Jay Van Bavel - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jay Van Bavel

A masterful review by Hibbing and colleagues establishes close links between physiological and ps... more A masterful review by Hibbing and colleagues establishes close links between physiological and psychological responses and ideological preferences. However, existing research cannot resolve the "chicken-and-egg problem" in political neuroscience: which is cause and which is effect? We consider the possibility, which they reject, that general ideological postures, if consistently adopted, could shape psychological and physiological functioning. Abstract: 56 words Main text: 961 words References: 338 words Entire text (total + addresses etc.): 1,436 words Abstract A masterful review by Hibbing and colleagues establishes close links between physiological and psychological responses and ideological preferences. However, existing research cannot resolve the "chicken-and-egg problem" in political neuroscience: which is cause and which is effect? We consider the possibility, which they reject, that general ideological postures, if consistently adopted, could shape psychological and physiological functioning.

Psychophysiology, 2014

We examined the relationship between tonic-a correlate of self-regulatory functioning-and phasic ... more We examined the relationship between tonic-a correlate of self-regulatory functioning-and phasic cardiac vagal activity (indexed by heart rate variability; HRV) during a selective attentional task with varying levels of load. Participants detected a target letter among letter strings superimposed on either fearful or neutral face distractors. Letter strings consisted of six target letters under low load and one target letter and five nontarget letters under high load. With fearful distractors, lower tonic HRV was associated with phasic HRV suppression, suggesting an autonomic stress response under both low and high load. In contrast, higher tonic HRV was associated with phasic HRV enhancement, suggesting greater self-regulatory effort under low load and an absence of phasic HRV suppression under high load. The current research suggests that tonic cardiac vagal tone is associated with the ability to flexibly adapt autonomic responses.

PLOS ONE, 2012

Over the past decade, intuitionist models of morality have challenged the view that moral reasoni... more Over the past decade, intuitionist models of morality have challenged the view that moral reasoning is the sole or even primary means by which moral judgments are made. Rather, intuitionist models posit that certain situations automatically elicit moral intuitions, which guide moral judgments. We present three experiments showing that evaluations are also susceptible to the influence of moral versus non-moral construal. We had participants make moral evaluations (rating whether actions were morally good or bad) or non-moral evaluations (rating whether actions were pragmatically or hedonically good or bad) of a wide variety of actions. As predicted, moral evaluations were faster, more extreme, and more strongly associated with universal prescriptions-the belief that absolutely nobody or everybody should engage in an action-than non-moral (pragmatic or hedonic) evaluations of the same actions. Further, we show that people are capable of flexibly shifting from moral to non-moral evaluations on a trialby-trial basis. Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that moral versus non-moral construal has an important influence on evaluation and suggests that effects of construal are highly flexible. We discuss the implications of these experiments for models of moral judgment and decision-making. (190 words)

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2012

violation, leading other actors to express similaror higherlevels of outrage.

A social cognitive neuroscience approach to intergroup perception and evaluation

Emotion, 2012

The neurovisceral integration model proposes that individual differences in heart rate variabilit... more The neurovisceral integration model proposes that individual differences in heart rate variability (HRV)-an index of cardiac vagal tone-are associated with attentional and emotional self-regulation. In this paper, we demonstrate that individual differences in resting HRV predict the functioning of the inhibition of return (IOR), an inhibitory attentional mechanism highly adaptive to novelty search, in response to affectively significant face cues. As predicted, participants with lower HRV exhibited a smaller IOR effect to fearful versus neutral face cues than participants with higher HRV, which shows a failure to inhibit attention from affectively significant cues and instigate novelty search. In contrast, participants with higher HRV exhibited similar IOR effects to fearful and neutral face cues, which shows an ability to inhibit attention from cues and instigate novelty search. Their ability to inhibit attention was most pronounced to high spatial frequency fearful face cues, suggesting that this effect may be mediated by cortical mechanisms. The current research demonstrates that individual differences in HRV predict attentional inhibition, and suggests that successful inhibition and novelty search may be mediated by cortical inhibitory mechanisms among people with high cardiac vagal tone.

Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2012

Over the past few decades, dual attitude ⁄ process ⁄ system models have emerged as the dominant f... more Over the past few decades, dual attitude ⁄ process ⁄ system models have emerged as the dominant framework for understanding a wide range of psychological phenomena. Most of these models characterize the unconscious and conscious mind as being built from discrete processes or systems: one that is reflexive, automatic, fast, affective, associative, and primitive, and a second that is deliberative, controlled, slow, cognitive, propositional, and more uniquely human. Although these models serve as a useful heuristic for characterizing the human mind, recent developments in social and cognitive neuroscience suggest that the human evaluative system, like most of cognition, is widely distributed and highly dynamic. Integrating these advances with current attitude theories, we review how the recently proposed Iterative Reprocessing Model can account for apparent dual systems as well as discrepancies between traditional dual system models and recent research revealing the dynamic nature of evaluation. Furthermore, we describe important implications this dynamical system approach has for various social psychological domains.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Jan 26, 2012

The current research examines why people have superior recognition memory for own-group members c... more The current research examines why people have superior recognition memory for own-group members compared to other-group members. In two studies, we provide evidence for one motivational mechanism underlying owngroup bias-social belonging needs. In Study 1, participants assigned to a minimal group had superior memory for own-group compared to other-group faces, replicating previous research on the own-group bias. This pattern was moderated by participants' need to belong: participants who reported a higher (versus lower) need to belong showed greater own-group memory bias. In Study 2, participants who were socially excluded had superior memory for own-university compared to other-university faces than participants who were selected to work alone by a computer. Together, these studies suggest that chronic belonging needs and social exclusion motivate own-group bias. (124 words)

European Review of Social Psychology, 2011

We take a social neuroscience approach to self and social categorisation in which the current sel... more We take a social neuroscience approach to self and social categorisation in which the current self-categorisation(s) is constructed from relatively stable identity representations stored in memory (such as the significance of one's social identity) through iterative and interactive perceptual and evaluative processing. This approach describes these processes across multiple levels of analysis, linking the effects of self-categorisation and social identity on perception and evaluation to brain function. We review several studies showing that self-categorisation with an arbitrary group can override the effects of more visually salient, cross-cutting social categories on social perception and evaluation. The top-down influence of self-categorisation represents a powerful antecedent-focused strategy for suppressing racial bias without many of the limitations of a more response-focused strategy. Finally we discuss the implications of this approach for our understanding of social perception and evaluation and the neural substrates of these processes.

Social Cognition, Oct 1, 2007

Dual-process models of attitudes highlight the fact that evaluative processes are complex and mul... more Dual-process models of attitudes highlight the fact that evaluative processes are complex and multifaceted. Nevertheless, many of these models typically neglect important interactions among processes that can contribute to an evaluation. In this article, we propose a multilevel model informed by neuroscience in which current evaluations are constructed from relatively stable attitude representations through the iterative reprocessing of information. Whereas initial iterations provide relatively quick and dirty evaluations, additional iterations accompanied by reflective processes yield more nuanced evaluations and allow for phenomena such as ambivalence. Importantly, this model predicts that the processes underlying relatively automatic evaluations continue to be engaged across multiple iterations, and that they influence and are influenced by more reflective processes. We describe the Iterative Reprocessing Model at the computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels of analysis to more fully characterize its premises and predictions.

Psychological Science, Nov 1, 2008

Classic minimal-group studies found that people arbitrarily assigned to a novel group quickly dis... more Classic minimal-group studies found that people arbitrarily assigned to a novel group quickly display a range of perceptual, affective, and behavioral in-group biases. We randomly assigned participants to a mixed-race team and used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain regions involved in processing novel in-group and out-group members independently of preexisting attitudes, stereotypes, or familiarity. Whereas previous research on intergroup perception found amygdala activity-typically interpreted as negativity-in response to stigmatized social groups, we found greater activity in the amygdala, fusiform gyri, orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsal striatum when participants viewed novel in-group faces than when they viewed novel out-group faces. Moreover, activity in orbitofrontal cortex mediated the in-group bias in self-reported liking for the faces. These in-group biases in neural activity were not moderated by race or by whether participants explicitly attended to team membership or race, a finding suggesting that they occur relatively automatically. This study helps clarify the role of neural substrates involved in perceptual and affective in-group biases.

Competitive intergroup contexts generate an intergroup empathy bias.