 Becky
McGill
Department of Psychology
1202 West Johnson Street
Madison, WI, 53706
Phone: 608-265-3960
Currently, I am interested in the consequences
that intergroup tension and anxiety have for intergroup
relations. Past research has shown that when people
feel intergroup anxiety they tend to evaluate outgroups
more negatively. I am interested in uncovering why
this link between intergroup anxiety and negative
evaluations exists. Several theorists have suggested
that people negatively evaluate outgroup members
because they attribute any anxiety they feel during
an interaction to the outgroup member rather than
some other factor such as the situation or their
own cognitions (e.g., lack of experience or norms
for how to behave in intergroup interactions). We
can test this idea by giving individuals different
attributions for any anxiety they feel while interacting
with an outgroup member. We would expect that experiencing
intergroup anxiety will only lead to derogation of
the outgroup member when the individual can attribute
their anxiety to the outgroup member. I am currently
running a study to test this hypothesis.
|
