In H. Bless & J. P. Forgas (Eds.), The role of subjective states
in social cognition and behavior.  Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
 
How Do I Feel About Them?
The Role of Affective Reactions in Intergroup Peception
 
Galen V. Bodenhausen & Kristen N. Moreno
Northwestern University
 
INTRODUCTION
 

When we think about and interact with members of different social groups, we are likely to experience both intellectual and emotional reactions. In recent years, an explosion of research on the topic of stereotyping has examined the cognitive dynamics of our intellectual, belief-based reactions to social groups (for recent reviews, see Fiske, 1998; Macrae & Bodenhausen, in press). In contrast, relatively less attention has been directed at the nature of affective intergroup reactions, or to the interplay between perceivers’ cognitive and affective reactions. As the other chapters in this volume attest, it has become increasingly evident in recent years that an understanding of the nature of social judgment and behavior requires us to look beyond consciously articulated intellectual beliefs to the subjective states that form the context for thought and action. Affective reactions constitute perhaps the most pervasive and important class of subjective experiences. As important as stereotypes may be in shaping the nature of intergroup perception and behavior, it is the feeling-states that arise in the presence of members of stereotyped groups that provide the background tone for all intergroup interactions. Understanding the role played by these subjective states is no longer an issue that can be kept on the back burner. No theory can hope to provide a realistic, complete conceptualization of intergroup relations without giving prominent attention to the way we feel about the members of other groups.

Of course, the nature of the relationship between feeling and thinking has been a matter of enduring interest to philosophers and psychologists. The issue is complex, and there is good reason to assume that the affect-cognition interface involves flexible interactions between two intimately connected but dissociable systems (see Zajonc, 1998, for a review). For instance, affective reactions may result from cognitive appraisals (e.g., Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988) or expectations (e.g., Wilson, Lisle, Kraft, & Wetzel, 1989). Alternatively, affective reactions may give rise to cognitive processes that seek to generate post hoc explanations or rationalizations for these reactions (e.g., Bem, 1972; James, 1884). Of course it may also be the case that affective and cognitive reactions proceed relatively independently (e.g., Zajonc, Pietromonaco, & Bargh, 1982). Each of these possibilities is interesting in its own right, and consideration of the full range of affect-cognition relationships at play in intergroup contexts would undoubtedly shed considerable light on the nature of intergroup relations. However, in the present chapter we will focus our attention specifically on the question of how the affective reactions that we experience in the real or imagined presence of outgroup members can come to influence our subsequent intergroup judgments and behaviors.

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