Integrative contributions of efferent and afferent signals of arousal on the expression of racial stereotypes

Abstract Racial-bias and stereotyping may be unconscious, yet discrimination and biased decisions can have devastating, even fatal, consequences. Such bias is influenced by interoceptive information concerning bodily physiology: Fear processing and racially-biased judgements of threat are augmented by phasic cardiac signals reflecting changes in cardiovascular arousal. Here, we used autonomic (sympathetically-mediated electrodermal) biofeedback to modulate the tonic state of psychophysiological arousal. Thirty-eight participants were randomly allocated to express either highly alert/aroused or relaxed states evoked using biofeedback. We demonstrated a distinct difference between physiologically relaxed and aroused states in behavioural measures in racial distinction. While there was hardly no difference in relaxed state, the racial prime effect was most prominent in the sympathetically heightened state. Moreover, effects on racial bias elicited by tonic arousal were dissociable from those associated with phasic interoceptive (cardiac afferent) signals, suggesting differential, yet complementary, contributions of top-down allostatic control and bottom-up viscero-sensory afferent input to the neural integration of perceptual and interoceptive representations during social decision-making and the expression of behavioural biases.