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- All Subjects: psychology
- All Subjects: Bias
- Creators: Salerno, Jessica
Description
An emerging body of literature suggests that humans likely have multiple threat avoidance systems that enable us to detect and avoid threats in our environment, such as disease threats and physical safety threats. These systems are presumed to be domain-specific, each handling one class of potential threats, and previous research generally supports this assumption. Previous research has not, however, directly tested the domain-specificity of disease avoidance and self-protection by showing that activating one threat management system does not lead to responses consistent only with a different threat management system. Here, the domain- specificity of the disease avoidance and self-protection systems is directly tested using the lexical decision task, a measure of stereotype accessibility, and the implicit association test. Results, although inconclusive, more strongly support a series of domain-specific threat management systems than a single, domain- general system
ContributorsAnderson, Uriah Steven (Author) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Thesis advisor) / Shiota, Michelle N. (Committee member) / Neuberg, Steven L. (Committee member) / Becker, David V (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
While acceptance towards same-sex marriage is gradually increasing, same-sex marriage is banned in many states within the United States. Laws that prohibit same-sex couples from marrying have been shown to increase feelings of depression, exclusion, and stigma for same-sex attracted individuals. The intention of this study was to explore the effect both pro- and anti-same-sex marriage advertisements have on heterosexual individuals' implicit attitudes towards same-sex couples. It was predicted that exposure to anti-same-sex advertisements would lead to viewing same-sex couples as more unpleasant and heterosexual couples as being more pleasant. However, heterosexual participants who viewed anti-same-sex marriage ads were more likely to rate heterosexual couples as being unpleasant and same-sex couples as pleasant. It is theorized that viewing anti-same-sex marriage advertisements led heterosexual individuals to report heterosexual stimuli as being more unpleasant compared to same-sex stimuli as a form of defensive processing.
ContributorsWalsh, Theodora Michelle (Author) / Newman, Matt (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Bully victimization has been associated with blunted cardiovascular responses to stress as well as elevated responses to stress. The difference between these altered physiological responses to stress is largely unknown. This study explored several possible moderators to the relationship between chronic stress and future cardiac output (an indicator of increased stress) in response to future stressors. These moderators include the difference between social and physical stressors and individual levels of loneliness. Participants were administered measures of loneliness and victimization history, and led to anticipate either a "social" (recorded speech) or "non-social" (pain tolerance test ) stressor, neither of which occurred. EKG and impedance cardiography were measured throughout the session. When anticipating both stressors, loneliness and victimization were associated with increased CO. A regression revealed a three-way interaction, with change in cardiac output depending on victimization history, loneliness, and condition in the physical stressor condition. Loneliness magnified the CO output levels of non-bullied individuals when facing a physical stressor. These results suggest that non- bullied participants high in loneliness are more stressed out when facing stressors, particularly stressors that are physically threatening in nature.
ContributorsHaneline, Magen (Author) / Newman, Matt (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Miller, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Traditional perspectives on sexual prejudice typically focus on the distinction between heterosexual ingroup and homosexual outgroup. In contrast, I focus on an affordance-management paradigm which views prejudices as resulting not from ingroup/outgroup relations, but instead from perceptions of the threats and opportunities posed by members of different groups. Past research has demonstrated that non-heterosexual target groups are perceived to pose a variety of threats, including threats to the socialization of young children, of child molestation, of disease, and to values. My research, however, suggests sexual prejudices arise for college students from beliefs that certain sexual orientation groups pose threats of unwanted sexual interest. For young adults, mating concerns are salient and should define relevant threats and opportunities--including those that might drive prejudices. For individuals with different active motivations, however, different threats and opportunities and threats are salient, and so the threats driving sexual prejudices may also differ. I extend my past research to consider how activating different fundamental goals (e.g., disease avoidance, parenting) alters patterns of sexual prejudice. I posit that activating disease concerns will increase prejudice specifically toward non-heterosexuals associated with disease (gay and bisexual me)--but not other non-heterosexuals (lesbians and bisexual women)--whereas activating offspring care will increase prejudice toward all non-heterosexual target groups, as all are perceived to pose socialization threats. To test this, heterosexual participants were randomly assigned to a parenting or disease-avoidance goal activation, or control condition, and then rated their general negativity towards heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual male and female targets. They also rated their perceptions of the extent to which each target posed unwanted sexual interest, socialization, and disease threats. Contrary to predictions, activating parenting and disease avoidance systems failed to affect sexual prejudices. Furthermore, although the pattern of observed data was largely consistent with previously observed patterns, women's attitudes towards gay men in the control condition were more negative than that found in previous studies, as were men's attitudes towards bisexual and lesbian women. Multiple mechanisms underlie sexual prejudices, and research is needed to better understand the circumstances under which alternative mechanisms are engaged and have their effects.
ContributorsPirlott, Angela (Author) / Neuberg, Steven L. (Thesis advisor) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P. (Committee member) / Shiota, Michelle N. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Previous studies exploring variability in sentencing decisions have consistently found gender differences, such that women receive lighter sentences than men. In the proposed study, I present a new framework for understanding gender differences in sentencing preferences, including circumstances under which no gender differences should emerge. The Affordance Management Approach suggests that our minds are attuned to both group- and individual-level threats and opportunities that others afford us. I conceptualize the sentencing difference between men and women as driven by perceived affordances that assist or hinder an individual in achieving certain fundamental goals. When faced with sanctioning an offender in our community, the offender's sex, the victim's age, and environmental variables such as the ratio of men to women may influence our decision-making, because these factors have affordance implications. Thus, I hypothesized that individuals will express differences in the sentencing of offenders who commit assault, and that these differences vary by offender sex, victim age, and sex-ratio. The results indicate that, as predicted, female offenders received lighter sentencing than men when the offender committed an assault against a same-sex adult, but received equally punitive sentences as men when the assault was committed against a child. In general, results do not support a consistent effect of sex ratio as a factor when making sentencing decisions. Although results do not fully support the current study's specific hypotheses, there remains much to be gained from applying an affordance management perspective to understanding variability in sentencing between the sexes.
ContributorsUzzanti, Charlene Ann (Author) / Neuberg, Steven (Thesis director) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Integrating research from life history theory with investigations of construal-level theory, the researcher proposes a novel relationship between life history strategy and construal-level. Slow life history strategies arise in safe, predictable environments where individuals give up current reproductive effort in favor of future reproductive effort. Correspondingly, high-level construals allow individuals to transcend the current context and act according to global concerns, such as the type of future planning necessary to enact slow life history strategies. Meanwhile, fast life history strategies arise in harsh, unpredictable environments where the future is uncertain and individuals need to pay close attention to the current context to survive. Correspondingly, low-level construals immerse individuals in the immediate situation, enabling them the flexibility needed to respond to local concerns. Given the correspondence between aspects of life history and construal-level, it seems possible that individuals adopting slow life history strategies should more frequently use high-level construals to assist in transcending the current situation to plan for the future, while individuals adopting fast life history strategies should more frequently use low-level construals to assist in monitoring the details of their harsh, unpredictable environment. To test the relationship between life history and construal, the researcher investigated whether or not a childhood cue of environmental harshness and unpredictability, childhood SES, and a current cue of environmental harshness and unpredictability, local mortality rate, influenced construal-level. In line with past research, the researcher predicted that childhood SES would interact with current cues of local mortality rate to influence construal-level. For individuals growing up in high SES households, a high local mortality rate will lead to an increase in high-level construals. For individuals growing up in low SES households, a high local mortality rate will lead to an increase in low-level construals. Overall, results did not support the hypotheses. Childhood SES did not interact with prime condition to influence either categorization or trend predictions. Examining how the prime interacted with another measure of life history strategy, the Mini-K, yielded mixed results. However, there are several ways in which the current study could be altered to reexamine the relationship between life history strategy and construal.
ContributorsWhite, Andrew (Author) / Cohen, Adam B. (Thesis advisor) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Committee member) / Kwan, Virginia Sy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Individuals are often susceptible to bias in their given fields; however, they may not acknowledge nor be aware of this phenomenon. Moreover, people typically can recognize bias in others yet fail to realize that they themselves are susceptible to their own bias. This is referred to as the bias blind spot, an unconscious meta-cognitive bias. Unconscious bias can lead to impaired decisions and can cause problems in the field, especially if professionals are defensive about bias mitigation procedures if they see them as unnecessary and threatening. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and examine the perceptions that professional forensic psychologists have about bias in themselves and bias in their colleagues. Eighty-four professional forensic psychologists were surveyed and asked about their perception of bias in themselves, their colleagues, an average adult, and experts in another domain: forensic science. For this study, these forensic psychologists were asked to predict the bias that they themselves might have in their judgment, that forensic scientists might have in their judgment, and that the average adult would have. As hypothesized, and consistent with the bias blind spot, professional forensic psychologists rated their peers in the same field as having a higher amount of bias in their decisions than they themselves. Moreover, they also rated other professionals in similar fields (forensic science) as having a higher bias rate than themselves. In addition, participants rated bias mitigating procedures as being a higher threat to their field than a different domain (i.e., forensic science) – consistent with hypotheses. These results suggest that professional forensic psychologists are susceptible to the bias blind spot and its consequences.
Keywords: implicit bias, bias blind spot, perceptions, judgment, mitigating procedures
Keywords: implicit bias, bias blind spot, perceptions, judgment, mitigating procedures
ContributorsVelazquez, Annelisse Danielle (Author) / Neal, Tess (Thesis director) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
People often rely on experts' opinions and knowledge to inform their own decisions. This can be problematic, as expertise does not necessarily protect one from bias, and increased experience does not always increase an experts' accuracy (Cassidy & Buede, 2009; Goldberg, 1968; Molins et al., 2008). The nature of task characteristics of expert domains is associated with experts' performance (Shanteau 1992). The purpose of this thesis is to examine how people perceive experts in different disciplines, and to explore the factors that affect perceptions of expert objectivity. Perceptions of objectivity in 26 expert domains were examined. As hypothesized, higher ratings of clear and immediate feedback available to experts were associated with higher ratings of objectivity. However, other indicators of higher domain validity were not recognized by laypeople, such as higher levels of training and education. Contrary to our hypotheses, higher levels of familiarity with experts in a given domain and more experiences of disagreement with experts in a given domain were not associated with perceptions of objectivity. These results suggest that laypeople can correctly identify some indicators of the validity of different expert domains, but they cannot identify others. These perceptions affect how objectivity is perceived.
ContributorsVelez, Rebecca Ellen (Author) / Neal, Tess (Thesis director) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Prior research has indicated an attractive-leniency bias for defendants in mock jury studies. However, in recent years there have been highly publicized trials of attractive women who also appear sexual, in which juror's judgements do not show support for the attractive-leniency bias. The opposite effect seems to be taking place. The present study is the first to test the Femme Fatale stereotype that seems to be producing harsher judgements of attractive and sexually appealing women who commit crime, and the interaction of the relationship to their victim. The present study conducted a 2 (Attractiveness) X 2 (Sexual Appearance) X 2 (Relationship) between subjects design. Researchers conducted an ANOVA on all variables. Results indicate that women who are perceived as more attractive and more sexual, are more likely to be found guilty of their crime.
ContributorsBernal, Kelsey Joann (Author) / Salerno, Jessica (Thesis director) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
It has recently been argued that high-confidence eyewitness identifications are highly likely to be accurate regardless of the quality of viewing conditions experienced by the witness. However, new evidence suggests that evaluators of eyewitness identification evidence (e.g., jurors) do not trust highly confident eyewitnesses who experienced poor witnessing conditions. In fact, contextual information about poor witnessing conditions decreases evaluators’ belief of eyewitnesses to a greater extent for highly confident witnesses than for moderately confident witnesses. Why is the effect of witnessing-condition information greater for evaluations of high-confidence witnesses than for less confident witnesses? The current research tested the possibility that information about witnessing conditions influences evaluators’ perceptions of how well-calibrated a witness’s identification confidence is with the eyewitness’s accuracy. Using a paradigm adapted from the confidence calibration literature, I conducted an experiment to test this calibration account of the finding that witnessing condition information has a stronger effect on perceptions of highly confident witnesses than moderately confident witnesses. Although the results replicated the differential effects of witnessing condition context on perceptions of highly and moderately confident eyewitnesses, they failed to yield support for the confidence calibration hypothesis, potentially because the confidence calibration manipulation was ineffective. Directions for future research are discussed.
ContributorsLebensfeld, Taylor Cameron (Author) / Smalarz, Laura (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Arndorfer, Andrea (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022