The role of physiological arousal and intergroup anxiety in prejudice

Prejudice against social groups remains a problem within society. Prejudice is associated with strong emotions, but the majority of psychological research has used cognitive models. One common emotion is intergroup anxiety: this is associated with stereotyping, bias, and negative affect (Greenland & Brown, 1999). Unfortunately, the majority of research on intergroup anxiety is correlational, and has relied on a single, flawed measure of intergroup anxiety. Theoretical accounts of intergroup anxiety are also limited. The proposed research has three aims; (1) to design a novel measure of intergroup anxiety using outcome expectancies; (2) to test the hypothesis that the relation between intergroup anxiety and prejudice is mediated by physiological arousal; (3) to test two interventions to reduce prejudice. We will do this using a novel combination of experimental and correlational designs with physiological and behavioural measures.