TY - JOUR
T1 - Out of sight but not out of mind
T2 - Memory scanning is attuned to threatening faces
AU - Becker, David
AU - Mortensen, Chad R.
AU - Anderson, Uriah S.
AU - Sasaki, Takao
PY - 2014/4/29
Y1 - 2014/4/29
N2 - Working memory (WM) theoretically affords the ability to privilege social threats and opportunities over other more mundane information, but few experiments have sought support for this contention. Using a functional logic, we predicted that threatening faces are likely to elicit encoding benefits in WM. Critically, however, threat depends on both the capacities and inclinations of the potential aggressor and the possible responses available to the perceiver. Two experiments demonstrate that participants more efficiently scan memory for angry facial expressions, but only when the faces also bear other cues that are heuristically associated with threat: masculinity in Study 1 and outgroup status in Study 2. Moreover, male participants showed robust speed and accuracy benefits, whereas female participants showed somewhat weaker effects, and only when threat was clearly expressed. Overall results indicate that working memory for faces depends on the accessibility of self-protective goals and on the functional relevance of other social attributes of the face.
AB - Working memory (WM) theoretically affords the ability to privilege social threats and opportunities over other more mundane information, but few experiments have sought support for this contention. Using a functional logic, we predicted that threatening faces are likely to elicit encoding benefits in WM. Critically, however, threat depends on both the capacities and inclinations of the potential aggressor and the possible responses available to the perceiver. Two experiments demonstrate that participants more efficiently scan memory for angry facial expressions, but only when the faces also bear other cues that are heuristically associated with threat: masculinity in Study 1 and outgroup status in Study 2. Moreover, male participants showed robust speed and accuracy benefits, whereas female participants showed somewhat weaker effects, and only when threat was clearly expressed. Overall results indicate that working memory for faces depends on the accessibility of self-protective goals and on the functional relevance of other social attributes of the face.
KW - Anger
KW - Male warrior hypothesis
KW - Working memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84918505806&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84918505806&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/147470491401200504
DO - 10.1177/147470491401200504
M3 - Article
C2 - 25350953
AN - SCOPUS:84918505806
SN - 1474-7049
VL - 12
SP - 901
EP - 912
JO - Evolutionary Psychology
JF - Evolutionary Psychology
IS - 5
ER -