Signal Detection on the Battlefield: Priming Self-Protection vs. Revenge-Mindedness Differentially Modulates the Detection of Enemies and Allies
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Becker-2011-Signal Detection on.pdf
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Author(s)
Becker, D. Vaughn
Mortensen, Chad R.
Shapiro, Jenessa R.
Anderson, Uriah S.
Sasaki, Takao
Maner, Jon K.
Neuberg, Steven L.
Kenrick, Douglas T.
Ackerman, Joshua
Date Issued
September 2011
Journal
PLoS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
Becker, D. Vaughn et al. “Signal Detection on the Battlefield: Priming Self-Protection Vs. Revenge-Mindedness Differentially Modulates the Detection of Enemies and Allies.” Ed. Manos Tsakiris. PLoS ONE 6.9 (2011): e23929. Web. 9 Feb. 2012.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Detecting signs that someone is a member of a hostile outgroup can depend on very subtle cues. How do ecology-relevant motivational states affect such detections? This research investigated the detection of briefly-presented enemy (versus friend) insignias after participants were primed to be self-protective or revenge-minded. Despite being told to ignore the objectively nondiagnostic cues of ethnicity (Arab vs. Western/European), gender, and facial expressions of the targets, both priming manipulations enhanced biases to see Arab males as enemies. They also reduced the ability to detect ingroup enemies, even when these faces displayed angry expressions. These motivations had very different effects on accuracy, however, with self-protection enhancing overall accuracy and revenge-mindedness reducing it. These methods demonstrate the importance of considering how signal detection tasks that occur in motivationally-charged environments depart from results obtained in conventionally motivationally-inert laboratory settings.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023929
