ISSEP-2025-07

GRANT ID#: ISSEP-2025-07

GRANT TITLE: Affirming Self-Transcendent Values to Reduce Intergroup Threat and Bias

GRANTEE: Florida State University

PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: Julia Lombard

CO-PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: Irmak Olcaysoy Okten

GRANT AMOUNT: USD $3,000

DURATION OF GRANT PROJECT: April 15, 2025 – January 30, 2026

Description of the Project

 

Executive summary:

By generating feelings of connectedness and an other-oriented focus, self-transcendent (ST) values may out-perform other positive values, such as those that self-enhance (SE), in mitigating socially induced threats. In the proposed 3x3 between-subjects experiment, White participants will first be randomly assigned to affirm 1) ST, 2) SE, or 3) complete a control activity. Later, they will be led to believe they will interact with a Black participant. Participants either receive 1) negative, 2) positive, or 3) no feedback from their partner, then indicating their openness to the interaction. Relative to SE and the control, we predict that outgroup bias in the negative feedback condition would be buffered most by ST. We explore defensiveness to social threat in terms of avoidance and blaming of the partner, as well as generalizing negative attitudes to the broader outgroup. Being the first work to examine the role of affirming ST values in bias regulation, this work offers important implications for applying ST to various social outcomes.

 

Itemized budget:

Grant funding will cover the expenses detailed below:

  • Incentives for participating. This study will take approximately 25 minutes to complete; as such, the Prolific cost estimator suggests this study will cost $4,453.33 ($3,340.00 to pay each of 1000 participants $3.34 for their time and $1,113.33 for platform fees). We request $3000 to partially cover this research cost.

The total amount approved is USD $3,000.

Kenneth Vail