Do I Shoot Faster Because I Am Thinking about an Outgroup or a Threatening Outgroup?

Jessica Mange (1) , Keren Sharvit (2) , Nicolas Margas (3) , Cécile Sénémeaud (1)

1 NIMEC - Normandie Innovation Marché Entreprise Consommation
2 University of Haifa [Haifa]
3 CesamS - Centre d'étude sport et actions motrices

This research examines if aggressive responses through a shooter bias are systematically generated by priming outgroups or if a threat stereotypically associated with the primed outgroup is required. First, a pilot study identified outgroups stereotypically associated and not associated with threat. Afterwards, the main study included a manipulation of target group accessibility - ingroup versus nonthreatening outgroup versus threatening outgroup. Following exposure to primes of the group categories, the participants in all conditions played a shooter game in which the targets were males and females with ambiguous ethnicity and religion. Results demonstrated that while only priming of an outgroup stereotypically associated with threat elicits aggressive responses, priming of both nonthreatening and threatening outgroups leads to an increase in the ability to distinguish between stimuli compared to ingroup priming. These effects are discussed in terms of priming effects, dimensions of threat, and possible interpretations of this ability increase.

Keywords: Perceived threat; Shooter paradigm; Social categories priming; Aggressive responses

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Business administration

Jessica Mange, Keren Sharvit, Nicolas Margas, Cécile Sénémeaud. Do I Shoot Faster Because I Am Thinking about an Outgroup or a Threatening Outgroup?: Shooter Bias, Perceived Threat, and Intergroup Processes. Social Psychology, 2016, 47 (1), pp.29-37. ⟨10.1027/1864-9335/a000255⟩. ⟨hal-02180662⟩