Moral concerns increase attention and response monitoring during IAT performance: ERP evidence

Abstract

Previous research has revealed that people value morality as a more important person characteristic than competence. In this study, we tested whether people adjust their less explicit behavior more to moral than competence values. Participants performed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) that was either framed as a test of their morality or as a test of their competence. The behavioral results revealed a smaller IAT effect (i.e. a weaker negative implicit bias toward Muslims) in the morality condition than in the competence condition. Moreover, event-related potentials indicated increased social categorization of faces (as indexed by the N1 and P150) and enhanced conflict- and error monitoring (N450 and error-related negativity) in the morality condition compared to the competence condition. These findings indicate that an emphasis on morality can increase attentional and motivational processes that help to improve people's task performance.

The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping

“…Similar patterns have been observed when people are confronted with explicit feedback about their bias. In two fMRI studies in which subjects completed IAT measures of racial attitudes, false IAT feedback to the subjects indicating that he or she showed racial prejudice elicited heightened ACC activity, and this degree of activity was associated with feelings of guilt -a self-regulatory emotion that promotes prosocial behaviours 129,130 . Together, these findings suggest that the ACC supports the detection of one's unwanted social biases and the engagement of cognitive control in order to avoid the expression of bias.…”

Detecting and Experiencing Prejudice

“…In fact, individuals tend to avoid expressing explicitly biased judgments, and even try to control relatively implicit biases, especially when the moral implications of doing so are made salient (Van Nunspeet, Derks, Ellemers, & Nieuwenhuis, 2015;Van Nunspeet, Ellemers, Derks, & Nieuwenhuis, 2014). Yet, systematic differences in important societal outcomes remain-for instance between men and women in pay levels and career progress-that cannot be explained by legitimate causes for such differences, such as level of education or nature of employment (for an overview, see Ellemers, 2014).…”

Moral Perception

“…They were either told that the test measured competence or moral values (i.e., egalitarianism). Those who were told that the test measures egalitarianism expressed less racial bias on the IAT and had greater event-related potentials associated with early attentional processing of faces (P150) and error monitoring (N450), respectively [9]. Moral context heightened attention to relevant stimuli to promote the expression of one's moral values, leading them to act more egalitarian.…”