That's what University of Michigan researcher Kareem Johnson found when he studied how positive and negative emotions affect our ability to identify members of other races.
Johnson and his colleagues showed 89 test subjects one of three videos: a comic one to tickle their funny bones, a horror one to induce anxiety or a "neutral" one that would not produce any extreme emotions. Then the researchers flashed 28 photos of strangers, showing each for just half a second, and asked the test participants to identify the race of the person in each photo.
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.
• Outlook Section
| | |
|
The researchers found that, on average, people would correctly identify members of their own race about 75 percent of the time but members of other races only 65 percent of the time -- evidence of an individual's "own race" bias that feeds racial prejudice. But when individuals were in a happy mood after watching the funny video, their ability to correctly identify people of other races jumped between 10 and 20 percent, erasing the own-race bias. The other two videos produced no such effect.
"Negative emotions create a tunnel vision," Johnson asserted in a statement released with the study, which will appear in a future issue of the journal Psychological Science. "Negative emotions like fear or anger are useful for short-term survival when there's an immediate danger like being chased by a dangerous animal. Positive emotions like joy and happiness are for long-term survival and promote big-picture thinking, make you more inclusive and notice more details, make you think in terms of 'us' instead of 'them.' "
The Politics Of Traffic Jams
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to eat in their cars or talk on their cell phones while killing time in stop-and-go traffic, according to a new national survey on America's driving habits conducted by The Washington Post, ABC News and Time magazine.
The differences in behavior are modest but telling. For example, about 47 percent of all Republicans report that they sometimes snack while in rush-hour traffic, compared with 38 percent of all Democrats. And between mouthfuls, 43 percent of Republicans will use their cell phones, compared with 38 percent of Democrats.
Meanwhile, more Democrats report that they hate their daily commute to work; little wonder, then, that they tend to prefer public transportation to driving as a way of getting to their jobs. And don't cut in front of those grouchy Democrats -- they're slightly more likely than Republicans to say that they sometimes make "angry or impolite gestures" at offending motorists.
Republican women are slightly more likely than their Democratic sisters to say that they sometimes apply makeup when they're stuck in traffic, according to the survey of 1,204 Americans taken last month.
morinr@washpost.com
