Citation

Koenig S, Nauroth P, Lucke S, Lachnit H, Gollwitzer M, Uengoer M. Biol. Psychol. 2017; 129: 195-206.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.08.060

PMID

28867539

Abstract

The present study explores the notion of an out-group fear learning bias that is characterized by a facilitated fear acquisition toward harm-doing out-group members. Participants were conditioned with two in-group and two out-group faces as conditioned stimuli. During acquisition, one in-group and one out-group face was paired with an aversive shock whereas the other in-group and out-group faces were presented without shock. Psychophysiological measures of fear conditioning (skin conductance and pupil size) and explicit and implicit liking exhibited an increased differential responding towards out-group faces compared to in-group faces on. However, the results did not clearly indicate that harm-doing out-group members were more readily associated with fear than harm-doing in-group members. In contrast, the out-group face not paired with shock decreased conditioned fear and disliking at least to the same extent that the shock-associated out-group face increased these measures. Based on these results, we suggest an account of the out-group fear learning bias that relates to an attentional bias to process in-group information.

Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Language: en

Keywords

Attention; Evaluative learning; Fear conditioning; Intergroup bias; Preparedness; Pupil response; Skin conductance response