CAREER: Testing a Memory-Systems Model of the Expression and Reduction of Racial Prejudice: A Plan for Research and Training in Social Cognitive Neuroscience

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-50)资助的。种族歧视在美国仍然是一个全国性的问题，尽管在文化和立法上朝着更加平等的社会发生了重大变化。尽管现在公开表达偏执的情况相对较少，但许多心理学研究发现，种族偏见往往潜伏在潜意识中，从那里它们可能会以微妙的方式影响一个人的行为，而不是一个人的意图。因此，当代偏见研究的一个主要目标是了解隐性种族偏见如何影响行为，以及重要的是，如何减少这种偏见。大卫·阿莫约博士的研究通过研究不同形式的隐性种族偏见的激活和表达背后的神经认知机制，为这些问题提供了新的线索。在国家科学基金会的支持下，阿莫约博士正在进行一项研究，将情感和概念性(即刻板印象)形式的内隐偏见与大脑中不同的学习和记忆系统联系起来。通过将内隐偏见与神经过程联系起来，他可以应用更广泛的神经科学文献中关于这些系统如何学习和忘记，以及它们如何与认知、情感和行为机制相互作用的知识，以获得关于种族偏见动态的新视角。通过采用一种综合的社会认知神经科学方法，阿莫约博士的研究有望推进我们对学习和记忆神经机制如何在社会行为中发挥作用的基本理解，同时也为美国社会种族歧视这一紧迫问题提供信息。与他的研究目标相结合，阿莫约博士将在纽约大学开发一个新的社会认知神经科学教育和研究项目。独特的培训课程融合了神经科学、社会心理学和认知心理学的理论和方法，旨在了解社会过程及其神经基础。来自NSF的资金将支持研究生的研究和神经成像培训的基础设施。该计划的另一个组成部分是在社区中促进心理和神经科学。为此，阿莫约博士的项目为高中生和社区成员提供了机会，通过他的公开演讲和学生参观他的实验室来了解更多关于科学的知识。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-50.Racial discrimination continues to be a national concern in America, despite significant cultural and legislative shifts toward a more egalitarian society. Although overt expressions of bigotry are now relatively infrequent, much psychological research finds that racial biases often lurk in the unconscious mind, from where they may influence behavior in subtle ways without one's intent. As such, a major goal of contemporary prejudice research is to understand how implicit racial biases affect behavior and, importantly, how such biases may be reduced. Dr. David Amodio's research sheds new light on these questions by examining the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the activation and expression of different forms of implicit racial bias. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Amodio is conducting research that links emotional and conceptual (i.e., stereotyping) forms of implicit bias to different systems of learning and memory in the brain. By linking implicit bias to neural processes, he can apply knowledge from the broader neuroscience literature on how these systems learn and unlearn, and how they interact with mechanisms for cognition, emotion, and behavior, to obtain a novel perspective on the dynamics of racial prejudice. By taking an integrative social cognitive neuroscience approach, Dr. Amodio's research promises to advance our basic understanding of how neural mechanisms of learning and memory function in social behavior while also informing the pressing issue of racial discrimination in American society.In conjunction with his research goals, Dr. Amodio will develop a new program for education and research in social cognitive neuroscience at New York University. The unique training curriculum incorporates theoretical and methodological approaches from neuroscience, social psychology, and cognitive psychology, directed toward the understanding of social processes and their neural underpinnings. The funding from NSF will support graduate student research and infrastructure for training in neuroimaging. An additional component of this program is the promotion of psychological and neural science in the community. Toward this end, Dr. Amodio's program provides opportunities for high school students and community members to learn more about science through his public presentations and student visits to his laboratory.