Theatre and Attitudes, a performance and study of altering implicit associations

Can the experience of seeing performance alter how we perceive and categorize others?

 

On Thursday, October 11, join us for a showing of two versions of Will Eno’s “Middletown” by theatre graduate students, Tyler Eglen and Chelsea Pace. This experimental performance will test and challenge audience perceptions of violence and power through gender expectations. The audience will be invited to explore their response to each staging of the scene and complete a survey on their experience.

 

Theatre and Attitudes is a transdisciplinary study between Psychology and Theatre designed to gather and analyze empirical data to investigate the role of live and mediated performance in altering implicit associations. The project was conceived and is directed by Bonnie Eckard, Professor, School of Theatre and Film and Arthur Glenberg, Professor, Department of Psychology with the support of an IHR Seed Grant award.

 

“Current vocabulary to describe the reception of the performance suggests relative passivity: we speak of the spectator (who sees) or the audience (who hears)” Eckard wrote. “Neither of these terms adequately describes the kinesthetic experience of performance. In theatre, we have a robust tendency to resonate with actors' behaviors, which in turn can shape our unconscious beliefs about social normalcies.”

 

For more information, contact the IHR at 480-965-3000 or ihr@asu.edu.