Applying the Flanker Task to Political Psychology: A Research Note

Abstract

One of the two stated objectives of the new “Research Note” section of Political Psychology is to present short reports that highlight novel methodological approaches. Toward that end, we call readers' attention to the “flanker task,” a research protocol widely employed in the study of the cognitive processes involved with detection, recognition, and distraction. The flanker task has increasingly been modified to study social traits, and we believe it has untapped value in the area of political psychology. Here we describe the flanker task—discussing its potential for political psychology—and illustrate this potential by presenting results from a study correlating political ideology to flanker effects.

Political Neuroscience: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

“…Consistent with the results of McLean et al. (), effects of political orientation were observed only in the context of being presented with angry (i.e., threatening) faces, so that conflict‐related N2 amplitudes on these trials were larger among children of liberals (and moderates) than conservatives. This pattern of results conceptually replicates, in children, an effect of political orientation on neurocognitive functioning that was documented in a study of adults by Amodio et al.…”

Associations between parental ideology and neural sensitivity to cognitive conflict in children

“…Thus, it is possible that threat-related contexts may amplify neurocognitive differences between liberals and conservatives, whereas pleasant or neutral contexts would not. Consistent with this notion, McLean and colleagues (2013) found that conservatives, but not liberals, displayed enhanced sensitivity to angry targets, measured by reaction times indexing greater attentional focusing. In the present study, we varied the emotional context of conflict monitoring by displaying an angry face (threat-relevant) or a comparison face (happy or neutral) prior to each trial of a flanker task.…”

“…Ideological differences in conflict processing might also be moderated by the emotional context in which cognitive processes operate (McLean et al, 2013). The past decade has seen an explosion of research demonstrating that individual differences, such as enhanced sensitivity to negative and threat-related stimuli, moderate the impact of emotional factors on cognition (e.g., Dennis & Chen, 2007; Hofmann, Ellard, & Siegle, 2012; Ohrmann et al, 2007).…”

“…Political conservatism is associated with greater sensitivity to negative stimuli (Carraro, Castelli, & Macchiella, 2011; Jost et al, 2007; Oxley et al, 2008; Shook & Clay, 2011) and greater vigilance for potential threats in the environment (Dodd, Balzer, & Jacobs, 2012; McLean et al, 2013). For instance, conservatives are more likely than liberals to respond to negative or threatening images with increased physiological arousal and to rapidly fixate upon the images, suggesting increased cognitive resources devoted to threat (Dodd et al, 2012; Hibbing et al, 2014).…”

“…The ANT is a cued version of the Eriksen Flanker Task, which has been shown to elicit ACC activity and can be used to measure attentional processing in response to congruent and incongruent responses options (Fan, Wu, Fossella, & Posner, 2001). Moreover, the Flanker Task has been identified as an especially promising measurement tool for identifying core cognitive processes associated with ideological differences, especially in emotional contexts (McLean et al, 2013). In the present study, we used the ANT to estimate the influence of parental political orientation on both N2 amplitudes and attention performance under conditions of high conflict (incongruent flankers) and low conflict (congruent flankers).…”