Department of Psychology, Stanford University, CA.
Department of Marketing, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin.
Sleep. 2020 Feb 13;43(2). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsz213.
This research seeks to bridge two findings-on the one hand, top-down controlled processes inhibit display of intergroup bias; on the other one hand, sleep deprivation impairs cognitive control processes. Connecting these two proven statements, begs the question: would sleep deprivation also influence intergroup bias? This intriguing link has hardly been explored in extant literature. To fill this gap, we theorize through the lens of social identity. Previous research has shown that individuals who share a common identity with an outgroup are more motivated to inhibit biases toward the outgroup than do their counterparts who do not endorse such common identity. We predicted that this motivated inhibition would be compromised by sleep deprivation. Across two studies, as predicted, we found that only when an individual has adequate sleep did common ingroup identity attenuate the display of intergroup bias, whereas individuals with short habitual sleep (study 1) or after one-night sleep deprivation (study 2) displayed equally high levels of intergroup bias regardless of their high or low levels of common ingroup identity. In the global context of incessant intergroup bias and diminishing sleep time, our findings offer new insights for understanding and handling intergroup bias.
这项研究旨在弥合两个发现之间的差距——一方面，自上而下的控制过程抑制了群体间偏见的表现；另一方面，睡眠剥夺会损害认知控制过程。将这两个已被证实的观点联系起来，不禁让人产生疑问：睡眠剥夺是否也会影响群体间偏见？这一有趣的联系在现有文献中几乎没有被探讨过。为了填补这一空白，我们通过社会认同的视角进行了理论探讨。先前的研究表明，与外群体有共同身份认同的个体比没有这种共同身份认同的个体更有动力抑制对外群体的偏见。我们预测，这种动机抑制会被睡眠剥夺所削弱。在两项研究中，正如我们所预测的那样，我们发现只有当个体有充足的睡眠时，共同的内群体身份才会减弱群体间偏见的表现，而那些习惯性睡眠不足（研究 1）或经历一夜睡眠剥夺（研究 2）的个体，无论其共同内群体身份高低，都会表现出同样高的群体间偏见水平。在不断加剧的群体间偏见和睡眠时间减少的全球背景下，我们的发现为理解和处理群体间偏见提供了新的视角。
