title: More Memory Bang for the Attentional Buck: Self-Protection Goals Enhance Encoding Efficiency for Potentially Threatening Males.
abstract: When encountering individuals with a potential inclination to harm them, people face a dilemma: Staring at them provides useful information about their intentions but may also be perceived by them as intrusive and challenging-thereby increasing the likelihood of the very threat the people fear. One solution to this dilemma would be an enhanced ability to efficiently encode such individuals-to be able to remember them without spending any additional direct attention on them. In two experiments, the authors primed self-protective concerns in perceivers and assessed visual attention and recognition memory for a variety of faces. Consistent with hypotheses, self-protective participants (relative to control participants) exhibited enhanced encoding efficiency (i.e., greater memory not predicated on any enhancement of visual attention) for Black and Arab male faces-groups stereotyped as being potentially dangerous-but not for female or White male faces. Results suggest that encoding efficiency depends on the functional relevance of the social information people encounter.
authors.affiliation: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
authors.forename: D Vaughn
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Uriah S
authors.initials: US
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Steven L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Neuberg
authors.forename: Jon K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Maner
authors.forename: Jenessa R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Shapiro
authors.forename: Joshua M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ackerman
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schaller
authors.forename: Douglas T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Kenrick