Hughes Colleen, Babbitt Laura G, Krendl Anne C
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States.
Department of Economics at Tufts University, Medford, MA, United States.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2019 May 1;13:143. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00143. eCollection 2019.
Outgroup members (e.g., individuals whose racial identity differs from perceivers') are stigmatized in Eastern and Western cultures. However, it remains an open question how specific cultural influences affect stigmatization. In this study, we assessed whether cultural learning (i.e., social information acquired from the people in one's environment) associated with Chinese individuals' relocation to the United States differentiated the response to multiple outgroups. Two types of cultural learning predict diverging responses to outgroups - awareness of stereotypes about different racial outgroups is associated with increased negative affect and cognitive control toward the stereotyped outgroup. Conversely, intergroup contact attenuates those responses, and does so to a greater extent for individuals from Western cultures. As Chinese-Americans would have had more opportunities to have contact with both White and Black individuals (relative to the Chinese participants), we explored their responses to outgroups as well. Because the neural regions associated with stereotyping and intergroup contact have been well-characterized, we used neuroimaging to disentangle these possibilities. Eighteen White American, 18 Chinese-American, and 17 Chinese participants - who had relocated to the United States less than 1 year prior - viewed images of Black and White individuals while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants also completed measures of awareness of cultural stereotypes in the United States about Black and White individuals, implicit bias, and experiences with White and Black individuals. Behaviorally, White American and Chinese-American participants had more intergroup contact with either race than did Chinese participants, but there was no effect of participant group on stereotype knowledge or implicit bias. When viewing faces of White (as compared to Black) individuals while undergoing fMRI, White American (relative to Chinese) participants had attenuated activation in regions of the brain associated with cognitive control, including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Chinese-Americans' neural response to either race did not differ from White American or Chinese participants. Taken together, outgroup biases seemed to emerge in a culturally-dependent way based on variability in intergroup contact, but not necessarily awareness of stereotypes.
在东方和西方文化中，外群体成员（例如，种族身份与感知者不同的个体）都会受到污名化。然而，特定文化影响如何影响污名化仍是一个悬而未决的问题。在本研究中，我们评估了与中国个体移民到美国相关的文化学习（即从周围人那里获得的社会信息）是否会使对多个外群体的反应产生差异。两种类型的文化学习预示着对外群体的不同反应——对不同种族外群体刻板印象的认知与对被刻板化外群体增加的负面影响和认知控制相关。相反，群体间接触会减弱这些反应，并且对于来自西方文化的个体来说，这种减弱程度更大。由于华裔美国人（相对于中国参与者）有更多机会与白人和黑人个体接触，我们也探究了他们对外群体的反应。因为与刻板印象和群体间接触相关的神经区域已经得到了很好的表征，我们使用神经成像来厘清这些可能性。18名美国白人、18名华裔美国人和17名中国参与者（他们在不到一年前移民到美国）在接受功能磁共振成像（fMRI）时观看白人和黑人个体的图像。参与者还完成了关于美国对黑人和白人个体的文化刻板印象认知、内隐偏见以及与白人和黑人个体接触经历的测量。在行为上，美国白人和华裔美国参与者与任何一个种族的群体间接触都比中国参与者更多，但参与者群体对刻板印象知识或内隐偏见没有影响。在接受fMRI时观看白人（与黑人相比）个体的面孔时，美国白人（相对于中国）参与者在与认知控制相关的大脑区域，包括右侧背外侧前额叶皮层、背侧纹状体和腹外侧前额叶皮层的激活减弱。华裔美国人对任何一个种族的神经反应与美国白人和中国参与者没有差异。综上所述，基于群体间接触的差异，外群体偏见似乎以一种文化依赖的方式出现，但不一定是基于对刻板印象的认知。
