Stereotype Activation and Control of Race Bias: Cognitive Control of Inhibition and Its Impairment by Alcohol

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2006-02, Vol.90 (2), p.272-287
• Main Authors: Bartholow, Bruce D, Dickter, Cheryl L, Sestir, Marc A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; African Continental Ancestry Group - psychology; Alcohol; Alcohol Drinking - adverse effects; Alcohol Drinking - physiopathology; Alcohol Drinking - psychology; Alcohol Use; Alcoholic Intoxication - physiopathology; Alcoholic Intoxication - psychology; Association Learning - drug effects; Bias; Biological and medical sciences; Cerebral Cortex - drug effects; Cerebral Cortex - physiopathology; Cognitive Control; Cognitive Processes; Cognitive psychology; Contingent Negative Variation; Cues; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; Drinking Behavior; Drunkenness; Electroencephalography; Empirical research; European Continental Ancestry Group - psychology; Evoked Potentials; Face; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Inhibition (Psychology); Internal-External Control; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual - drug effects; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Prejudice; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Race and Ethnic Discrimination; Race Relations; Racial discrimination; Racism; Reaction Time - drug effects; Reaction Time - physiology; Regression analysis; Response Inhibition; Responses; Self-Control; Self-management; Semantics; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social psychology; Stereotyped Attitudes; Stereotypes; Stereotyping
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.90.2.272

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that alcohol increases race-biased responding via impairment of self-regulatory cognitive control. Participants consumed either a placebo or alcohol and then made speeded responses to stereotypic trait words presented after White and Black face primes while behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) data were recorded. Alcohol did not affect stereotype activation in either experiment. Experiment 2 showed that alcohol significantly impaired the ability to inhibit race-biased responses but did not reliably influence control of counterstereotypic responses. This disinhibition appears driven by impairment of regulative cognitive control, as indexed by amplitude of the negative slow wave ERP component. These findings suggest that controlling racial bias can be a function of effective implementation of basic self-regulatory processes in addition to the motivational processes identified in other research.