Are knowledge- and belief-reasoning automatic, and is this the right question?

Phillips et al. conclude that current evidence supports knowledge-, but not belief-reasoning as being automatic. We suggest four reasons why this is an oversimplified answer to a question that might not have a clear-cut answer: (1) knowledge and beliefs can be incompletely equated to perceptual states, (2) sensitivity to mental states does not necessitate representation, (3) automaticity is not a single categorical feature, and (4) how we represent others' minds is dependent on social context.

Does Seeing Faces of Young Black Boys Facilitate the Identification of Threatening Stimuli?

Pervasive stereotypes linking Black men with violence and criminality can lead to implicit cognitive biases, including the misidentification of harmless objects as weapons. In four experiments, we investigated whether these biases extend even to young Black boys (5-year-olds). White participants completed sequential priming tasks in which they categorized threatening and nonthreatening objects and words after brief presentations of faces of various races (Black and White) and ages (children and adults). Results consistently revealed that participants had less difficulty (i.e., faster response times, fewer errors) identifying threatening stimuli and more difficulty identifying nonthreatening stimuli after seeing Black faces than after seeing White faces, and this racial bias was equally strong following adult and child faces. Process-dissociation-procedure analyses further revealed that these effects were driven entirely by automatic (i.e., unintentional) racial biases. The collective findings suggest that the perceived threat commonly associated with Black men may generalize even to young Black boys.

Emotion expression salience and racially biased weapon identification: A diffusion modeling approach.

Racial stereotypes are commonly activated by informational cues that are detectable in people's faces. Here, we used a sequential priming task to examine whether and how the salience of emotion (angry/scowling vs. happy/smiling expressions) or apparent race (Black vs. White) information in male face primes shapes racially biased weapon identification (gun vs. tool) decisions. In two experiments (Ntotal = 546) using two different manipulations of facial information salience, racial bias in weapon identification was weaker when the salience of emotion expression versus race was heightened. Using diffusion decision modeling, we tested competing accounts of the cognitive mechanism by which the salience of facial information moderates this behavioral effect. Consistent support emerged for an initial bias account, whereby the decision process began closer to the "gun" response upon seeing faces of Black versus White men, and this racially biased shift in the starting position was weaker when emotion versus race information was salient. We discuss these results vis-à-vis prior empirical and theoretical work on how facial information salience moderates racial bias in decision-making.

Intergroup evaluative bias in facial representations of immigrants and citizens in the United States.

We used a reverse-correlation image-classification paradigm to visualize facial representations of immigrants and citizens in the United States. Visualizations of immigrants' faces were judged by independent raters as less trustworthy and less competent and were more likely to be categorized as a non-White race/ethnicity than were visualizations of citizens' faces. Additionally, image generators' personal characteristics (e.g., implicit and explicit evaluations of immigrants, nativity status) did not reliably track with independent judges' ratings of image generators' representations of immigrants. These findings suggest that anti-immigrant sentiment and racial/ethnic assumptions characterize facial representations of immigrants in the United States, even among people who harbor positivity toward immigrants.

Egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment underlies social inferences about known others varying in similarity and familiarity.

How do people infer the content of another person's mind? One documented strategy-at least when inferring the minds of strangers-entails anchoring on the content of one's own mind and serially adjusting away from this egocentric anchor. Yet, many social inferences concern known others in existing social relationships. In eight experiments with four sets of stimuli, we tested whether an egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment mechanism underlies social inferences about known targets, and whether it varies based on the target's similarity and familiarity to oneself. In Experiments 1-7, participants (Ntotal = 4,790) rated themselves and a known target on various characteristics (e.g., preferences, habits, traits), and response times for the target ratings were recorded. An integrative data analysis revealed that, consistent with egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment, the more discrepant the target ratings were from participants' self ratings, the longer participants took to provide target ratings. Importantly, this pattern of anchoring-and-adjustment was stronger for similar (vs. dissimilar) and familiar (vs. unfamiliar) targets, but it emerged in all experimental conditions. Experiment 8 (N = 549) suggested that these results were unlikely to be explained solely by a memory search process. We discuss implications for anchoring-and-adjustment as a mechanism underlying social inferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

When focusing on differences leads to similar perspectives.

The current research investigated whether mind-sets and contexts that afford a focus on self-other differences can facilitate perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective taking. Supporting this hypothesis, results showed that directly priming a difference mind-set made perceivers more likely to spontaneously adopt other people's visual perspectives (Experiment 1) and less likely to overimpute their own privileged knowledge to others (Experiments 2 and 3). Given that intergroup encounters typically evoke a difference mind-set, we also explored the possibility that such contexts might help perceivers to step outside their own perspectives. As predicted, perceivers were less "cursed" by their own privileged knowledge when mentalizing about out-group targets than when mentalizing about in-group targets (Experiment 4) and communicated more effectively with interaction partners whose minimal-group membership differed from their own (Experiment 5). Overall, acknowledging self-other differences allowed perceivers to look beyond the limits of their own perspectives and thereby provided an efficacious route to intuiting other people's minds.

Automatic stereotyping against people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective and affective disorders.

Similar to members of the public, people with mental illness may exhibit general negative automatic prejudice against their own group. However, it is unclear whether more specific negative stereotypes are automatically activated among diagnosed individuals and how such automatic stereotyping may be related to self-reported attitudes and emotional reactions. We therefore studied automatically activated reactions toward mental illness among 85 people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or affective disorders as well as among 50 members of the general public, using a Lexical Decision Task to measure automatic stereotyping. Deliberately endorsed attitudes and emotional reactions were assessed by self-report. Independent of diagnosis, people with mental illness showed less negative automatic stereotyping than did members of the public. Among members of the public, stronger automatic stereotyping was associated with more self-reported shame about a potential mental illness and more anger toward stigmatized individuals. Reduced automatic stereotyping in the diagnosed group suggests that people with mental illness might not entirely internalize societal stigma. Among members of the public, automatic stereotyping predicted negative emotional reactions to people with mental illness. Initiatives to reduce the impact of public stigma and internalized stigma should take automatic stereotyping and related emotional aspects of stigma into account.

Evaluations of empathizers depend on the target of empathy.

Psychological research on empathy typically focuses on understanding its effects on empathizers and empathic targets. Little is known, however, about the effects of empathy beyond its dyadic context. Taking an extradyadic perspective, we examined how third-party observers evaluate empathizers. Seven experiments documented that observers' evaluations of empathizers depend on the target of empathy. Empathizers (vs. nonempathizers) of a stressful experience were respected/liked more when the empathic target was positive (e.g., children's hospital worker), but not when the target was negative (e.g., White supremacist; Experiments 1 and 2). Empathizers were respected/liked more when responding to a positive target who disclosed a positive experience (i.e., a personal accomplishment), but less when responding to a negative target who disclosed a positive experience (Experiment 3). These effects were partly, but not solely, attributable to the positivity of empathic responses (Experiment 4). Expressing empathy (vs. condemnation) toward a negative target resulted in less respect/liking when the disclosed experience was linked to the source of target valence (i.e., stress from White supremacist job; Experiments 5 through 7), but more respect/liking when the experience was unrelated to the source of target valence (i.e., stress from cancer; Experiment 7). Overall, empathizers were viewed as warmer, but to a lesser extent when responding to a negative target. These findings highlight the importance of considering the extradyadic impact of empathy and suggest that although people are often encouraged to empathize with disliked others, they are not always favored for doing so. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Revising mental representations of faces based on new diagnostic information.

Extending evidence for the rapid revision of mental representations of what other people are like, we explored whether people also rapidly revise their representations of what others look like. After learning to ascribe positive or negative behavioral information to a target person and generating a visualization of their face in a reverse-correlation task, participants learned new information that was (a) counter-attitudinal and diagnostic about the person's character or (b) neutral and non-diagnostic, and then they generated a second visualization. Ratings of these visualizations in separate samples of participants consistently revealed revision effects: Time 2 visualizations assimilated to the counter-attitudinal information. Weaker revision effects also emerged after learning neutral information, suggesting that the evaluative extremity of visualizations may dilute when encountering any additional information. These findings indicate that representations of others' appearance may change upon learning more about them, particularly when this new information is counter-attitudinal and diagnostic.

The goal-dependence of level-1 and level-2 visual perspective calculation.

Does tracking another agent's visual perspective depend on having a goal-albeit a remote one-to do so? In 5 experiments using indirect measures of visual perspective taking with a cartoon avatar, we examined whether and how adult perceivers' processing goals shape the incidental tracking of what objects the avatar sees (Level-1 perspective taking) and how the avatar sees those objects (Level-2 perspective taking). Process dissociation analyses, which aim to isolate calculation of the avatar's perspective as the process of focal interest, revealed that both Level-1 and Level-2 perspective calculation were consistently weaker when the avatar's perspective was less relevant for participants' own processing goals. This pattern of goal-dependent perspective tracking was also evident in behavioral analyses of interference from the avatar's differing perspective when reporting one's own perspective (i.e., altercentric interference). These results suggest that, although Level-1 and Level-2 visual perspective calculation may operate unintentionally, both also appear to depend on perceivers' processing goals. More generally, these findings advance understanding of processes underlying visual perspective taking and the conditional automaticity with which those processes operate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Category salience and racial bias in weapon identification: A diffusion modeling approach.

Stereotypes linking Black Americans with guns can have life-altering outcomes, making it important to identify factors that shape such weapon identification biases and how they do so. We report 6 experiments that provide a mechanistic account of how category salience affects weapon identification bias elicited by male faces varying in race (Black, White) and age (men, boys). Behavioral analyses of error rates and response latencies revealed that, when race was salient, faces of Black versus White males (regardless of age) facilitated the classification of objects as guns versus tools. When a category other than race was salient, racial bias in behavior was reduced, though not eliminated. In Experiments 1-4, racial bias was weaker when participants attended to a social category besides race (i.e., age). In Experiments 5 and 6, racial bias was weaker when participants attended to an applicable, yet nonsubstantive category (i.e., the color of a dot on the face). Across experiments, process analyses using diffusion models revealed that, when race was salient, seeing Black versus White male faces led to an initial bias to favor the "gun" response. When a category besides race (i.e., age, dot color) was salient, racial bias in the relative start point was reduced, though not eliminated. These results suggest that the magnitude of racial bias in weapon identification may differ depending on what social category is salient. The collective findings also highlight the utility of diffusion modeling for elucidating how category salience shapes processes underlying racial biases in behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Perspective taking reduces intergroup bias in visual representations of faces.

Intergroup biases shape most aspects of person construal, including lower-level visual representations of group members' faces. Specifically, ingroup members' faces tend to be represented more positively than outgroup members' faces. Here, we used a reverse-correlation paradigm to test whether engaging in perspective taking (i.e., actively imagining another person's mental states) can reduce these biased visual representations. In an initial image-generation experiment, participants were randomly assigned to a minimal group and then composed a narrative essay about an ingroup or an outgroup target person, either while adopting the person's perspective or while following control instructions. Afterward, they generated an image of the person's face in a reverse-correlation image-classification task. Subsequent image-assessment experiments using an explicit rating task, a sequential priming task, and an economic trust game with separate samples of participants revealed that ingroup faces elicited more likability and trustworthiness than did outgroup faces. Importantly, this pattern of intergroup bias was consistently weaker in faces created by perspective takers. Additional image-assessment experiments identified the mouth (i.e., smiling cues) as a critical facial region wherein the interactive effects of group membership and perspective taking emerged. These findings provide initial evidence that perspective taking may be an effective strategy for attenuating, though not for eliminating, intergroup biases in visual representations of what group members look like.

Biogenetic models of psychopathology, implicit guilt, and mental illness stigma.

Whereas some research suggests that acknowledgment of the role of biogenetic factors in mental illness could reduce mental illness stigma by diminishing perceived responsibility, other research has cautioned that emphasizing biogenetic aspects of mental illness could produce the impression that mental illness is a stable, intrinsic aspect of a person ("genetic essentialism"), increasing the desire for social distance. We assessed genetic and neurobiological causal attributions about mental illness among 85 people with serious mental illness and 50 members of the public. The perceived responsibility of persons with mental illness for their condition, as well as fear and social distance, was assessed by self-report. Automatic associations between Mental Illness and Guilt and between Self and Guilt were measured by the Brief Implicit Association Test. Among the general public, endorsement of biogenetic models was associated with not only less perceived responsibility, but also greater social distance. Among people with mental illness, endorsement of genetic models had only negative correlates: greater explicit fear and stronger implicit self-guilt associations. Genetic models may have unexpected negative consequences for implicit self-concept and explicit attitudes of people with serious mental illness. An exclusive focus on genetic models may therefore be problematic for clinical practice and anti-stigma initiatives.

Do people with mental illness deserve what they get? Links between meritocratic worldviews and implicit versus explicit stigma.

Meritocratic worldviews that stress personal responsibility, such as the Protestant ethic or general beliefs in a just world, are typically associated with stigmatizing attitudes and could explain the persistence of mental illness stigma. Beliefs in a just world for oneself ("I get what I deserve"), however, are often related to personal well-being and can be a coping resource for stigmatized individuals. Despite these findings in other stigmatized groups, the link between worldviews and the stigma of psychiatric disorders is unknown. We measured just world beliefs for self and others as well as endorsement of the Protestant ethic in 85 people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or affective disorders and 50 members of the general public. Stigmatizing attitudes toward people with mental illness (perceived responsibility, perceived dangerousness, general agreement with negative stereotypes) were assessed by self-report. Using a response-latency task, the Brief Implicit Association Test, we also examined guilt-related implicit negative stereotypes about mental illness. We found a consistent positive link between endorsing the Protestant ethic and stigmatizing self-reported attitudes in both groups. Implicit guilt-related stereotypes were positively associated with the Protestant ethic only among members of the public. Among people with mental illness, stronger just world beliefs for self were related to reduced self-stigma, but also to more implicit blame of persons with mental illness. The Protestant ethic may increase (self-)stigmatizing attitudes; just world beliefs for oneself, on the other hand, may lead to unexpected implicit self-blame in stigmatized individuals. Public anti-stigma campaigns and initiatives to reduce self-stigma among people with mental illness should take worldviews into account.

Implicit self-stigma in people with mental illness.

People with mental illness often internalize negative stereotypes, resulting in self-stigma and low self-esteem ("People with mental illness are bad and therefore I am bad, too"). Despite strong evidence for self-stigma's negative impact as assessed by self-report measures, it is unclear whether self-stigma operates in an automatic, implicit manner, potentially outside conscious awareness and control. We therefore assessed (i) negative implicit attitudes toward mental illness and (ii) low implicit self-esteem using 2 Brief Implicit Association Tests in 85 people with mental illness. Implicit self-stigma was operationalized as the product of both implicit measures. Explicit self-stigma and quality of life were assessed by self-report. Greater implicit and explicit self-stigma independently predicted lower quality of life after controlling for depressive symptoms, diagnosis, and demographic variables. Our results suggest that implicit self-stigma is a measurable construct and is associated with negative outcomes. Attempts to reduce self-stigma should take implicit processes into account.

Time pressure disrupts level-2, but not level-1, visual perspective calculation: A process-dissociation analysis.

Reasoning about other people's mental states has long been assumed to require active deliberation. Yet, evidence from indirect measures suggests that adults and children commonly display behavior indicative of having incidentally calculated both what other agents see (level-1 perspective taking) and how they see it (level-2 perspective taking). Here, we investigated the efficiency of such perspective calculation in adults. In four experiments using indirect measures of visual perspective taking, we imposed time pressure to constrain processing opportunity, and we used process-dissociation analyses to isolate perspective calculation as the process of focal interest. Results revealed that time pressure weakened level-2, but not level-1, perspective calculation-a pattern that was not evident in error-rate analyses. These findings suggest that perspective calculation may operate more efficiently in level-1 than in level-2 perspective taking. They also highlight the utility of the process-dissociation framework for unmasking processes that otherwise may go under-detected in behavior-level analyses.

Are Black Women and Girls Associated With Danger? Implicit Racial Bias at the Intersection of Target Age and Gender.

We investigated whether stereotypes linking Black men and Black boys with violence and criminality generalize to Black women and Black girls. In Experiments 1 and 2, non-Black participants completed sequential-priming tasks wherein they saw faces varying in race, age, and gender before categorizing danger-related objects or words. Experiment 3 compared task performance across non-Black and Black participants. Results revealed that (a) implicit stereotyping of Blacks as more dangerous than Whites emerged across target age, target gender, and perceiver race, with (b) a similar magnitude of racial bias across adult and child targets and (c) a smaller magnitude for female than male targets. Evidence for age bias and gender bias also emerged whereby (d) across race, adult targets were more strongly associated with danger than were child targets, and (e) within Black (but not White) targets, male targets were more strongly associated with danger than were female targets.

Racial bias in implicit danger associations generalizes to older male targets.

Across two experiments, we examined whether implicit stereotypes linking younger (~28-year-old) Black versus White men with violence and criminality extend to older (~68-year-old) Black versus White men. In Experiment 1, participants completed a sequential priming task wherein they categorized objects as guns or tools after seeing briefly-presented facial images of men who varied in age (younger versus older) and race (Black versus White). In Experiment 2, we used different face primes of younger and older Black and White men, and participants categorized words as 'threatening' or 'safe.' Results consistently revealed robust racial biases in object and word identification: Dangerous objects and words were identified more easily (faster response times, lower error rates), and non-dangerous objects and words were identified less easily, after seeing Black face primes than after seeing White face primes. Process dissociation procedure analyses, which aim to isolate the unique contributions of automatic and controlled processes to task performance, further indicated that these effects were driven entirely by racial biases in automatic processing. In neither experiment did prime age moderate racial bias, suggesting that the implicit danger associations commonly evoked by younger Black versus White men appear to generalize to older Black versus White men.

Intergroup visual perspective-taking: Shared group membership impairs self-perspective inhibition but may facilitate perspective calculation.

Reasoning about what other people see, know, and want is essential for navigating social life. Yet, even neurodevelopmentally healthy adults make perspective-taking errors. Here, we examined how the group membership of perspective-taking targets (ingroup vs. outgroup) affects processes underlying visual perspective-taking. In three experiments using two bases of group identity (university affiliation and minimal groups), interference from one's own differing perspective (i.e., egocentric intrusion) was stronger when responding from an ingroup versus an outgroup member's perspective. Spontaneous perspective calculation, as indexed by interference from another's visual perspective when reporting one's own (i.e., altercentric intrusion), did not differ across target group membership in any of our experiments. Process-dissociation analyses, which aim to isolate automatic processes underlying altercentric-intrusion effects, further revealed negligible effects of target group membership on perspective calculation. Meta-analytically, however, there was suggestive evidence that shared group membership facilitates responding from others' perspectives when self and other perspectives are aligned.