CONSCIOUS AND NON-CONSCIOUS BASES OF SOCIAL JUDGMENT: MINDSET AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES IN THE PERCEPTION OF INTERGROUP CONFLICT by Susan D. Sullivan A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Charles E. Schmidt College of Science in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL May 2013 CONSCIOUS AND NON-CONSCIOUS BASES OF SOCIAL JUDGMENT: MIND SET AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES IN THE PERCEPTION OF INTERGROUP CONFLICT by Susan D. Sullivan This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the candidate's dissertation advisor, Dr. Robin R. Vallacher, Department of Psychology, and has been approved by the members of her supervision committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. R. Vallacher, Dissertation Advisor ~ d L. lvdl,-- David L. Woigin, Ph.D. Chair, eR e of sychology - ~¢~ ~/ .".. ~,...-,- ------- College of Science Barry T. R son, Ph.D. Dean, Graduate College 11 ABSTRACT Author: Susan D. Sullivan Title: Conscious and Non-conscious Bases of Social Judgment: Mindset and Implicit Attitudes in the Perception of Intergroup Conflict Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Robin R. Vallacher Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2013 Research on social judgment typically emphasizes one of three processes that enable unequivocal understanding of events with ambiguous causality. In the social influence perspective, people are susceptible to the interpretations offered by others. In the explicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with their consciously held attitudes and values. In the implicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with unconscious biases. The model investigated in the present study assumes that these processes vary in salience depending on people’s mindset. When an event is encoded in high-level terms (i.e., its consequences), people’s judgments reflect their explicit attitudes. When encoded in low-level terms (i.e., its details), however, such attitudes are less accessible, rendering people susceptible to social influence. In the absence of social influence, people with a lower-level mindset form judgments that reflect their relevant implicit attitudes. These hypotheses were tested in the context of iii an altercation between an African-American and a White male for which responsibility could reasonably be allocated to either party. Participants with low versus high implicit racial bias toward Blacks read a narrative concerning this altercation under either a low- level or a high-level mindset and then read a summary that blamed one of the parties or they did not read a summary. As predicted, low-level participants allocated responsibility to the African-American if they had a high implicit racial bias and to the White if they had a low implicit racial bias, regardless of the summary manipulation. Contrary to prediction, however, high-level participants’ allocation of responsibility did not reflect their explicit prejudicial attitudes. Instead, they corrected for their implicit biases in their trait inferences and affective reactions, in line with research suggesting that a high-level mindset promotes self-regulatory processes in social judgment. iv CONSCIOUS AND NON-CONSCIOUS BASES OF SOCIAL JUDGMENT: MINDSET AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES IN THE PERCEPTION OF INTERGROUP CONFLICT List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 8 Background and Theoretical Rationale ..........................................................................9 Action Identification. .......................................................................................9 Implicit Attitudes ...........................................................................................15 Implicit Attitudes and the Intrinsic Dynamics of Action Identification ........18 Experimental Test of the Proposed Integration ...........................................................21 Method .............................................................................................................................. 25 Participants ...................................................................................................................25 Materials and Procedure ..............................................................................................25 Session 1 Procedure .......................................................................................26 Session 1 Materials .......................................................................................26 Session 2 Procedure .......................................................................................26 Dependent Measures. .....................................................................................31 Results ............................................................................................................................... 33 Preliminary Analyses ...................................................................................................33 v Tests of Hypotheses .....................................................................................................34 Allocation of Responsibility ..........................................................................34 Personality Impression ...................................................................................38 Affective Reaction .........................................................................................40 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 43 Theoretical Significance ..............................................................................................43 Interplay between Attitudes and Action Identification ..................................44 Emergence in Social Judgment ......................................................................50 Self-regulation in Social Judgment ................................................................51 Implications for Social Issues ......................................................................................53 Caveats and Future Research .......................................................................................56 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................59 Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 61 Appendix 1: Session 1 Materials .................................................................................61 Appendix 2: Session 2 Materials .................................................................................67 References ......................................................................................................................... 83 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Allocation of responsibility to Black and White defendants as a function of implicit racial bias and instructional set. ........................................................................... 37 Figure 2. Personality impressions of Black and White defendants as a function of implicit racial bias and instructional set. ........................................................................... 40 Figure 3. Affective reaction to Black and White defendants as a function of implicit racial bias and instructional set. ........................................................................................ 41 vii INTRODUCTION Social life is often ambiguous. Even the simplest action in an interpersonal encounter is open to different interpretations. A smile can signify warmth or condescension; a critical comment can be viewed as constructive or hostile, and expressed agreement with a statement can be seen as sincere or as manipulative. In most everyday contexts, the open-ended nature of action does not pose serious problems for social judgment. People may differ in how they identify a particular action, but these differences are usually resolved through communication or clarified through further actions. In some contexts, though, the inherent ambiguity of action and the manner in which such ambiguity is resolved can have major consequences. Particularly when the action in question is framed in terms of morality or criminality, the progression from observation to judgment may have enormous implications. In an encounter that escalates to confrontation and violence, for instance, how the key actions are identified and evaluated dictates the immediate judgments of both parties involved. These judgments can have long-term reputational consequences for one or the other party and perhaps determine his or her fate in the criminal justice system. The identification of action and the relevance of this process for issues of social judgment have been major topics in psychology for many years (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Hastorf, Schneider, & Polefka, 1970; Heider, 1958; Kunda, 1999; Tagiuri & Petrullo, 1958; Vallacher &Wegner, 1987; Wegner & Vallacher, 1977). Despite the intense 8 interest and sustained research attention concerning this topic, however, very basic