Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, 210 McAlester Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2018 Dec;18(6):1283-1297. doi: 10.3758/s13415-018-0639-8.
Affect regulation plays a key role in several theories of racial bias reduction. Here, we tested whether engaging in emotion regulation strategies while performing an implicit racial bias task (Weapons Identification Task; WIT) would alter neural and behavioral manifestations of bias. Participants either suppressed or reappraised in a positive light the distress associated with making errors during the WIT, while an electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. We hypothesized that engaging in emotion regulation strategies would reduce the distress associated with making errors indicative of bias, resulting in smaller error-related negativity (ERN) amplitude during errors and increased expression of racial bias. Results of within-subjects comparisons (Experiment 1) generally supported these predictions. However, when emotion regulation strategies were manipulated between subjects (Experiment 2) there was no effect of suppression or reappraisal on bias expression. Across both experiments, engaging in emotion regulation led to larger ERNs for errors occurring on Black- relative to White-primed trials. In addition, a number of significant order effects were observed, indicating important differences in the effects of engaging in emotion regulation strategies when those strategies are attempted in participants' first versus second block of trials. No such order effects were evident when a second trial block was completed with no emotion regulation instructions. Findings are discussed in terms of the need for greater specificity in experimental tests of emotion regulation on error processing and cognitive performance.
情绪调节在几种减少种族偏见的理论中起着关键作用。在这里，我们测试了在执行内隐种族偏见任务（武器识别任务；WIT）时使用情绪调节策略是否会改变偏见的神经和行为表现。参与者在 WIT 中犯错时，要么抑制，要么以积极的方式重新评估与犯错相关的痛苦，同时记录脑电图（EEG）。我们假设，采用情绪调节策略会减少与偏见相关的错误所带来的痛苦，从而导致错误相关负向波（ERN）的幅度在错误时减小，并增加种族偏见的表达。 内-被试比较的结果（实验 1）通常支持这些预测。然而，当情绪调节策略在被试之间被操纵（实验 2）时，抑制或重新评估对偏见表达没有影响。在两个实验中，采用情绪调节策略会导致在黑人启动的试次上的错误比在白人启动的试次上的错误产生更大的 ERN。此外，还观察到一些显著的顺序效应，表明在参与者的第一组与第二组试次中尝试情绪调节策略时，其效果存在重要差异。当第二组试次没有情绪调节指令时，就不会出现这种顺序效应。研究结果从实验测试情绪调节对错误处理和认知表现的影响需要更大的特异性的角度进行了讨论。
