Verbal instruction abolishes fear conditioned to racial out-group faces

Abstract

a b s t r a c tPrevious research has shown resistance to extinction of fear conditioned to racial out-group faces, suggesting that these stimuli may be subject to prepared fear learning. The current study replicated and extended previous research by using a different racial out-group, and testing the prediction that prepared fear learning is unaffected by verbal instructions. Four groups of Caucasian participants were trained with male in-group (Caucasian) or out-group (Chinese) faces as conditional stimuli; one paired with an electro-tactile shock (CS+) and one presented alone (CSÀ). Before extinction, half the participants were instructed that no more shocks would be presented. Fear conditioning, indexed by larger electrodermal responses to, and blink startle modulation during the CS+, occurred during acquisition in all groups. Resistance to extinction of fear learning was found only in the racial out-group, no instruction condition. Fear conditioned to a racial out-group face was reduced following verbal instructions, contrary to predictions for the nature of prepared fear learning.Crown

A potential pathway to the relapse of fear? Conditioned negative stimulus evaluation (but not physiological responding) resists instructed extinction

“…This is to our knowledge the first study showing that instructed extinction has no effect on conditional stimulus valence in a differential fear conditioning paradigm, whilst simultaneously showing an effect on the physiological indices of human fear learning. This pattern of results replicates previous instructed extinction studies (Mallan et al 2009;Rowles et al, 2012) and suggests that conditional stimulus valence is not responsive to instructed extinction in a fear conditioning paradigm.…”

“…Whereas Mallan, Sax, and Lipp (2009) report that, like differential electrodermal responding, instructed extinction abolishes differential fear potentiated startle, Sevenster et al (2012) report a dissociation between electrodermal responding and fear potentiated startle. In this study, instruction effects on differential electrodermal responses were immediate, i.e., evident on the very first trial of extinction training, whereas differential startle potentiation persisted for the first two trials of extinction.…”

The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping

“…Despite some success in reducing behavioural and physiological expressions of implicit bias in the laboratory 29,30,141,142 , most forms of implicit learning are resistant to extinction 140,143 . Implicit racial biases are particularly difficult to change in a cultural milieu that constantly reinforces racial prejudices and stereotypes (for example, in mainstream media).…”

“Prepared” fear or socio‐cultural learning? Fear conditioned to guns, snakes, and spiders is eliminated by instructed extinction in a within‐participant differential fear conditioning paradigm

“…Fear conditioned to images of guns also resists extinction, but only if the guns are pointed toward the participant (Hugdahl & Johnsen, ). Unlike fear conditioned to phylogenetic animal fear‐relevant stimuli, however, conditional responding to angry faces (Rowles, Lipp, & Mallan, ) and other race faces (Mallan, Sax, & Lipp, ) is abolished by instructed extinction (i.e., not encapsulated from cognition). Research, to date, has not examined whether fear conditioned to images of pointed guns would also be removed by instructed extinction, or whether like fear conditioned to images of snakes and spiders, fear conditioned to pointed guns would resist instructed extinction.…”