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| Sawsan Mbirkou, B.A. - fleurvingt@hotmail.com |
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| Previous research has shown that extended training in non-stereotypic responding (i.e., negating stereotypes and affirming counterstereotypes) can reduce automatic stereotype activation. In the present research, we claim that the effects of non-stereotypic association training on automatic stereotype activation are primarily driven by the affirmation of counterstereotypes rather than by the negation of stereotypes. In two experiments, participants received extensive training in either (a) negating stereotype-congruent information or (b) affirming stereotype-incongruent information, and then completed a measure of automatic stereotyping (Experiment 1) or automatic evaluation (Experiment 2). Consistent with our predictions, only training in the affirmation of counterstereotypes led to a reduction in the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. In contrast, extended training in the negation of stereotypes enhanced rather than reduced the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. Implications for prejudice and stereotype control are discussed. |
| Gawronski, Deutsch, Mbirkou, Seibt, & Strack (in press). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |
| When "Just Say No" is Not Enough: Affirmation versus Negation Training and the Reduction of Automatic Stereotype Activation |
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| What You See Is What You Eat: The Impact of Distraction and Visual Salience on Self-Regulation of Food Intake |
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| In today’s society where high calorie palatable food and snacks are readily available, individuals often lose control of their eating behaviour. Attentional lapses, such as when one is distracted by television, have been hypothesized to be linked to the loss of control over eating. Researchers interested in the role of attention in self-regulation of food intake have confounded two aspects of attention: visual salience, or the visual attention to tempting foods versus distraction, or the amount of thought spent reflecting on eating and its downsides. In my thesis, I expand on a new model of eating behaviour to explore how both visual salience and distraction interact to determine self-control success in the domain of eating. Subjects were presented with an interesting video clip to manipulate distraction while asked to eat chocolates in their visual field or outside their visual field to manipulate visual salience. The role of dieting status will be explored as a possible moderator of the relationship between attention and self-control of eating. |
| Stereotypes on the Rebound: Underlying Cognitive Mechanisms |
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| Mbirkou & Gawronski. Poster Presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Memphis, January 2007. |
| Studies on “rebound effects” repeatedly demonstrated that suppressed thoughts reappear with greater insistence following their suppression. Subjects asked to suppress stereotypes, for example, show an increased stereotypical response following suppression. The most agreed upon underlying mechanism of rebound effects implies the increased activation of unwanted thoughts following their suppression. Conrey, Sherman, Gawronski, Hugenberg, & Groom (2005) have shown, however, that an increase in stereotypical responding on measures of automatic stereotype activation does not necessarily imply an increased activation of stereotypes, but can rather reflect other mechanisms confounded in these measures. Drawing on the Quad Model of implicit task performance (Conrey et al., 2005), the goal of this study was to further explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying rebound effects. Participants were asked to write an essay describing a typical day in the life of a Muslim man. Half of the participants (suppressors) were asked to suppress stereotypes associated with Muslims in their essay whereas the other half (non-suppressors) were not given the suppression instruction. Following the essay, all participants completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) designed to assess implicit prejudice against Muslims. Consistent with previous studies, suppressors displayed higher levels of implicit prejudice against Muslims compared to non-suppressors. However, further analyses using the Quad Model suggest that this difference was not due to enhanced activation of Muslim stereotypes. Rather, the primary factor distinguishing suppressors from non-suppressors was their lower performance in discriminating the stimuli in the IAT. These results suggest that attentional mechanisms may play a significant role in rebound effects. |
| Mbirkou, Sawsan. Master's Thesis, 2007 |