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We tested three hypotheses derived from intergroup emotions theory: that group-based emotions, emotions felt as a member of a group, (1) are influenced by group norms, (2) especially for highly identified group members, and (3) are relatively more positive for highly identified members. Hypothesis 4 tested the prediction that these self-categorization, normative influence, and identification processes hold across memberships in exemplars of intimacy, task, and social category groups, which differ from one another in structural and functional characteristics. Two studies using three different samples found strong consistent support for Hypotheses 1 and 3, and only partial support for Hypothesis 2 (high identification increased the power of group norms on group-based emotions about only negative events). These findings held across multiple exemplars of the three group types, regardless of whether group-based emotions were targeted or untargeted, and regardless of whether emotion norms were empirically derived or based on group members' perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group-based emotions are experienced as a result of group categorization and group identification. We first review the transformative idea that emotion can occur as a group-level phenomenon driven by group-level processes. We then briefly review the impact of this idea on research about intragroup processes and intergroup relations in the decades since 1998. We conclude by raising some questions whose answers would further extend the reach and predictive power of group-based emotions in both intragroup and intergroup contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new model of social influence, which can occur spontaneously and in the absence of typically assumed motives. We assume that perceivers routinely construct representations of other people’s experiences and responses (beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors), when observing others’ responses or simulating the responses of unobserved others. Like representations made accessible by priming, these representations may then influence the process that generates perceivers’ own responses, without intention or awareness, especially when there is a strong social connection to the other. We describe evidence for the basic properties and important moderators of this process, which distinguish it from other mechanisms such as informational, normative, or social identity influence. The model offers new perspectives on the role of others’ values in producing cultural differences, the persistence and power of stereotypes, the adaptive reasons for being influenced by others’ responses, and the impact of others’ views about the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although person perception is central to virtually all human social behavior, it is ordinarily studied in isolated individual perceivers. Conceptualizing it as a socially distributed process opens up a variety of novel issues, which have been addressed in scattered literatures mostly outside of social psychology. This article examines some of these issues using a series of multiagent models. Perceivers can use gossip (information from others about social targets) to improve their ability to detect targets who perform rare negative behaviors. The model suggests that they can simultaneously protect themselves against being influenced by malicious gossip intended to defame specific targets. They can balance these potentially conflicting goals by using specific strategies including disregarding gossip that differs from a personally obtained impression. Multiagent modeling demonstrates the outcomes produced by different combinations of assumptions about gossip, and suggests directions for further research and theoretical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Current research demonstrates that people rely on metaphors in comprehending abstract concepts, but leaves the situational or dispositional determinants of metaphor use largely uninvestigated. Based on Construal Level Theory, we propose that metaphor use increases as the concept becomes psychologically removed from the immediate self, because distance causes it to be construed more abstractly. Two studies tested this psychological distance model of metaphor use. In Study 1, people opposed an open immigration policy when they were motivated to protect their bodies from physical contamination, but only when they imagined reporting their attitudes in a distant, rather than near, future. In Study 2, metaphorically representing a stock market as an autonomous agent led to predictions that it would achieve its “goals” by continuing to increase (decrease) in performance following a bullish (bearish) day. This metaphoric effect, however, only happened when the stock market was spatially distant, either objectively or subjectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses a decline which has been seen in the popularity of the concept of cognitive individualism in the fields of psychology and sociology. A discussion of the philosophies that the field of cognitive sociology has about the understanding of cognition, and of the impact that social interaction and social networks have on cognitive individualism, is presented. In the article the authors offer their opinions on the need for additional research which will lead to a better understanding of cognition and the impact that social interaction has on it.

Abstract: Person perception research is dominated by studies of passive perceivers who exert no control over the information they receive. In contrast, perceivers in everyday life can often actively choose the type and quantity of information they receive. In this study, active and yoked passive perceivers formed impressions of individuals based on information from Facebook. Compared to active perceivers, passive perceivers reported greater confidence and ease in their judgments. Passive perceivers exhibited greater confidence (though not greater accuracy) with increased information, but active perceivers did not show this effect, placing a boundary condition on past research. Passive perceivers also liked targets more than active perceivers, a finding that is not explained by valence-dependant sampling by active participants, or by misattribution of fluency or greater sensitivity among passive participants. These provocative findings highlight the need to account for active and interactive processes in person perception rather than continuing to focus on passive perceivers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Previous research [Smith, E. R., Seger, C. R., & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Can emotions be truly group-level? Evidence regarding four conceptual criteria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 431–446] has demonstrated that when people are explicitly asked about the emotions they experience as members of a particular group, their reported emotions converge toward a profile typical for that group. Two studies demonstrate that the same type of convergence occurs when a group identity is made situationally salient through priming, without an explicit request to report group-level emotions. People who identify more strongly with the group converge more, and show more similarity between their group-primed emotions and explicitly reported group-level emotions. This research confirms that activating a social identity produces convergence for emotions as well as for attitudes and behaviors. It also suggests that some previous emotion research may have tapped group rather than individual-level emotions, potentially requiring some reconceptualization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Research on person perception typically emphasizes cognitive processes of information selection and interpretation within the individual perceiver and the nature of the resulting mental representations. The authors focus instead on the ways person perception processes create, and are influenced by, the patterns of impressions that are socially constructed, transmitted, and filtered through social networks. As the socially situated cognition perspective (E. R. Smith & 0. R. Semin, 2004) suggests, it is necessary to supplement consideration of intra-individual cognitive processes with an examination of the social context. The authors describe a theoretical model of processes of distributed social cognition that takes account of 3 levels: the individual perceiver, the interacting dyad, and the social network in which they are embedded. The authors' model assumes that perceivers elicit or create as well as interpret impression- relevant information in dyadic interaction and that perceivers obtain information from 3rd-party sources who are linked to perceivers and targets in social networks. The authors also present results of a multiagent simulation of a subset of these processes. Implications of the theoretical model are discussed, for the possibility of correcting biases in person perception and for the nature of underlying mental representations of persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Individuals can often accurately perceive others’ emotions in a purely interpersonal context. However, when people identify with an important ingroup, they experience distinctive patterns of emotion [Smith, E. R., Seger, C. R., & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Can emotions be truly group-level? Evidence regarding four conceptual criteria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 431–446]. Thus, in three studies using a variety of meaningful groups, we examine how a salient distinction between groups might influence people’s ability to estimate the emotions of outgroup members. Participants demonstrated substantial though imperfect accuracy in estimating the emotions reported by outgroups. Specific biases affected their estimates, especially the overlap of perceived emotions of the outgroup with the ingroup’s own emotions. Furthermore, there was a general overprediction of outgroups’ negative emotions and underprediction of their positive emotions. Because of the importance of an outgroup’s emotions as potential causes of their behavior, accuracy and biases in group emotion estimation may be consequential for intergroup relations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Simonson holds that non-constructed “inherent preferences” influence many expressed attitudes as well as behavioral choices. These inherent preferences are not mentally represented, but amount to embodied constraints that (for example) make a person like a new product on an initial encounter. This article situates Simonson''s argument in the social–psychological literature on attitudes. Existing evidence does suggest that people sometimes are surprised by their evaluations of experiences (failures of affective forecasting). However, the problematic concept of non-constructed inherent preferences need not be invoked to explain such effects; existing models of the role of direct experience in attitudes are adequate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The field of social psychology – defined by its focus on the social aspects of human cognition and behavior – has in recent years begun to make contact with emerging perspectives in the cognitive sciences generally, especially the themes of embodiment and distributed cognition. This chapter reviews contributions of social psychology in these areas, with a particular focus on the intersection of embodied and distributed cognition. Research regarding embodiment in psychology and cognitive science has generally focused on implications of embodiment for individual-level functioning – for example, on the role of sensori-motor systems in mental representations. But embodied cues also contribute to relational functioning – linking the perceiver to other people – and thereby influence a broad array of social/relational processes, such as liking, interpersonal coordination, and prosocial behavior. In the area of distributed cognition, research in social psychology on group interaction and problem-solving, and in cognitive science on collective search tasks, is now converging on powerful and insightful descriptions of the processes that allow a group to discover good potential solutions without closing off consideration of diverse alternatives. Research in this area has only begun to incorporate the insights of the embodiment principle, which offers interesting and novel hypotheses for potential exploration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent advances in understanding prejudice and intergroup behavior have made clear that emotions help explain people's reactions to social groups and their members. Intergroup emotions theory (D. M. Mackie, T. Devos, & E. R. Smith, 2000: E. R. Smith, 1993) holds that intergroup emotions are experienced by individuals when they identify with a social group, making the group part of the psychological self. What differentiates such group-level emotions from emotions that occur purely at the individual level? The authors argue that 4 key criteria define group-level emotions: Group emotions are distinct from the same person's individual-level emotions, depend on the person's degree of group identification, are socially shared within a group, and contribute to regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Evidence from 2 studies supports all 4 of these predictions and thus points to the meaningfulness, coherence, and functionality of group-level emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social cognition refers to the mental representations and processes that underlie social judgments and behavior—for example, the application of stereotypes to members of social groups. Theories of social cognition have generally assumed that mental representations are abstract and stable and that they are activated and applied by relatively automatic, context-independent processes. Recent evidence is inconsistent with these expectations, however. Social-cognitive processes have been shown to be adaptive to the perceiver's current social goals, communicative contexts, and bodily states. Although these findings can often be given ad hoc explanations within current conceptual frameworks, they invite a fuller integration with the broad intellectual movement emphasizing situated cognition. Such an approach has already been influential in many areas within psychology and beyond, and theories in the field of social cognition would benefit by taking advantage of its insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents on the implications of agent-based modeling (ABM) as an alternative approach to theory building in social psychology. It states that ABM is a tool to bridge conceptually the micro level of assumptions regarding individual agent behaviors, interagent interactions, and the macro level of the overall patterns which result in the agent population. It is believed that the ABM approach is better able than prevailing approaches in psychological field.

Abstract: Two experiments show that repeated exposure to information about a target person reduces individuation and thereby increases stereotyping of the target person based on social group memberships. The effect is not due to familiarity-induced liking (the mere exposure effect), nor is it mediated by increased accessibility of the target’s social category, nor by increases in perceived social judgeability. The results are most consistent with the use of feelings of familiarity as a regulator of processing mode, such that familiar objects receive less systematic or analytic processing. In everyday life, frequent exposure to another person ordinarily produces not only familiarity but also liking, individuated knowledge, and friendship, factors that may effectively limit stereotyping. But when previous exposure is unconfounded from these other factors, its effect can be to increase stereotyping. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Two broad distal causes of prejudice are past history of intergroup contact and general political predispositions. Two studies investigate the extent to which these effects are mediated by emotions directed at the outgroup, as proposed by Intergroup Emotions Theory (Smith, 1993). In both studies, past intergroup contact and Social Dominance Orientation predict prejudice, as measured either by a feeling thermometer or the Modern Racism Scale. Furthermore, for both studies these effects are significantly mediated by intergroup emotions, above and beyond measures of stereotypes (stereotype endorsement in Study 1 and stereotype knowledge in Study 2) that were entered as alternative potential mediators. Stereotype endorsement also plays a significant mediational role in one case. Increased attention to the role of emotions in intergroup relations, including in the mediation of such powerful and well-known effects as those of intergroup contact and political predispositions, appears to be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies tested the hypotheses that inequality among group members, as well as specific reasons for inequality, would significantly influence strength of group identification and cooperative responses to a social dilemma. In Study 1, participants reacted to scenarios describing a public good social dilemma. For some scenarios there was an equal distribution of initial resources, while in others the distribution was unequal. As predicted, group identification led to more cooperation in the dilemma. Starting with more money tended to reduce group identification for females but to increase it for males. In study 2, participants were faced with an actual one-trial public good social dilemma involving real money. In some conditions, participants began with endowments of different sizes, and the inequality was explained as either random or justified. As predicted, reasons for inequality as well as the fact of inequality had an impact on group identification which, in turn, influenced cooperation in the dilemma. Replicating the results of Study 1, different conditions tended to enhance group identification for women and men. Study 3 was a conceptual replication of Study 2, and resulted in similar findings. Overall, these results may have important implications for real-world dilemmas, where inequality among the parties is almost always a salient feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent rise of interest in situated and embodied cognition has a strong interdisciplinary flavor, with contributions from robotics, cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology, among other disciplines. However, social psychology has been almost completely unrepresented. Social psychologists investigate the ways people perceive, interact with, and influence each other, and this field therefore offers an ideal standpoint for the investigation of many of the most central aspects and themes of the situated cognition approach—because the relevant ‘situation’ in which cognition takes place is, almost always, a social situation defined by an individual’s group memberships, personal relationships, and social and communicative goals. This paper briefly reviews social psychological research and theory related to five major themes of situated and embodied cognition. The themes are: cognition is for action; cognition is situated (radically affected by situations, and makes use of situations as resources); artifacts and situations effectively extend cognitive processes out beyond the individual; cognition is embodied; and situated cognition affects and interacts with symbolically based thought. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A distributed connectionist network can account for both bookkeeping (M. Rothbart, 1981) and subtyping (M. B. Brewer, V. Dull, & L. Lui, 1981; S. E. Taylor, 1981) effects. The finding traditionally regarded as demonstrating subtyping is that exposure to moderate (compared with extreme) disconfirmers leads to subsequent ratings of the group that are less stereotypic. Despite learning that is incremental and analogous to bookkeeping, the simulations replicate this finding and suggest that the "subtyping" pattern of results will be drastically reduced if disconfirmers are encountered before the stereotype is well-established. This novel prediction holds with human participants and offers a tantalizing suggestion: Although moderate disconfirmers may produce more stereotype change, stereotype development might be discouraged by exposure to either extreme or moderate disconfirmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the overlapping mental representations of the self and in-group in Indiana. Extension of match/mismatch reaction time effect to attitudes and traits; Correlation of match/mismatch effect with explicit measures of group identification; Relationship between explicit and implicit measures of group identification; Implications for group identification theories.

Focuses on an integrative model that postulates distinct processing modes in areas within social and cognitive psychology. Idea that humans possess two memory systems; Associative retrieval or pattern completion in the slow-learning system; Intentional retrieval of explicit rules from either memory system and their use to guide processing.

Aspects of people's identification with groups may be understood by borrowing theoretical ideas and measurement strategies from research on attachment in close relationships. People have mental models of the self as a group member and of groups as sources of identity and esteem. These models affect thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to group membership. Three studies show that two dimensions of attachment to groups, attachment anxiety and avoidance, can be assessed with good reliability, validity, and over-time stability. These factors are distinct from relationship attachment and from other measures of group identification. Group attachment predicts several important outcomes, including emotions concerning the group, time and activities shared with a group, social support, collective self-esteem, and ways of resolving conflict. This conceptualization provides new insights into the nature of people's psychological ties to groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between how people communicate about social events and how representations of these events are stored in memory. It was hypothesized that more distant events in memory would be described with more abstract linguistic predicates, and recent events with more concrete language. The 1st study supported this hypothesis. The 2nd and 3rd experiments demonstrated that abstract predicates used as prompts elicit memories that are significantly more removed in time than concrete predicates. Two final experiments showed that these outcomes are not merely a function of the type of semantic cue but an interaction between memory and preferential predicate use. The findings illustrate a link between memory and communicative behavior of a type that has not been previously studied. The results are discussed in terms of a recent, well-supported model of 2 separate fast-learning and slow-learning memory systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information pertaining to a study which examined intergroup relations, in relation to psychology. Examination of the similarities in constructs related to stereotypes, prejudice, and intergroup discrimination; Method used to conduct the study; Results of the study.

Three experiments identified conditions under which trait judgments made about a behavior were more likely to influence later judgments of the behavior. In Experiment 1, participants made trait judgments about numerous behaviors presented with photos of actors. Some behaviors were repeated, paired with the same or a different actor. All repeated behaviors were judged faster than new behaviors. Facilitation was greatest when repeated behaviors were paired with the same actor, suggesting greater influence of prior judgments in this condition. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect, and the pattern of response times (RTs) suggested a stronger association between the actor and behavior when a prior impression of the actor had been formed (Experiment 2) and when the behavior was stereotypic of the actor's group (Experiment 3). Level of prejudice moderated RT patterns in Experiment 3. Implications for context effects, the nature of trait inferences, and stereotype change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectionist models contrast in many ways with the symbolic models that have traditionally been applied within social psychology. In this article the authors apply an autoassociative connectionist model originally developed by J. L. McClelland and D. E. Rumelhart (1986) to reproduce several well-replicated and theoretically important phenomena related to person perception and stereotyping. These phenomena are exemplar-based inference, group-based stereotyping, the simultaneous application of several stereotypes to generate emergent characteristics, and the effects of recency and frequency of prior exposures on accessibility (the probability of a representation's use). Though many of these phenomena are explained by current theories in social psychology, the simulation contributes to parsimony and theoretical integration by showing that a single, very simple mechanism can generate them all. The model also predicts a new phenomenon--rapid recovery of accessibility after it has declined to zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the power and functional value of accessible attitudes in shaping basic categorization and judgmental processes. Every person or object can be categorized in multiple ways. The authors hypothesized that categories toward which people have highly accessible attitudes are preferentially applied to multiply categorizable objects. This article explores the factors that influence a perceiver's use of one category rather than another. The very act of perception involves the categorization process which ultimately determine how a given object is perceived and evaluated at a given moment in time. A clear prediction is that the use of these different categorizations-or potential construals of the object will in fact shape the way the object is construed. Though plausible, these hypotheses remain for further research to address, as the next stage at which basic cognitive processes such as categorization and memory are pervasively influenced by such uniquely social variables as accessible attitudes.

The article reports on the relation between social psychology and connectionism or parallel distributed processing models of mental representation and process. Connectionism exerts a strong and growing influence in many areas of cognitive psychology, ranging from research on low-level visual perception to higher level processes such as language processing, categorization, and decision making. The connectionist models can be described at two levels. Properties at the higher level--the level at which one can speak of representations, processes, memory, pattern completion, and constraint satisfaction--offer powerful new tools for theoretical development in social psychology. They will be useful both for constructing new and integrative accounts of known findings and for generating new predictions and inspiring empirical studies to test these predictions. Part of the promise of the connectionist approach is that a common theoretical language will result in increased integration across different areas of psychology, particularly cognitive, developmental, and social. Social psychology stands to be a contributor to, as well as a beneficiary of, this increased integration.

Perceivers who observe social behaviors may form impressions not only of actors' traits but also of people as targets and of interpersonal relationships. In Study 1, Ss read about 4 individuals' behaviors under instructions to form actor-, target-, and relationship-based impressions. Ss then read additional behavioral information that they later tried to recall. Ss accurately perceived actor, target, and relationship effects in the presented information, and they better recalled subsequent behaviors that were consistent with all 3 types of impressions. In Study 2, Ss thought of 4 people they knew and judged how much each liked the other 3. These ratings revealed actor, target, and relationship effects as well as individual and dyadic reciprocity. Perceivers can form relatively accurate impressions of people as actors and as targets and accurate impressions of relationships between people, and these impressions influence memory for further behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2 experiments, Ss judged whether numerous behaviors implied a target trait (intelligent or friendly) and then, on an ostensibly unrelated questionnaire, evaluated the overall desirability of some behaviors. Repeated behaviors were judged more quickly than new ones, even with 7 days between presentations. In addition, evaluations of previously judged behaviors that had evaluatively mixed implications were dominated by their implications for the practiced trait. This implicit memory effect occurred over a 7-day delay, even when Ss did not recognize that they had previously seen the behavior. Just as a general construct (e.g., a trait) can be made accessible by an individual's past experiences, a specific cue-construct linkage (e.g., a tendency to interpret a specific behavior in terms of a particular trait) can be facilitated for a long time, independent of conscious awareness, by making a single judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the "Attitudes and Social Cognition" section of the January 2012 issue of "Journal of Personality & Social Psychology," which discusses the use of parochial terminology and the citation of information in the journal.

The article discusses a study that evaluated the differences in how students forecast their response to certain criteria and the ways in which students actually respond when experiencing the same stimuli. This was used to illustrate the fact that humans often mispredict their own emotional reactions in a given situation. It studied a response to a racial statement made by a white individual to a black individual. Different types of identities are evaluated in response to this topic and the importance of self-categorization is examined.

Abstract: Three studies integrated crossed-categorization and discrete emotion approaches to prejudice and prejudice reduction. Study 1 made salient crossed-categorization using naturally occurring groups and examined the ability of emotions to account for prejudiced evaluations. Study 2 constructed novel crossed-categorizations in the laboratory to examine the role of appraisal-based emotions in evaluations of crossed-categories. Study 3 crossed gender and sexual orientation, for which elicited discrete emotions predict different evaluative responses than do shared and unshared group memberships alone. In all three studies, discrete emotions were able to account for the effects of crossed-categorization on evaluative measures of prejudice and revealed emotional paths to prejudice reduction which would be obscured by the evaluative measures alone. In Study 3, a discrete emotions approach better predicted evaluations than did shared and unshared group membership alone. These results converge to highlight the importance of discrete emotions in understanding the evaluative implications of crossed-categorization, especially for prejudice reduction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: According to intergroup emotion theory, the impact of many intergroup events on intergroup outcomes is mediated by group-directed emotions. We demonstrate that the ability of apology to reduce retribution against and increase forgiveness of a transgressing outgroup is contributed to by discrete intergroup emotions. We examined both negative (anger and fear) and positive (respect and satisfaction) emotions directed toward the transgressing outgroup. Apology reduced the desire for retribution whereas lack of apology increased it, and outgroup-directed anger uniquely mediated this effect. In contrast, apology increased and lack of apology decreased forgiveness, particularly when the ingroup responded to the transgression, and only outgroup-directed respect mediated this effect. These results provide the first evidence that intergroup emotions can mediate the impact of apology on intergroup relations outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

When making decisions, people typically gather information from both social and nonsocial sources, such as advice from others and direct experience. This research adapted a cognitive learning paradigm to examine the process by which people learn what sources of information are credible. When participants relied on advice alone to make decisions, their learning of source reliability proceeded in a manner analogous to traditional cue learning processes and replicated the established learning phenomena. However, when advice and nonsocial cues were encountered together as an established phenomenon, blocking (ignoring redundant information) did not occur. Our results suggest that extant cognitive learning models can accommodate either advice or nonsocial cues in isolation. However, the combination of advice and nonsocial cues (a context more typically encountered in daily life) leads to different patterns of learning, in which mutually supportive information from different types of sources is not regarded as redundant and may be particularly compelling. For these situations, cognitive learning models still constitute a promising explanatory tool but one that must be expanded. As such, these findings have important implications for social psychological theory and for cognitive models of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which tackles the implication of social influence and how it is placed in people's social networks and relationships. It provides emphasis on the use of laboratory studies in analyzing and assessing the impact of social influence on the cognitive processes of individuals. In addition, it states that there is a need for researchers to strengthen the methods they are using and integrate new models to focus more on the dimensions underlying social influence.

Three studies investigated the role of intergroup satisfaction in intergroup conflict. After reading about real acts of aggression committed by an ingroup, participants reported how those actions made them feel and how much they would support similar aggression in the future. In all three studies, experiencing intergroup satisfaction increased support for similar aggression, whereas experiencing intergroup guilt decreased support for similar aggression. Study 2 showed that ingroup identification increased justification appraisals, which increased satisfaction and decreased guilt, and thus increased support for future aggression. Study 3 provided an experimental test of the model: when justification appraisals were manipulated, emotion and support for further aggression changed accordingly. These findings demonstrate conditions under which intergroup satisfaction can facilitate and sustain intergroup conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one that focuses on the intergroup emotion theory and another about intergroup guilt.

Abstract: If intergroup emotions are functional, successfully implementing an emotion-linked behavioral tendency should discharge the emotion, whereas impeding the behavioral tendency should intensify the emotion. We investigated the emotional consequences of satisfying or thwarting emotionally induced intergroup behavioral intentions. Study 1 showed that if an attack on the ingroup produced anger, retaliation increased satisfaction, but if an attack produced fear, retaliation increased fear and guilt. Study 2 showed that outgroup-directed anger instigated via group insult dissipated when the ingroup successfully responded, but was exacerbated by an unsuccessful response. Responding in an emotionally appropriate way was satisfying, but ingroup failure to respond elicited anger directed at the ingroup. Study 3 showed that intergroup guilt following aggression was diminished when the ingroup made reparations, but was exacerbated when the ingroup aggressed again. Satisfying behavioral intentions associated with intergroup emotions fulfills a regulatory function. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The current research investigated participants' reactions to positive and negative comments directed toward them as individuals or as members of a social group. Using both perspective-taking (Studies 1 and 2) and actual interaction methodologies (Study 3), three studies found that participants generally responded negatively to negative comments regardless of the level of identity to which the comment was directed. Positive comments were generally viewed positively, except when the comment was directed at the group and was stereotype relevant. When the latter was the case, participants reported increased anger and desires to attack (and avoid) the speaker. Furthermore, these negative feelings and action tendencies were partially mediated by an attribution to prejudice to the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article focuses on the automatic evaluation of exemplars whose category membership has been learned in the past. Studies 1 and 2 confirmed the hypothesis that once an exemplar has been encoded as a member of a given group, at a later encounter the evaluation associated with the group will be unintentionally retrieved from memory, even when no perceptual cue indicates the exemplar's category membership. Study 3 extended the results to the domain of in-group/out-group differentiation. In addition, Studies 4 and 5 confirmed the hypothesis that stored evaluations can be retrieved and affect responses even when the semantic information on which the evaluations were originally based is no longer available for retrieval. Finally, Study 6 investigated spontaneous approach-avoidance behavior tendencies. Overall, results demonstrate the pervasive effects of person-based representations, and they are discussed in terms of recent models of person perception and out-group discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies tested the idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. Participants' group memberships were made salient and the collective support apparently enjoyed by the in-group was measured or manipulated. The authors then measured anger and fear (Studies 1 and 2) and anger and contempt (Study 3), as well as the desire to move against or away from the out-group. Intergroup anger was distinct from intergroup fear, and the inclination to act against the out-group was distinct from the tendency to move away from it. Participants who perceived the in-group as strong were more likely to experience anger toward the out-group and to desire to take action against it. The effects of perceived in-group strength on offensive action tendencies were mediated by anger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions are increasingly being recognised as important aspects of prejudice and intergroup behaviour. Specifically, emotional mediators play a key role in the process by which intergroup contact reduces prejudice towards outgroups. However, which particular emotions are most important for prejudice reduction, as well as the consistency and generality of emotion–prejudice relations across different in-group–out-group relations, remain uncertain. To address these issues, in Study 1 we examined six distinct positive and negative emotions as mediators of the contact–prejudice relations using representative samples of U.S. White, Black, and Asian American respondents (N = 639). Admiration and anger (but not other emotions) were significant mediators of the effects of previous contact on prejudice, consistently across different perceiver and target ethnic groups. Study 2 examined the same relations with student participants and gay men as the out-group. Admiration and disgust mediated the effect of past contact on attitude. The findings confirm that not only negative emotions (anger or disgust, based on the specific types of threat perceived to be posed by an out-group), but also positive, status- and esteem-related emotions (admiration) mediate effects of contact on prejudice, robustly across several different respondent and target groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can motivate members of disadvantaged groups to take action on behalf of their group? This research assessed a model in which measured perceptions of (study 1) and manipulated information about (study 2) other women’s anger influenced female participants’ group-based anger, their subsequent appraisals of instances of possible discrimination, and finally their collective action tendencies. Consistent with Intergroup Emotions Theory, the results suggested that emotional self-stereotyping is one mechanism by which group members can become motivated to respond to possible discrimination, a process supported by group-based anger-driven appraisals about specific discrimination events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2 experiments, implicit evaluation of novel and familiar concepts was assessed using a sequential priming procedure that enabled estimates of evaluative priming effects at low levels of detectability. In Experiment 1, the novel concepts referenced common names, and in Experiment 2 they referenced nonsense words. Whereas familiar concepts yielded priming effects at low levels of detectability in both experiments, novel concepts did not elicit any priming effect. Implicit evaluation of novel concepts has been documented in related research but under conditions that differ from those investigated here. The present results identify important limiting conditions associated with the implicit evaluation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: According to Intergroup Emotions Theory people categorized as group members experience the emotions of their ingroup as a consequence of that membership. Four experiments showed that participants converged toward what they believed to be their specific ingroup’s distinct emotional experience when reporting emotions as group members, but not when reporting emotions as individuals. Such self-stereotyping of ingroup emotions occurred for an experimentally fabricated ingroup as well as a range of naturally occurring groups. Demonstrating the roots of this process in categorization, self-stereotyping was increased when motivations to affiliate were amplified and was moderated by ingroup identification. The adoption of ingroup emotions changed participants’ cognitive processing in a predictable way, demonstrating that emotional self-stereotyping involved the experience rather than merely the expression of group-based emotions. Self-stereotyping of ingroup emotions is thus one mechanism by which group-based emotions are shared and can be changed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Extending recent investigations into the malleability of implicit ingroup favoritism, three experiments examined the role of indirect activation of equality and loyalty. Results showed that priming equality decreased implicit favoritism, measured through the Implicit Association Test and Go/No-Go Association Task, whereas priming loyalty enhanced it; spontaneous behavior (seating distance) was similarly influenced. A boundary condition was observed, namely change of intergroup setting: the effects of priming equality and loyalty ceased when these were primed after an irrelevant ingroup identity was made salient. In general, implicit favoritism can be reduced or increased after the activation of equality and loyalty respectively, and this underlines the importance of tackling discrimination by both lessening its expression, and removing factors that exacerbate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Drawing on Intergroup Emotions Theory [Mackie, D. M., Maitner, A. T., & Smith, E. R. (in press). Intergroup emotions theory. In T.D. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination, New York: Erlbaum.], we propose that a perceiver’s emotional reactions toward other social groups can change in response to situationally induced shifts in self-categorization. American students were led to self-categorize as Americans or as students and reported their anger and respect towards Muslims and police. Results indicated that in reaction to Muslims, participants felt more anger and less respect when categorized as Americans than when categorized as students. In reaction to police, participants felt less anger and more respect when categorized as Americans than when categorized as students. These results support and extend IET, and suggest that in addition to prejudice reduction interventions that focus on recategorization of the target, perceiver recategorization of the self is a viable means of changing emotional reactions to social targets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]