Speaker: Amanda Friesen, Associate professor, Department of Politial Science, University of Western Ontario

Abstract: The established relationship between emotion and prejudice is complicated by the fact that humans are not passive emitters of emotion but can act upon and regulate their emotional states. Given the pervasiveness of anti-prejudice norms, an explanatory gap exists between how experiencing negative emotion toward outgroups leads to prejudicial attitudes. One explanation is that the development of prejudice is a consequence of individuals’ failure to appropriately regulate their affective responses to outgroup members. Research on emotion regulation suggests that expressive suppression, the constraint of emotional expressions, in response to outgroup members could be responsible.

We study the regulation of emotion as a psychological system influencing prejudice towards ethnic outgroups and address the following research questions: 1) Do higher levels of emotional arousal and expressive suppression in response to outgroup members predict negative attitudes towards these groups? 2) Does training individuals to cognitively reappraise their emotions reduce their negative emotions and consequently prejudicial attitudes towards outgroups? To address these questions, we recruited a sample of Canadian adults in the London, Ontario, metro area to participate in a series of studies, including self-reported emotion regulation, group attitudes, and other personality and demographic measures. Next, participants were invited to a physiology lab study, set up in a community center in their area. During this portion, participants observed a series of in- and outgroup faces, while connected to sensors capturing electrodermal response, EKG, and skin temperature. Participants also rated the neutral expression faces on a series of emotions.

Ultimately, we are testing the connection between emotion regulation and suppression and prejudicial attitudes, and whether cognitively reappraising these emotions can lead to prejudice reduction, as measured by self-reported attitudes and physiological responses to outgroups. Our findings have the potential to inform and develop better anti-prejudice policies and programs to move beyond acknowledgment of implicit or explicit biases to address root causes of discrimination.