Mascots of Fear

Abstract

Numerous Native American organizations requested the discontinuation of the use of Native images in high schools and colleges, but many educational institutions still oppose the change. So far, there is no convincing evidence about how harmful Native American mascots are. The primary goal of this paper was to examine if these images are truly aversive, using a well established physiological measure the affective modulation of the startle response (AMSR). The secondary goal of this paper was to elucidate on the question what drives this effect, using a well established reaction-time measure of implicit attitudes, the Weapon Identification task. The results supported the hypotheses that images of Native American mascots were perceived as aversive when measured with the physiological measure of the startle response. The results also found preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that one of the driving forces of this effect could be an automatically activated fear response. This paper demonstrates that seemingly neutral images, if associated with a minority group, can evoke negative emotional reactions in the observer, specifically potentially leading to a fear response.