Face Overgeneralization, Prejudice, and Stereotypes

描述(由申请人提供)：大量研究表明，在形成第一印象时，有很大的倾向于使用面部外观。此外，这些印象显示出显著的共识，产生了重大的社会后果。这项拟议的研究的长期目标是解释人们对面孔的一致第一印象，并开发出改善其负面社会后果的方法。工作假说是，通过标志婴儿、不健康、情绪或身份的重要面部特征准确揭示的心理素质，被过度泛化到面部结构类似于婴儿、特定健康水平、特定情感或特定身份的人。这项研究有三个具体目标。一种是使用连接主义建模来检验面部认同过度泛化假设，即对陌生人的反应随着他们与已知个人的面部相似而变化的倾向导致了种族偏见和刻板印象。连接主义建模实验试图证明，两个面孔之间的物理相似性本身可以解释对它们的相似印象，而不是面孔的社会类别的相似之处。第二个目的是测试广义暴露效应是否可以用来减少种族和年龄偏见和刻板印象，正如面部认同过度泛化假说所预测的那样。仅仅是暴露实验就试图证明，增加对群体外面部原型的熟悉将减少对群体外成员的负面反应。第三个目标是使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)来研究神经激活模式对从三个过度泛化假设中的每一个预测的面孔的反应。FMRI实验试图确定，根据人类评委的评分以及它们在连接主义建模实验中引发的激活来区分的人脸类别是否也会引发不同的神经激活模式，从而证明过度泛化效应的神经基础。通过关注影响偏见和刻板印象的结构化面部信息，该研究为社会认知领域带来了一个新的理论视角，证明了面孔的内在属性对在很大程度上被视为社会建构的社会偏见做出了重大贡献。它还提出了减少偏见的新干预措施。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Considerable research demonstrates a strong tendency to use facial appearance when forming first impressions. Moreover, these impressions show remarkable consensus, yielding significant social consequences. The long-range objective of the proposed research is to explain consensual first impressions of faces and to develop methods for ameliorating their negative social consequences. The working hypothesis is that the psychological qualities that are accurately revealed by the functionally significant facial qualities that mark babies, unfitness, emotion, or identity are overgeneralized to people whose facial structure resembles that of babies, a particular level of fitness, a particular emotion, or a particular identity. The research has three specific aims. One is to use connectionist modeling to test the facial identity overgeneralization hypothesis that the tendency for responses to strangers to vary with their facial resemblance to known individuals contributes to racial prejudice and stereotyping. The connectionist modeling experiments seek to demonstrate that the physical similarity between two faces can in and of itself account for similar impressions of them quite apart from similarities in the social categories of the faces. The second aim is to test whether generalized mere exposure effects can be used to reduce race and age prejudice and stereotyping, as predicted by the facial identity overgeneralization hypothesis. The mere exposure experiments seek to demonstrate that increasing the familiarity of an out-group facial prototype will decrease negative reactions to out-group members. The third aim is to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural activation patterns in response to faces that are predicted from each of the three overgeneralization hypotheses. The fMRI experiments seek to determine whether categories of faces that are differentiated by human judges' ratings and by the activation they elicit in connectionist modeling experiments also elicit distinct patterns of neural activation, thereby demonstrating a neural substrate for the overgeneralization effects. By focusing on the structured facial information that influences prejudice and stereotypes, the proposed research brings a novel theoretical perspective to the field of social cognition, demonstrating that the intrinsic properties of faces make a significant contribution to social biases that have been largely viewed as social constructions. It also suggests novel interventions for reducing prejudice.