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The influence of threat on perceived spatial distance to out-group members

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Abstract

A classic example of discriminatory behavior is keeping spatial distance from an out-group member. To explain this social behavior, the literature offers two alternative theoretical options that we label as the “threat hypothesis” and the “shared-experience hypothesis”. The former relies on studies showing that out-group members create a sense of alertness. Consequently, potentially threatening out-group members are represented as spatially close allowing the prevention of costly errors. The latter hypothesis suggests that the observation of out-group members reduces the sharing of somatosensory experiences and, thus, increases the perceived physical distance between oneself and others. In the present paper, we pitted the two hypotheses against each other. In Experiment 1, Caucasian participants expressed multiple implicit “Near/Far” spatial categorization judgments from a Black-African Avatar and a White-Caucasian Avatar located in a 3D environment. Results indicate that the Black-African Avatar was categorized as closer to oneself, as compared with the White-Caucasian Avatar, providing support for “the threat hypothesis”. In Experiment 2, we tested to which degree perceived threat contributes to this categorization bias by manipulating the avatar’s perceived threat orthogonally to group membership. The results indicate that irrespective of group membership, threatening avatars were categorized as being closer to oneself as compared with no threatening avatars. This suggests that provided information about a person and not the mere group membership influences perceived distance to the person.

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Notes

  1. Lack of coherence means that participants did not express three consecutive “Near” judgments or three consecutive “Far” judgments, respectively in the descending/ascending series. That is, for example a “Near” judgment in a descending series, was followed again by a “Far” judgment, in such case the shift of judgment cannot be considered as being valid, since it is not stable and consistent.

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Funding

Preparation of this paper was supported by Research Programmes G022313N and G073317N of the Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO), Methusalem Grant BOF09/01M00209 of Ghent University, and the Research Fund of KU Leuven (C14/17/047 and GOA/15/003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Chiara Fini & Agnes Moors

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Chiara Fini, Pieter Verbeke & Marcel Brass

  3. Social Cognition Center Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Sophie Sieber & Oliver Genschow

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  1. Chiara Fini
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  2. Pieter Verbeke
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  3. Sophie Sieber
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  4. Agnes Moors
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  6. Oliver Genschow
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Correspondence to Chiara Fini.

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Authors Chiara Fini, Pieter Verbeke, Sophie Sieber, Agnes Moors, Marcel Brass, Oliver Genschow declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Fini, C., Verbeke, P., Sieber, S. et al. The influence of threat on perceived spatial distance to out-group members. Psychological Research 84, 757–764 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1091-7

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