New Research From Psychological Science

Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science and Clinical Psychological Science, journals of the Association for Psychological Science.

Gendered Races: Implications for Interracial Marriage, Leadership Selection, and Athletic Participation

Adam D. Galinsky, Erika V. Hall, and Amy J. C. Cuddy

Researchers have documented the effects of racial and gender stereotypes, but few studies have examined how these stereotypes interact. In the first of six studies, researchers had a group of participants rate the masculinity and femininity of several traits and then had a separate group assign those traits to different races. Participants assigned the most feminine traits to Asians, the intermediate traits to Whites, and the most masculine traits to Blacks. Evidence of these reported gender-race biases was found in follow-up studies examining dating habits and leadership selection, and in the types of sports that student athletes engaged in. Together, these studies demonstrate that the gender component of racial stereotypes has important real-world consequences.

Detection of Audiovisual Speech Correspondences Without Visual Awareness

Agnès Alsius and Kevin G. Munhall

The mechanisms underlying the enhancements seen during audiovisual integration remain largely unknown. Researchers presented participants with a video of a talking face in one eye and a suppressor display — which rendered the face consciously invisible to participants — in the other. Participants also heard an auditory clip that did or did not match the lip movements of the face. When the researchers measured how long it took for the face to become visible to participants, they found that it became visible faster when the auditory clip matched the face’s lip movements. This suggests that audio and visual integration occur at an early stage of processing — even when the visual stimulus is blocked from conscious awareness.

Out of Mind, Out of Sight: Perceptual Consequences of Memory Suppression

Kyungmi Kim and Do-Joon Yi

Does suppressing the memory of an object affect our visual perception of that object? Participants were trained to associate a picture of an object with a noun describing the object. They were then shown the nouns and asked to either think about or suppress thoughts of the picture the noun represented. The researchers then tested participants’ perception by briefly showing them the pictures and asking them to identify the objects. Participants were least successful at perceiving pictures of objects they had been told to suppress, which suggests that there is a close relationship between perception and higher-order cognitive operations.

Relationships Among HIV/AIDS Orphanhood, Stigma, and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in South African Youth: A Longitudinal Investigation Using a Path Analysis Framework

Mark E. Boyes and Lucie D. Cluver

Research has suggested that HIV/AIDS-related stigma may place HIV/AIDS-orphaned youth at a higher risk for developing internalizing disorders. HIV/AIDS orphans between the ages of 9 and 19 reported their perceived level of stigmatization, their level of anxiety, and their level of depression in 2005 and again in 2009. The researchers found that stigmatization appeared to persist over time and that stigmatization levels at baseline and follow-up mediated the relationship between HIV/AIDS orphanhood and symptoms of anxiety and depression. This finding suggests that reducing the level of stigmatization experienced by HIV/AIDS orphans may improve their psychological health outcomes.