Navarrete, Carlos D.Olsson, AndreasHo, ArnoldMendes, WendyThomsen, LotteSidanius, James2009-06-302009Navarrete, Carlos D., Andreas Olsson, Arnold K. Ho, Wendy B. Mendes, Lotte Thomsen, and James Sidanius. 2009. Fear extinction to an out-group face: the role of target gender. Psychological Science 20(2): 155-158.1467-92800956-7976http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3128691Conditioning studies on humans and other primates show that fear responses acquired toward danger-relevant stimuli, such as snakes, resist extinction, whereas responses toward danger-irrelevant stimuli, such as birds, are more readily extinguished. Similar evolved biases may extend to human groups, as recent research demonstrates that a conditioned fear response to faces of persons of a social out-group resists extinction, whereas fear toward a social in-group is more readily extinguished. Here, we provide an important extension to previous work by demonstrating that this fear-extinction bias occurs solely when the exemplars are male. These results underscore the importance of considering how gender of the target stimulus affects psychological and physiological responses to out-group threat.en-USJournal Article10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02273.x