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                                    77Replication of Maner et al. (2005)4AbstractIt is well-known that emotions influence our social perception. In their sem,inal study, Maner et al. (2005) showed that activating specific motivationalstates, namely fear and romantic arousal, leads to corresponding changes inthe social perception of specific social groups. Here, in two experiments, weconceptually replicated the study by Maner et al. (2005). Partly consis,tent with Maner et al. (2005), we found that men rated highly attractiveWhite women as more sexually aroused than all other stimuli. However,this bias was independent of the induced motivational state. In contrast toManer et al. (2005), we found that participants rated White men (as op,posed to Black men) as angrier than White women, Black men, and Blackwomen. The findings are discussed in the wider context of emotional statesinfluencing social perception.Based on:Samara, I., Roth, T. S., Milica Nikolić, & Kret, M. E. (in preparation).Investigating the functional projection hypothesis: A replication of Maneret al. (2005)All data, code, and materials that are associated with this paper andused to conduct the analyses will be accessible on the Leiden Universityarchiving platform DataverseNL upon publication.AbstractIt is well-known that emotions influence our social perception. In their sem,inal study, Maner et al. (2005) showed that activating specific motivationalstates, namely fear and romantic arousal, leads to corresponding changes inthe social perception of specific social groups. Here, in two experiments, weconceptually replicated the study by Maner et al. (2005). Partly consis,tent with Maner et al. (2005), we found that men rated highly attractiveWhite women as more sexually aroused than all other stimuli. However,this bias was independent of the induced motivational state. In contrast toManer et al. (2005), we found that participants rated White men (as op,posed to Black men) as angrier than White women, Black men, and Blackwomen. The findings are discussed in the wider context of emotional statesinfluencing social perception.Based on:Samara, I., Roth, T. S., Milica Nikolić, & Kret, M. E. (in preparation).Investigating the functional projection hypothesis: A replication of Maneret al. (2005)All data, code, and materials that are associated with this paper andused to conduct the analyses will be accessible on the Leiden Universityarchiving platform DataverseNL upon publication.IntroductionSimilar to physical states, like thirst (Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003),emotions inform our actions, increasing the likelihood of emotion-relevantactions being performed (Carver & White, 1994). For example, fear makesus cower, indicating that a threat has been detected and increases the chancethat the person will take protective action (Buck, 1999). Sexual and romantic arousal activate an approach tendency (Both, Everaerd, & Laan, 2003)and promote interpersonal contact (Stephan, Berscheid, & Walster, 1971).In a highly influential study, Maner et al. (2005) demonstrated that theemotions people experience not only influence their actions but crucially,how they perceive others (i.e., the functional projection hypothesis). However, whether this effect remains when using different stimulus materials anddifferent samples has not yet been examined. Here, we aim to conceptuallyreplicate Maner et al. (2005).Emotional top-down states can influence social perception (P. Niedenthal & Halberstadt, 2003; P. M. Niedenthal, Halberstadt, & Innes-Ker, 1999;Maner et al., 2005). Maner et al. (2005) examined the effect of sexual arousaland fear on social perception. In their study, participants first watched abrief video clip (approx. 6 minutes) that was designed to induce a fearful, sexually arousing or neutral motivational state. Then participants performed an experimental task where they indicated for a series of target facesthe level to which they perceived that person to be sexually aroused, angry,scared, or happy. The target faces exhibited in fact a neutral expression.The results showed that participants who had watched the fear-inducing filmwere more likely to indicate that Black male faces were angrier than Whitemale faces compared with participants in the control group who watcheda neutral video clip. Furthermore, male participants who had watched thesexually arousing film were more likely to indicate that White highly attractive female faces were more sexually aroused than White medium attractiveand Black high and medium attractive female faces compared with participants that had watched the neutral clip. Below, we discuss these effects indetail.Visual attractiveness is important in mate choice (Roth, Samara, & Kret,2021a; Roth et al., 2022). Previous evidence suggests that men respondmore strongly to sexually arousing stimuli compared to women (see Rupp& Wallen, 2008, for a review). This finding has often been suggested tobe the cause of the sexual overperception bias (Haselton, 2003), the effectthat men are more likely to misinterpret friendliness cues as flirting (Abbey,1982; A. J. Lee et al., 2020; Samara et al., 2021). Since men can experience a state of arousal faster than women (Huberman, Dawson, & Chivers,2017), it is more likely that men use their internal emotional state as aguide in judging women’s emotions, leading to biased estimates of women’sattraction. Therefore, the findings of Maner et al. (2005) regarding menIliana Samara 17x24.indd 77 08-04-2024 16:35
                                
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