Negative Emotions Can Interfere with the Inhibitory Effect of Proactive Control on Implicit Stereotypes

In this study, the gender face pictures were used as priming stimuli, and the weapons recognition paradigm and process separation program were used to explore the influence of emotion and proactive control on implicit gender stereotypes. Study 1 (n=56) explored the processing of proactive control under different conflict levels and its influence on implicit gender stereotypes. The results showed that under high conflict level, the response time is the shortest and the correct rate is the highest. In Study 2 (n=96), emotional variables were added to explore the influence of proactive control on the intervention effect of implicit gender stereotypes under different conflict levels. The results showed that the participants had the longest reaction time and the lowest correct rate among the high conflict levels in negative emotional type. Process dissociation analysis showed that the proactive control mode reflected the change of control processing, rather than the automatic association of stereotypes. These findings showed that the proactive control processing mode appears more in the high conflict level, which helps to weaken the implicit gender stereotype; However, negative emotions can interfere with the proactive control process, and can not optimize cognition, so as to suppress implicit gender stereotypes.