Right wing authoritarianism is associated with race bias in face detection

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179894
• Publication Date: 2017-07-10T17:32:33Z
• Authors: Amélie Bret; Brice Beffara; Jessica McFadyen; Martial Mermillod
• Keywords: Social dominance orientation; Disengagement theory; Dominance (genetics)

Racial discrimination can be observed in a wide range of psychological processes, including even the earliest phases face detection. It remains unclear, however, whether racially-biased low-level processing is influenced by ideologies, such as right wing authoritarianism or social dominance orientation. In current study, we hypothesized that socio-political ideologies these substantially predict perceptive racial bias during early perception. To test this hypothesis, 67 participants detected faces within arrays neutral objects. The were either Caucasian (in-group) North African (out-group) and had angry expression. Results showed with higher self-reported right-wing more likely to show slower response times for detecting out- vs. in-groups faces. We interpreted our results according Dual Process Motivational Model suggest may foster via attentional disengagement.