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Social class differences in N400 indicate differences in spontaneous trait inference.

Michael E W Varnum¹, Jinkyung Na, Asuka Murata

¹Department of Psychology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing, China. michael.e.w.varnum@gmail.com

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General

|November 16, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Socioeconomic background influences spontaneous trait inference. Middle-class individuals show automatic trait judgments, while working-class individuals do not, suggesting differences in how social behaviors are processed.

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Area of Science:

Social Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Sociology

Background:

Emerging research suggests socioeconomic status impacts causal attribution of social behavior.
Previous studies indicate dispositional bias is weaker in working-class individuals compared to middle-class individuals.
It remains unclear if this disparity extends to spontaneous trait inference.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether socioeconomic background influences spontaneous trait inference.
To examine the neural correlates of spontaneous trait inference across different socioeconomic groups.

Main Methods:

Participants (American undergraduates) memorized pairings of faces and trait-implying behaviors.
A lexical judgment task assessed spontaneous trait inference using event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the N400 component.
Participants were categorized as middle-class (college-educated parents) or working-class (high-school-educated parents).

Main Results:

Middle-class participants exhibited a significant N400 effect, indicating spontaneous trait inference during memorization.
Working-class participants did not show a significant N400 effect, suggesting a lack of spontaneous trait inference.
The N400 spontaneous trait inference effect correlated with the perceived importance of dispositions in explaining social behavior.

Conclusions:

Socioeconomic background, specifically parental education, is associated with differences in spontaneous trait inference.
The findings suggest that middle-class individuals automatically infer traits from behaviors, while working-class individuals may not.
This difference in spontaneous trait inference may be linked to how individuals perceive the significance of dispositional factors in social cognition.