Why do interracial interactions impair executive function? A resource depletion account.

Richeson, Jennifer A.; Trawalter, Sophie

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.934

Cited by 288 publications

(266 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…1 Moreover, consistent with the procedures detailed in Richeson and Shelton (2003) and Richeson and Trawalter (2005), all Stroop latencies greater than 2.5 standard deviations above the mean (i.e., times > 2,000 ms) were recoded as 2,000 ms. Lower scores reflect faster response times …”

Section: Stroop Testmentioning

confidence: 84%

Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus.

Duguid

Goncalo

2015

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Classical research on social influence suggested that people are the most conforming in the middle of a status hierarchy as opposed to the top or bottom. Yet, this promising line of research was abandoned before the psychological mechanism behind middle status conformity had been identified. Moving beyond the early focus on conformity, we propose that the threat of status loss may make those with middle status more wary of advancing creative solutions in fear that they will be evaluated negatively. Using different manipulations of status and measures of creativity, we found that when being evaluated, middle status individuals were less creative than either high status or low status individuals (Studies 1 & 2). In addition, we found that anxiety at the prospect of status loss also caused individuals with middle status to narrow their focus of attention and to think more convergently (Study 3). We delineate the consequences of power and status both theoretically and empirically by showing that, unlike status, the relationship between power and creativity is positive and linear (Study 4). By both measuring status (Studies 2 & 3) and by manipulating it directly (Study 5), we demonstrate that the threat of status loss explains the consequences of middle status. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our results for future research on status and problem solving on tasks that require either focus or flexibility.

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Section: Stroop Testmentioning

confidence: 84%

Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus.

Duguid

Goncalo

2015

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…In fact, if tasks are easy or well learned, the motivation to disconfirm the stereotype leads to better performance (O'Brien & Crandall, 2003). Similarly, in social contexts, cognitive depletion effects are only observed by White Americans speaking in front of a Black American if they are in a position of having to consciously think about the wording they use to communicate their opinion (Richeson & Trawalter, 2005).…”

Section: Working Memory As a Proximal Mediator Of Stereotype Threat Ementioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance.

Schmader

Johns

Forbes

2008

Psychological Review

1,295

1,175

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Research showing that activation of negative stereotypes can impair the performance of stigmatized individuals on a wide variety of tasks has proliferated. However, a complete understanding of the processes underlying these stereotype threat effects on behavior is still lacking. The authors examine stereotype threat in the context of research on stress arousal, vigilance, working memory, and selfregulation to develop a process model of how negative stereotypes impair performance on cognitive and social tasks that require controlled processing, as well as sensorimotor tasks that require automatic processing. The authors argue that stereotype threat disrupts performance via 3 distinct, yet interrelated, mechanisms: (a) a physiological stress response that directly impairs prefrontal processing, (b) a tendency to actively monitor performance, and (c) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions in the service of self-regulation. These mechanisms combine to consume executive resources needed to perform well on cognitive and social tasks. The active monitoring mechanism disrupts performance on sensorimotor tasks directly. Empirical evidence for these assertions is reviewed, and implications for interventions designed to alleviate stereotype threat are discussed.

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“…Several studies have presented the two self-regulatory tasks as two different experiments and have nonetheless found that participants perform worse on the second task as a result of having done the first (e.g., Baumeister et al, 1998). In addition, the effect of depletion has been found even when the demand of the initial self-control task comes from someone other than the experimenter (e.g., during an interracial vs. same-race interaction; Richeson & Trawalter, 2005). If depletion arises because participants believe that they have fulfilled a contract with the experimenter, then one might expect that an initial self-control task should be depleting only if the demands of the task come from the same experimenter.…”

Section: Validating the Construct Of Ego Depletionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self‐Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior

Baumeister

Gailliot

DeWall

et al. 2006

Journal of Personality

724

552

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Self-regulation is a highly adaptive, distinctively human trait that enables people to override and alter their responses, including changing themselves so as to live up to social and other standards. Recent evidence indicates that self-regulation often consumes a limited resource, akin to energy or strength, thereby creating a temporary state of ego depletion. This article summarizes recent evidence indicating that regular exercises in self-regulation can produce broad improvements in self-regulation (like strengthening a muscle), making people less vulnerable to ego depletion. Furthermore, it shows that ego depletion moderates the effects of many traits on behavior, particularly such that wide differences in socially disapproved motivations produce greater differences in behavior when ego depletion weakens the customary inner restraints.Self-regulation is an important personality process by which people seek to exert control over their thoughts, their feelings, their impulses and appetites, and their task performances. The human capacity for self-regulation appears to be much more extensive than what is found in other animals, which may suggest that the evolutionary pressures that guided the selection of traits that make up human nature, such as participation in cultural groups, found self-regulation to be especially adaptive and powerful (Baumeister, 2005). If so, then self-regulation may be one of the most distinctively human traits. Even if human beings are capable of more self-regulation than other animals, however, their capacity is far less than what many Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to R. Baumeister,

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Why do interracial interactions impair executive function? A resource depletion account.

Cited by 288 publications

References 56 publications

Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus.

Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus.

An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance.

Self‐Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior

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