The Implicit Relational Assessment procedure (IRAP) and attractiveness bias

Facial attractiveness is more associated with individual warmth than with competence: behavioral and neural evidence

Individuals appear to infer others' psychological characteristics according to facial attractiveness and these psychological characteristics can be classified into two categories in social cognition, that is, warmth and competence. However, which category of psychological characteristic is more associated with face attractiveness and its neural mechanisms have not been explored. To address this, participants were asked to judge others' warmth and competence traits based on face attractiveness, while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). They also assessed the attractiveness of faces after scanning. Behavioral results showed that the correlation between face attractiveness and warmth ratings was significantly higher than that with competence ratings. fMRI results demonstrated that the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ), lateral prefrontal cortex, and lateral temporal lobe were more involved in the warmth task. Moreover, attractiveness ratings were negatively correlated with activation of the dmPFC and TPJ only in the warmth task. Furthermore, the attractiveness ratings were negatively correlated with the defined dmPFC, region related to attractiveness judgement, only in the warmth task. In conclusion, people are more inclined to infer others' warmth than competence characteristics from face attractiveness, that is, face attractiveness is more associated with warmth than with competence.

Assessing implicit and explicit dementia stigma in young adults and care-workers

This aim of this study was to assess implicit and self-reported stigma towards people with dementia in young adults with no contact or experience ( n = 23), and in care-workers ( n = 17 professional dementia care-workers). Data were analysed to determine whether stigma was related to self-reported levels of depression, anxiety, stress and professional burnout. Forty participants completed the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure and Dementia Attitudes Scale. The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale and Maslach Burnout Inventory were used to measure depression, anxiety, stress and professional burnout. The young adult group showed statistically significant levels of dementia stigma (on the two “ dementia” trial-types, p = .027 and p = .030). Statistical analyses showed more dementia-positive attitudes in care-workers compared to young adults on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure and the Dementia Attitudes Scale (both p’s=.021). Spearman’s Rho correlations tests showed that for the care-givers, higher levels of burn-out were associated with more negative attitudes towards people with dementia on both of the Dementia Attitudes Scale subscales (social comfort p<.001 and dementia knowledge p=.005). The results support prior research showing that experience with a stigmatised group can lower stigma and demonstrate the importance of providing a supportive work environment to mitigate burnout.

The attractiveness-positivity link: Let's contextualize it

The statement "what is beautiful is good" reflects a persuasive heuristic that may be supported either by a general association of attractiveness with positivity or by a specific association with the perceived credibility of an attractive source. In one study (N = 58), we approach this question using an explicit and an implicit measure (Stroop Task) to assess whether attractiveness is more likely associated with valenced words when these are related (vs. unrelated) to credibility. Results show that this effect occurs but only for the implicit measure. When the word-face associations were made at an explicit level, we found a general association between positivity and attractiveness, unrestricted to the dimension of credibility. We discuss how these results inform about attractiveness as a shortcut to judgments of validity.