West Tessa V, Pearson Adam R, Stern Chadly
Department of Psychology, New York University.
Department of Psychology, Pomona College.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2014 Nov;107(5):825-43. doi: 10.1037/a0037941.
Intergroup interactions are often anxiety provoking, and this can lead members of both majority and minority groups to avoid contact. Whereas negative consequences of experiencing intergroup anxiety are well documented, the role of perceived anxiety has received substantially less theoretical and empirical attention. We demonstrate in 3 experiments that the perception of anxiety in others can undermine intergroup interactions even when the anxiety can be attributed to a source that is unrelated to the interaction. Participants who learned that a cross-race partner's anxiety could be attributed to an upcoming evaluation (Study 1) or a stimulant (i.e., caffeine, Studies 2 and 3) expressed less interest in continuing an interaction (Studies 1 and 2), showed less self-disclosure (Study 2), and increased physical distance between themselves and their partner (Study 3) than did those given no source information and participants who interacted with a same-race partner. Moreover, compared to control participants, perceivers who were given an incidental explanation for their partner's anxiety perceived outgroup, but not ingroup, partners as more anxious (Studies 1 and 3) and showed heightened accessibility of anxiety words (Study 3), indicating that incidental source information enhanced accessibility of intergroup (but not intragroup) anxiety at early stages of information processing. Theoretical and practical implications for combating paradoxical effects of perceived anxiety in intergroup interactions are considered.
群体间的互动常常会引发焦虑，这可能导致多数群体和少数群体的成员都避免接触。虽然群体间焦虑体验的负面后果已有充分记录，但感知到的焦虑所起的作用在理论和实证方面受到的关注要少得多。我们通过3个实验证明，即使焦虑可归因于与互动无关的来源，对他人焦虑的感知也会破坏群体间的互动。得知跨种族伙伴的焦虑可归因于即将到来的评估（研究1）或兴奋剂（即咖啡因，研究2和3）的参与者，与没有得到来源信息的参与者以及与同种族伙伴互动的参与者相比，对继续互动的兴趣更低（研究1和2），自我表露更少（研究2），并且与伙伴之间的身体距离更远（研究3）。此外，与对照组参与者相比，得到关于其伙伴焦虑的附带解释的感知者认为外群体伙伴（而非内群体伙伴）更焦虑（研究1和3），并且焦虑相关词汇的易接近性更高（研究3）；这表明在信息处理的早期阶段，附带的来源信息增强了群体间（而非群体内）焦虑的易接近性。我们还考虑了应对群体间互动中感知到的焦虑所产生的矛盾效应的理论和实际意义。
