Nancy Seideman
(404) 727-0640
[email protected]
EMORY PSYCHOLOGIST EXAMINES STUDENTS' LATENT PERSONAL
PREJUDICE THROUGH STUDY OF FACIAL EXPRESSION
Facial muscle activity may serve as a tell-tale sign of latent personal prejudice, according Emory visiting psychology professor Eric Vanman, who analyzed how facial movements indicate racial bias among white college students in a study he conducted at the University of Southern California (USC). The study was published in the November 1997 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
"I think a lot of people in the '90s think discussions about racial prejudice are a dead issue," says Vanman. "They think it's time to move on to other things, but I think this study shows how invalid these self-reports are. The students represent the extreme end of the continuum and we still found racial bias. If we went out to mainstream America, the bias would be much stronger." Vanman performed this study to show that people who won't openly admit their own prejudices may still harbor negative feelings towards people of another race. Theorizing that this prejudice often manifests itself in a work environment or school setting, Vanman conducted his study using 89 male and female university students, all of whom were enrolled in psychology courses at USC. Conducting three experiments, he placed pairs of electrodes over the brow and cheek area of each participant to examine the role these facial muscles play in forming expressions such as a smile or a frown. Vanman said he used these physiological measures to assess how whites truly felt about blacks even though most participants wouldn't admit anti-black prejudice. "We were tapping into people's feelings and asking them in the first two experiments to imagine how they might feel in a particular situation," says Vanman. He used photographic scenarios featuring blacks and whites together and asked participants to imagine themselves working and interacting with blacks. While most participants verbally expressed no racial prejudice against blacks in either experiment, Vanman's study showed many people harboring "hidden" negative facial expressions. Even white participants who said they preferred working with blacks demonstrated facial activity suggesting anti-black sentiment, Vanman explained.
In another study, participants simply looked at pictures of whites and blacks without imagining themselves interacting and working together. Vanman said this experiment delivered similar results; in fact, analysis showed whites presenting greater facial bias against blacks, especially those participants with higher scores on the Modern Racism Scale, a political measure of personal prejudice.
While the studies confirmed Vanman's hypothesis of hidden prejudice, there remain some unresolved issues among scholars. Some social psychologists argue that using scenarios in experiments may tend to "tell" subjects how to react or lead participants to confirm the hypothesis. Many contend this approach doesn't leave room for spontaneous action or minor events that could affect behavior in face-to-face situations.
Vanman said he will continue his research at Emory to analyze if facial expressions can truly predict racial prejudice in the laboratory. More specifically, his work will focus on demonstrating the predictive validity of physiological measures. He currently is writing a paper that discusses how black participants indicated a preference for pictures showing blacks.
###
RSS