The 'in-Group Advantage'

179 Pages·2017·2.51 MB·English

by  Thomas Myers

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Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center
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Thomas Myers
Graduate Center, City University of New York
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THE “IN-GROUP ADVANTAGE” FOR PERCEIVING EMOTION ACROSS
DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS AND COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
by
Thomas E. Myers

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
The City University of New York
2015
.

© 2015
THOMAS E. MYERS
All Rights Reserved
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This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in
satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Joan C. Borod, Ph.D.

Date Chair of Examining Committee

Maureen O’Connor, Ph.D.

Date Executive Officer

Adam M. Brickman, Ph.D.__________________
Justin Storbeck, Ph.D.___________________
Alan Kluger, Ph.D._____________________
Hilary Bertisch, Ph.D.___________________

Supervisory Committee

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

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Abstract
THE “IN-GROUP ADVANTAGE” FOR PERCEIVING EMOTION ACROSS
DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS AND COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
by
Thomas E. Myers
Dissertation Chairperson: Joan C. Borod, Ph.D.
The ability to perceive emotions in others is critical to successful social interaction.
While much research has been conducted on some of the factors affecting emotion perception,
other areas have received relatively little attention and, thus, are not well understood. There is
growing evidence to suggest that various demographic factors, as well as their interactions,
impact the accuracy of emotion perception. The impact of these factors seems to vary as a
function of the particular channel (e.g., facial, prosodic, and lexical) through which emotions are
perceived and may even be influenced by the presence of an “in-group advantage” (IGA;
Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002) with respect to demographic groups.
The main purpose of the current study was to further investigate the characteristics of the
New York Emotion Battery (NYEB; Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992) and, in particular, to
investigate the IGA for the demographic factors of age and gender, as well as to examine
differences among groups based on ethnicity and language background, on three channels of
emotion perception (facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal) using measures from the
NYEB. Using a diverse sample of 124 healthy right-handed (age range: 21-88; 56% women;
54% Caucasian; 55% native English-speaking) adults, we examined the presence of: (1) ethnic
group differences on the facial and prosodic emotion perception tasks, (2) an IGA for age using
the facial and prosodic emotion perception tasks, (3) an IGA for gender using the facial and
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prosodic emotion perception tasks, and (4) differences among groups based on language
background using the prosodic and lexical emotion perception tasks. Additionally, specific
emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, and anger) were examined to determine if the existence of an
IGA varies as a function of emotion type.
Results provided no support overall for an IGA based on gender or age, nor were there
differences among groups on the basis of ethnicity or language background for any of the
emotion perception tasks examined. Further, examination of specific emotions revealed that each
group examined for each IGA comparison performed remarkably similar to one another, further
supporting the conclusion that there is no IGA present in our dataset. There are a number of
reasons why we may not have found evidence for an IGA for any of the demographic
characteristics examined, despite reports in the literature of an IGA for each demographic factor
examined. Methodological differences among studies are discussed to explain this discrepancy.
The results are further discussed in light of the dialect theory, which is best supported by our
results.
Overall, this study provides important information about the characteristics of the NYEB
as they relate to the interaction between the demographic characteristics of the expresser of an
emotion and the demographic characteristics of the perceiver of an emotion. Importantly, our
study suggests that there are few such interactions and that, as a result, these emotion perception
tasks are relatively unbiased and can be implemented for use across a demographically diverse
sample. Further, our results suggest that emotion perception is, in general, universal when
examined within a multicultural society and is relatively resistant to the factors that have been
shown to produce an IGA in previous research. Finally, this study brings the NYEB one step
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closer to preparation for implementation as a much needed clinical instrument for clinical and
research neuropsychologists.

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Acknowledgements
This dissertation was written only with the greatest support, encouragement, and expert
guidance of colleagues, family, and friends over the years. I would like to thank my wife, Arpee
Myers, for her love and support throughout my quest to attain my Ph.D. I thank my daughter,
Liliana Myers. Although she was not even a year old at the time that I wrote the bulk of my
dissertation, she provided me with well-needed breaks during the writing process and was right
there with me as I wrote. I would like to thank my parents, Bill and Sue Myers. They have
been unquestionably supportive throughout my entire academic career. I thank my dissertation
advisor and mentor, Joan C. Borod, for her continuous hard work, passion, and dedication to
the subjects of emotion and neuropsychology, as well as to her students. I am also indebted to
Dr. Borod for coordinating the assembly of an outstanding committee of creative and insightful
scholars of neuropsychology, including Dr. Adam Brickman and Dr. Justin Storbeck, to whom I
credit much of the intellectual reflection involved in this process. I am also very grateful to my
two readers, Dr. Alan Kluger and Dr. Hilary Bertisch, who provided valuable feedback to
ensure the highest quality of this dissertation. Finally, I wish to thank all the members of Dr.
Borod’s emotion research laboratory, both past and present.
This work was supported by NIMH Grant number R01-MH42172 and by Professional
Staff Congress – CUNY Research Award numbers 63746-0041 and 65431-0043 to Dr. Joan
Borod at Queens College of the City University of New York.

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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Assessment of Emotion Perception 3
The In-Group Advantage 7
Theoretical Explanations for the In-Group Advantage 10
In-Group Advantage as a Function of Ethnic Group 14
Cultural IGA in the Facial Channel 14
In-Group Advantage as a Function of Gender 17
Gender Differences in Emotion Perception 17
Gender IGA in the Facial Channel 18
Sex Differences in Prosodic Emotion Perception 21
Gender IGA in the Prosodic Channel 22
In-Group Advantage as a Function of Age 23
Age Differences in Facial Emotion Perception 23
Effect of Age on Facial Processing 24
Age IGA in the Facial Channel 26
Age Differences in Prosodic Emotion Perception 29
Age IGA in the Prosodic Channel 29
In-Group Advantage as a Function of Native Language 30
Native Language IGA in the Prosodic Channel 30
Differentiating the Effects of Language and Culture 33
Overview and Purpose of the Current Study 34
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Aims and Hypotheses 36
Aim I 36
Aim II 36
Aim III 37
Aim IV 37
Methods 39
Participants 39
Materials and Procedures 39
Screening and Nonemotional Control Measures 39
Experimental Tasks 41
Emotional Tasks 41
Facial Perception 42
Prosodic Perception 42
Lexical Perception 43
Data Analysis 44
Data Coding 44
Preliminary Data Exploration 45
Results 46
Group Differences in Demographic Characteristics 46
Gender 46
Age 45
Ethnicity 47
Native Language 48
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