Pan DN, Wolf OT, Merz CJ. Exposure to acute stress affects the retrieval of out-group related bias in healthy men.
Biol Psychol 2021;
166:108210. [PMID:
34688827 DOI:
10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108210]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2021] [Revised: 10/14/2021] [Accepted: 10/15/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Individuals have a tendency to show enhanced vigilance to groups of which they themselves are not a member. Stress can up-regulate hypervigilance towards threatening stimuli and was shown to promote the reinstatement of out-group related biases in a previous study conducted in women only. The current study examines how exposure to acute stress affects the retrieval of out-group related extinction biases in male participants. Results showed that men exerted a specific out-group related bias at the beginning of extinction training indexed by higher skin conductance responses (SCRs) towards out-group faces, while stress led to a return of this extinguished out-group bias. Specifically, the stress group showed higher SCRs towards out-group faces during retrieval compared to the control group and the bias index was negatively related to post-stress cardiovascular recovery. These results indicate the important interaction between stress and intergroup bias in fear conditioning, along with a potential modulation of sex.
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