The aims of the project

The quality of interactions between individuals belonging to different social, cultural, and ethnic groups depends on social evaluations. In order to fully understand how these social evaluations are shaped in the first case, and how they change over time and situations, more knowledge is needed about the underlying learning processes. In the current project, I aimed to study how emotional (especially aversive) learning about others is influenced by their perceived social characteristics. The project had three specific sub-goals: 1. To identify the processes underlying aversive learning of others, and how these are influenced by social cognitions, such as perceived group belonging, similarity, and familiarity of the others; 2. To identify the processes underlying aversive learning through social interaction, how these are dependent on social cognitions as described in (1). 3. To use the knowledge gained from the proposed studies to develop and test a model of social aversive learning in naturalistic social environments.

The three most important results of the project

1. Addressing sub-goal no. 1, we showed for the first time in Europe how threat information about another individual is dependent on the ethnic/racial group of the individual we learn to fear. We demonstrated a learning bias (expressed as the resistance to change of conditioned autonomic responses) of aversive learning towards faces belonging to a social (ethnic) group other than the participant (Golkar, Björnstjerna & Olsson, 2015). We showed that for White Europeans, learned fear towards faces of African origin were more persistent than for Eurpean faces. In addition, targeting a population better represented (and thus of greater importance) in a European context, we tested if the effect was extended to faces of Middle Eastern decent. Interestingly, we did not find the same learning bias on a group level, but taking into account the ethnic diversity in the participants' upbringing a different pattern of results emerged. For Europeans growing up in a homogeneously White/European milieu, a bias was found (similar to the bias observed to African faces). No bias was demonstrated among participants with exposure to a diverse ethnic environment. Although our results of an inverse relationship between exposure and the learning bias could not confirm a causal link, a possible causal mechanism is latent inhibition, w well known phenomenon in learning theory. This possibility was further explored in a set of experiments leading up to the important results described here below (under '2').
To connect this study (Golkar, Björnstjerna & Olsson, 2015) with sub-goal 3 (enhanced naturalism through social interaction), we designed a study in which participants were given the opportunity to 'retaliate' the mild electric shock serving as the unconditioned stimulus in the aversive learning paradigm by administering shocks to the faces associated with shocks during learning. As predicted, we showed that past aversive learning enhanced retaliation and this effect was augmented by high levels of trait aggression.

2. The project has not only generated new knowledge about how aversions are created. It has also lead to new insights about how aversive learning can emerge in the first place. In three separate experiments (addressing sub-goal 2), we found that safety information transmitted from another individual (i.e. demonstrator) during pre-exposure prevented subsequent observational fear learning. This 'immunization' towards fear learning was equally effective when fear learning occurred through direct (Pavlovian) conditioning. This study extends our understanding of the basic learning processes governing social transmission of fear and safety, and connects these lines of work to clinical research by examining how prior safe experiences can reduce the transmission of fears between individuals. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that observational pre-exposure can limit social transmission of fear.

3. One of the main questions in the current project was to examine if the race biased learning bias (e.g. as described under '1' above) extended to culturally defined social groups. With this aim, we studied supporters from two rivaling soccer teams: 'AIK' and 'DIF'. Participants then learned to fear a stimulus by observing fear responses in an in-group and out-group supporter. As predicted, we found that fear learning was higher when information about danger was transmitted by an in-group (same team) as compared to an out-group (different team) demonstrator, and that the level of learning was related to the degree of in-group identification. Our findings suggest that biased social fear learning is not limited to racial categories and is likely to reflect a more general mechanism biasing social learning towards individuals belonging to one's own group. This study has been followed up by investigating how culturally defined membership interacts with racially defined such.

New research questions generated through the project

1. First, our initial results showed that the learning bias towards individuals from ethnic outgroups (faces of Middle Eastern origin) was negatively related to exposure to ethnically heterogeneous milieus. This finding and earlier research on non-human primates demonstrating so called latent inhibition by pre-exposing an animal to a conspecific, who calmly interacted with a specific stimulus. This 'safety' procedure then inhibited fear learning to that specific stimulus later on. Following this, we conjectured that pre-exposure to a 'demonstrator' expressing calm towards faces would 'immunize' the learner from learning to fear towards these faces at a later time. This was tested in a series of experiments and the results were striking. The findings are described above and reported in Golkar & Olsson, 2016. Of course, the next step in this line of research would be to use the social safety procedure with social in-group and out-group faces.

2. Following our findings that the observation of other individuals' responses to social stimuli are effective in shaping subsequent learning about these stimuli, we reasoned that watching others' moral behavior might also affect the observer's behavior. This would be consistent with centuries of research on conformity. Yet, no experimental study had examined how the frequency of observed moral behaviors affected the observer's subsequent moral judgment and behavior. During the latter parts of the project, contact was established with prof Kimmo Eriksson and dr. Pontus Strimling, experts on cultural evolution and mathematical models for the spread of social behaviors. Eriksson and colleagues had earlier showed a frequency dependent judgment in observation based studies using short stories (vignettes). We decided to extend this by studying the effect of the frequency of moral behavior on judgments and social behavior in the observer. So far, this new research questions has generated a new line of research. One manuscript containing 5 experiments has been submitted to a highly ranked general science journal. In addition, a new grant application is under development to extend this line of research that innovatively combines research on observational learning with that on the formation of moral behavior.

Research at the international forefront

The research goals addressed in the current project are well situated at the forefront of international research. This is illustrated by the published articles appearing in top-ranked scientific journals within the field of psychology (e.g. Journal of experimental Psychology: General, which is among the 3 highest ranked psychology journals), as well as the massive interest that our research has received at international conferences, as well as from the public (see below).

Engagement beyond the scientific community

During the project, I and my collaborators have discussed and commented our results and related research in public media and other non-scientific contexts (public lectures and meetings for clinicians, as well as in articles in popular science magazines and media outlets on the national level (e.g. Op-Ed in Dagens Nyheter and discussions on radio 'Filosofiska Rummet').

The two most important results of the project (so far)

The project has so far resulted in four publications in top ranked journals within the field pf psychology. Two additional publications will follow shortly from the project, one of which will be aimed at a high impact general science journal. Here below, I briefly describe the two most important publications:
1. Golkar, A., Björnstjerna, M., & Olsson, A. (2015): This paper demoinstrate that others (possibly limited to individuals from the same social/ethnic group as the learner) can augment safety learning. This result suggest that pre-exposure in a safe social milieu can decrease the biasing effect of social group belonging on learning. In other words, social safety exposure ('immunizaiton') might be able to decrease the spread and strength of irrational fears towards people looking different than one self. These results are discussed in greater detail above under 'Most important results' nr. 1.
Golkar, A., & Olsson, A. (2016): This publication demarcate the first demonstration of the 'immunizing' effect of prior exposure of social 'safety' (another individual demonstrating calm and safety towards a particular stimulus) against the development of learned fear. These results are discussed in greater detail under 'Most important results' nr. 2 above. Our finding fits neatly with the inverse relationship between exposure and learning bias as shown in paper 1 above (Golkar & Olsson, 2016) and demonstrate a real-world example of this relationship.

Publication strategy

We aspire to make our results open to the public as soon as possible. At the moment, two of the published articles have been published in open access journals. Some high impact journals do not yet allow for open access. When publishing in such journals (e.g. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General), we have immediately made an author's copy available through our web site (www.emotionlab.se) in accordance to 'self-archiving' guidelines. We are fully committed to the principle that our research results should be available for the public.