Awe and Stereotypes: Examining Awe as an Intervention against Stereotypical Media Portrayals of African Americans

Can Induced Awe Reduce Anti-Gay Prejudice in Heterosexual Adults and Does the Need for Closure Moderate this Effect?

“…The results pertaining to the first hypothesis were however in line with Dale et al (2020), who did not find a significant effect of induced awe on reduction of negative stereotypical attitudes toward African Amer-icans. Dale et al (2020) posited that individuals may not perceive the effects of induced awe beyond the emotion itself, and the attitudinal shifts that are expected to happen in response to the experience of awe are likely to be outside of conscious awareness thereby impacting only implicit attitudes and not explicit attitudes. Since both Dale et al (2020) and this study used a prejudice scale measuring explicit attitudes, this may have led to insignificant effects of induced awe on prejudice reduction in both studies.…”

“…Experiencing awe-inspiring phenomena involves challenging one's current mental structures (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), and searching for new knowledge structures to make sense of new experiences, leading to schema change (Shiota et al, 2007). Although Dale et al (2020) did not find support for a schema change with regard to negative racial attitudes toward African Americans, Stancato and Keltner (2021), across three experimental studies, did find robust support for it as a result of experiencing induced awe. Stancato and Keltner (2021) tested the effects of experimentally induced awe on reducing conviction about one's ideological attitudes related to racism and found that induced awe led to uncertainty and ambivalence regarding one's attitudes towards ideologically opponent outgroups and that in turn promoted reduced dogmatism and increased perceptions of social cohesion.…”

“…Dale et al (2020) posited that individuals may not perceive the effects of induced awe beyond the emotion itself, and the attitudinal shifts that are expected to happen in response to the experience of awe are likely to be outside of conscious awareness thereby impacting only implicit attitudes and not explicit attitudes. Since both Dale et al (2020) and this study used a prejudice scale measuring explicit attitudes, this may have led to insignificant effects of induced awe on prejudice reduction in both studies. Using scales measuring explicit attitudes could have also led to inauthentic measurement of prejudice in both cases.…”

“…None of the three hypotheses were supported since there were no main effects of awe or NFC on AGP, and no interaction effect of awe and NFC on AGP. Key implications of these results were 1) awe inducement does not change prejudicial attitudes at an explicit level (Dale et al, 2020), 2) factors beyond NFC, like Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), may influence the effectiveness of awe in reducing prejudice, and 3) questions were raised about certain boundaries for awe's effectiveness. Methodological modifications suggested for future research include using implicit measures or veiled elicitation methods for authentic measurement of AGP, employing more potent awe elicitors, and assessing the mediating role of RWA and SDO on the effect of NFC on AGP.…”

News Media Representations: Audience Perceptions of News Frames About Latinxs and Hispanics

“…In this process of social organization, minoritized populations have been historically underrepresented and misrepresented in the media (Brown et al, 2018; Puente et al, 2022). Also, researchers have systematically found that alienated groups are overrepresented as a threat to society (Cruz, 2022; Dixon & Linz, 2000; Fujioka, 2011; Paul & Sui, 2023) and, as documented by a myriad of studies, there is a long history of media disseminating oversimplified portrayals of ethnic groups (e.g., Dale et al, 2020; Tukachinsky et al, 2017; Zhang, 2010).…”