Conflict Monitoring and the Control of Prejudice

说明(申请人提供)：拟议研究的目标是调查抑制偏见和陈规定型观念的机制。我们特别感兴趣的是，如何发现隐含激活的陈规定型和偏见联系，以便随后可以抑制它们的影响。这项拟议研究的首要目标是将冲突监测和认知控制的认知神经科学模型与成功抑制偏见和陈规定型观念的模型和发现相结合。最终，我们希望对个人在遇到不同社会群体成员时如何管理自己的反应有一个全面的了解，以抑制偏见和刻板印象的影响。这些知识应该会提高我们设计干预措施和战略以阻止偏见和陈规定型观念的负面后果的能力。 这项拟议的研究将使用神经成像和头皮记录的事件相关脑电位来评估前扣带回皮质(ACC)和前额叶皮质(PFC)区域在检测偏见和刻板印象方面的作用。我们将具体检查群体成员和类别标签在多大程度上隐含地激活了与非偏见陈述相冲突的评价性和刻板印象的反应，以及这种冲突在多大程度上被ACC和PFC检测到。我们还将审查行政协调会和冲突预防中心调解的冲突监测系统在成功抑制陈规定型观念方面的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed research is to investigate mechanisms involved in the inhibition of prejudice and stereotypes. We are specifically interested in how implicitly activated stereotypical and prejudicial associations are detected so that their influences may be subsequently inhibited. An overarching goal of the proposed research is to integrate cognitive neuroscience models of conflict monitoring and cognitive control with models and findings on the successful inhibition of prejudice and stereotypes. Ultimately, we hope to develop a comprehensive understanding of how individuals manage their reactions when encountering members of different social groups so as to inhibit the effects of prejudice and stereotypes. This knowledge should increase our ability to design interventions and strategies to block the negative consequences of prejudice and stereotyping. The proposed studies will assess the role of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and areas of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in detecting prejudice and stereotypes using neuroimaging and scalp-recorded event-related brain potentials. We will specifically examine the extent to which group members and category labels implicitly activate evaluative and stereotypical responses that conflict with non-prejudicial representations, and the degree to which this conflict is detected by the ACC and PFC. We will also examine the role of ACC and PFC mediated conflict monitoring systems in producing successful inhibition of stereotypes.