The Influence Of Infant Face Priming And Threat Cues On Group Classification

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology,basic motivation theory points out that motivation leads people to classify others(for example,mate selection motivation may lead people to classify the opposite sex according to their physical attractiveness)(Kaschak&Maner,2009).When specific social motivations are active,the characteristics associated with these motivations may be used as the criteria for categorization(Fitzsimons&Shah,2009).Protecting oneself and future generations is the inherent motivation of individuals(Schaller&Park,2011),which prompts people to make more outgroup categorization for the protection of infants and young children in threat situations,so as to avoid the harm caused by dangerous outgroup members.Therefore,this study attempts to explore the influence of infant faces on group categorization from the perspective of threat situation.In addition,the caring behavior system and attachment behavior system coexist in individuals(Bowlby,1969),and the individual's attitude towards the out-group will be jointly regulated by the caring behavior system triggered by infant characteristics and the own attachment behavior system.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the role of dispositional attachment style in infant face priming and group categorization in threat situation.In this study,college students were used as participants,and three experiments were used to explore the effects of baby face,threat situation on group categorization and the role of dispositional attachment style.Experiment 1,Participants rated the faces of different groups(Chinese and western),employed 2(picture type:baby pictures vs scenery pictures)x 2(emotion:anger vs happy)mixed-model design,emotion being the within-subject variable.The results showed that the baby faces had shorter responses to categorizing angry faces from the west than the control group(viewing scenery pictures).Experiment 2,the minimum group paradigm was used to classify the voices of different groups(lab groups)to control the influence of external group stereotypes under natural group conditions.Employed 2(picture type:baby face picture vs adult face picture)x 2(voice type:anger vs peace)mixed design,voice type being the within-subject variable.The results show that even if there are no actual contacts or stereotypes between the internal and external group members,viewing the baby face picture group still produce more external group categorization bias than the control group(viewing the adult face picture).That is,more individuals who identified individuals with threat cues(angry tones)as outgroup.Experiment 2 also examined the role of dispositional attachment style.The results showed that the dispositional attachment anxiety had a moderating effect between infant face and outgroup categorization tendency.It showed that high attachment anxiety can significantly increase the tendency of the external group categorization caused by the infant's face;low attachment anxiety didn't.Experiment 3,the threat factors were separated from the target group to explore that the threat factors unrelated to the target group would also affect the relationship between infant face and group categorization.Participants were asked to categorize a composite face(a neutral blur of 50 percent Chinese and 50 percent western),employed 2(baby face features:high-featured baby face vs low-featured baby face)x 2(threatening situation:snake vs rope)mixed-model design,threatening situation being the within-subject variable.The results show that the high-featured infant face group judged the ambiguous neutral face more as a Westerner(out group)in threatening situation(viewing the snake picture)than the low-featured baby face.Experiment 3 also found moderating effect of trait attachment anxiety on infants' faces and their categorization tendency.In conclusion,viewing infant faces led to an increase the tendency of outgroup categorization under threat cues,and high attachment anxiety can significantly enhance the tendency of individuals to classify members with threat cues as outgroup under viewing infant faces.