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Difficulty of refusal to assist the outgroup nonmonotonically affects the intensity of prejudiced affect

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Abstract

Building on emotional intensity theory (Brehm in Pers Soc Psychol Rev 3:2–22, 1999), we propose that difficulty of engaging in prejudiced behavior should nonmonotonically influence prejudiced affect. In two experiments, we informed anti-gay participants about a gay and lesbian student organization’s need for assistance. We operationalized refusal to help the organization as a behavioral tendency motivated by the experienced prejudiced affect. To manipulate difficulty of refusing to help, in Study 1, participants were offered an opportunity to help by volunteering either 6 h (easy to refuse to help), 2 h (moderately difficult to refuse), or ½ h (very difficult to refuse) per week. In Study 2, we used the same manipulation except that the participants in the very difficult to refuse condition were asked to volunteer ½ h every other week. In both experiments, participants in the control condition were asked to help but no amount of time was specified. As predicted, prejudiced affect was a cubic function of difficulty of refusal to help: affect decreased from the control to the easy condition, increased from the easy to the moderately difficult condition, and, in Study 2, decreased from the moderate to the very difficult condition. Implications of the findings and future directions for research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Sarah Seaman and Natalie Peters competently ran the participants for Study 1. The third author ran the majority of the participants for Study 2. Cassandra Tate also assisted with data collection.

  2. Given that we had directional hypotheses, 1-tailed tests rendered significant results for the targeted contrast, 1 −1 1 −1, for all dependent measures in Study 1, all ps < .04, 1-tailed, except for a marginally significant effect for the first prejudiced affect measure, p = .075, 1-tailed.

  3. We thank Jack Brehm for pointing out this potential problem.

  4. The mediation analyses followed the procedures outlined by Preacher and Hayes (2008), which test the significance of a mediated effect by using a bootstrapping procedure. The bootstrapping procedure creates bias-corrected confidence intervals. When the intervals do not contain the value of zero, an indirect effect is significant. Prejudiced affect mediated the effect of the difficulty manipulation on the strength of the justifications for not helping; CI95% = (.02; .14) when prejudiced affect toward the organization was the tested mediator, and CI95% = (.06; .30) when prejudiced affect against gays and lesbians was the mediator. In contrast, the strength of the justifications for not helping did not fully mediate the effect of the difficulty manipulation on prejudiced affect; CI95% = (.09; .1.17) when prejudiced affect toward the organization was the predicted variable and CI95% = (.15; 1.18) when prejudiced affect against gays and lesbians was the predicted outcome.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Faculty Development Grant from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh awarded to the first author. Portions of this research were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association meeting in May 2009.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, 54901, USA

    Anca M. Miron

  2. University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Stevens Point, WI, USA

    Mark A. Ferguson

  3. Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Amanda Peterson

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Miron, A.M., Ferguson, M.A. & Peterson, A. Difficulty of refusal to assist the outgroup nonmonotonically affects the intensity of prejudiced affect. Motiv Emot 35, 484–498 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9220-2

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