偏见作用的关键是让人们更多地思考种族，那么这些偏见将是由于缺乏控制处理，即使在前额叶皮层和前扣带皮层的激活水平较低，杏仁核和右脑岛的活动增加的情况下，种族是明确表明的。然而，如果受控制的过程有时会导致偏见的强化，那么政策支持中的种族偏见与前额叶皮层或前扣带皮层的激活之间将没有关系。

General SummaryA great deal of research in political science and psychology shows that racial prejudice is a substantial component of race-based policy opposition. Some work suggests that prejudice is most likely to play a role when racial appeals are subtle and covert. Other work contends that people use higher-level cognitive processes to inhibit prejudiced instincts and abide by egalitarian social norms when race is explicit. In other words, when people are encouraged to think more about racial policies, they should be able to recognize and restrain the racial biases that might otherwise influence their opinions. This study test the contention that higher-level cognitive processes reduce the role of prejudice against the research hypothesis that higher-level cognitive processes may in some instances reinforce and even exacerbate the role of prejudice because of conscious motivations to reject egalitarian norms. Technical SummaryBuilding on work in social neuroscience, this project uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to directly observe the neural mechanisms by which prejudice influences policy attitudes. A 2 (race: White vs. Black) x 2 (conscious awareness: implicit/non-conscious racial primes vs. explicit/conscious primes) within-subjects experiment is used to examine the impact of racial biases on support for various government assistance programs when the race of the programs' recipients is consciously versus subconsciously known. The PI hypothesizes that racial biases will be stronger when race is implicit, and that this relationship is mediated by increased activity in the amygdala and right insula and decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. However, the PI expects that racial biases will exist when race is explicit. If the key to diminishing the role of prejudice is to get people to think more about race, these biases will be due to a lack of controlled processing even when race is explicitly indicated by lower levels of activation in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex and increased activity in the amygdala and right insula. However, if controlled processes sometimes lead to reinforcement of prejudice, there will be no relationship between racial biases in policy support and activation in the prefrontal cortex or anterior cingulate cortex.