My research focuses on the justification of prejudice and discrimination. Using experimental methods, my research tests the hypothesis that negative affect drives the cognitive and behavioral components of prejudice, including perception of threat, stereotypes, and behavioral responses. The goal of this research is to better understand how and when cognitive and behavioral components of prejudice develop—information that is critical to reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relations.
Another line of work I have uses experimental and field methods to investigate attitude and prejudice similarity among friends. My work investigates how (and how quickly) people are able to detect attitudinal similarity in others. I am finding that similarity has its influence on attraction very early (and probably only very early) in the stages of relationship development. My research also suggests that people use nonverbal cues to make inferences about the attitudes and behaviors of potential friends in the very first moments of social interaction.
Bahns, A. J., Pickett, K., & Crandall, C. S. (2012). The social ecology of similarity: Big schools, small schools and social relationships. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 15, 119-131. doi: 10.1177/1368430211410751
Social ecologies shape the way people initiate and maintain social relationships. Settings with much opportunity will lead to more fine-grained similarity among friends; less opportunity leads to less similarity. We compare two ecological contexts—a large, relatively diverse state university versus smaller colleges in the same state—to test the hypothesis that a larger pool of available friendship choices will lead to greater similarity within dyads. Participants in the large campus sample reported substantially more perceived ability to move in and out of relationships compared to participants in the small colleges sample. Dyads were significantly more similar on attitudes, beliefs, and health behaviors in the large campus than in the small colleges sample. Our findings reveal an irony—greater human diversity within an environment leads to less personal diversity within dyads. Local social ecologies create their own “cultures” that affect how human relationships are formed.
Crandall, C. S., Bahns, A. J., Warner, R., & Schaller, M. (2011). Stereotypes as justifications for prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 1488-1498. doi: 10.1177/0146167211411723
Three experiments investigate how stereotypes form as justifications for prejudice. The authors created novel content-free prejudices toward unfamiliar social groups using either subliminal (Experiment 1, N = 79) or supraliminal (Experiment 2, N = 105; Experiment 3, N = 130) affective conditioning and measured the consequent endorsement of stereotypes about the groups. Following the stereotype content model, analyses focused on the extent to which stereotypes connoted warmth or competence. Results from all three experiments revealed effects on the warmth dimension but not on the competence dimension: Groups associated with negative affect were stereotyped as comparatively cold (but not comparatively incompetent). These results provide the first evidence that—in the absence of information, interaction, or history of behavioral discrimination—stereotypes develop to justify prejudice.
Bahns, A. J., & Branscombe, N. R. (2011). Effects of legitimizing discrimination against homosexuals on gay bashing. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 388-396. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.784
We used a computer harassment paradigm to test the hypothesis that affirming the legitimacy of discrimination against homosexuals increases the likelihood that heterosexual men will engage in verbal gay bashing. Legitimacy of discrimination was varied among heterosexual males (N = 167) by suggesting that denying homosexuals rights and benefits is either illegitimate or legitimate, and participants interacted online with either a gay or straight bogus discussion partner. Results show that (a) participants sent more offensive comments when the legitimacy of discrimination against homosexuals was affirmed, and (b) legitimacy affected gay bashing through its effect on collective guilt. These findings suggest that challenging the legitimacy of discrimination can be an effective strategy for reducing outgroup derogation.
Bahns, A. J. (2011). Feelings tell us friend or foe: Threat as justification for prejudice. (Doctoral dissertation) Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1808/7697.
Knowing how we feel about a group is enough to influence whether we perceive the group as threatening or non-threatening. Some theories assume that threat causes prejudice, such as integrated threat theory (ITT; Stephan & Renfro, 2002; Stephan & Stephan, 2000) and other cognitively-oriented models of prejudice. An affective primacy perspective (Crandall et al., 2011; Pryor et al., 1999; Zajonc, 1980) instead suggests that prejudice can cause perception of threat. Four experiments tested the hypothesis that prejudice causes heightened perception of threat, using affective conditioning to create negative (Expts. 1-3) or emotionally specific (disgust-provoking or fear-provoking; Expt. 4) affective associations with unfamiliar social groups. When a group was associated with negative affect, its members were stereotyped as more threatening and less warm (but no less competent) compared to when it was associated with positive affect (Expts. 1, 3). Conditioned prejudice increased perception of threat (Expts. 2 and 4), and caused a consistent pattern of behavioral response tendencies (Expts. 3 and 4). Groups associated with negative affect were more likely to be aggressed against, and less likely to be approached. The effect of conditioning was statistically reliable for judgments of warmth and threat, but not for judgments of competence (Expts. 1-3). Disgust conditioning increased perception of symbolic threat and realistic threat, and increased aggressive response tendencies (Expt. 4). The effect of disgust on aggressive behaviors was mediated by symbolic threat, and the effect of disgust on avoidance and approach behaviors was mediated by realistic threat. Together, the findings demonstrate that prejudice can cause perception of threat, which undermines the favored interpretation of the correlational basis of cognitively-oriented theories such as ITT. Correlational data in support of cognitively-oriented theories is consistent with both directional paths--threat can cause prejudice, and prejudice can cause perception of threat. Experiments are necessary to distinguish between threat's role as a cause for prejudice and threat's role as a justification of prejudice.
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