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This study aims to provide a picture of the present European research topics in Social Psychology, using the 339 papers presented at the 1993 General Meeting of the EAESP. The most frequent themes of research are analysed and the structure of the association of those themes are described in a two-factor structure. The first factor differentiates research in terms of level of analysis and the second factor contrasts types of applied research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a meeting on social psychology in Bielefeld, Germany, 60 members of 15 different countries presented 26 scientific papers. Here in Weimar, Germany, more than 85 members have presented or will present about 70 papers. For those who do not put much faith in numbers one may perhaps recall the issues which were before them at the time of the Bielefeld conference. The previous president of the Association, Claude Flament, pointed out that this committee has first of all considered our contacts with socialist countries and to a lesser extent with mediterranean countries.

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Relative ingroup prototypicality (RIP) is an important concept in the ingroup projection model (IPM) of social discrimination and tolerance. This paper reviews measures of RIP currently in use and critically examines how the notion of RIP is captured by statistical tests treating RIP as a single variable. It is concluded that composite measures of RIP imply multiple statistical hypotheses that have previously been confounded. The value of an alternative multiple regression approach is illustrated in a study testing the hypothesis of a negative relationship between RIP and outgroup attitudes. Results based on the conventional univariate analyses would have confirmed or disconfirmed the hypothesis depending on the scoring method. In contrast, the multiple regression approach described in this paper resolves this ambiguity by suggesting that only outgroup prototypicality may be necessary to predict outgroup attitudes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power is an inescapable feature of human social life and structure. This paper addresses the nature of power. The standard theory is that power is the capacity for influence and that influence is based on the control of resources valued or desired by others. However, there have always been problems with this theory and new ones have appeared. The paper summarizes the standard theory and its problems, outlines the different meanings of power and presents a new theory emphasizing group identity, social organization and ideology rather than dependence as the basis of power. It proposes that power is based on persuasion, authority and coercion. A key point is that the theory changes the way these processes have been understood by reversing the causal sequence of the standard theory. The latter argues that control of resources produces power, power is the basis of influence and that mutual influence leads to the formation of a psychological group. The three-process theory argues that psychological group formation produces influence, that influence is the basis of power and that power leads to the control of resources. Implications of the theory for social change, coercion, prejudice and the extent to which power is a social evil are briefly noted. The challenge is to study how power emerges from and functions within social relationships with a definite social, ideological and historical content rather than reifying it as an abstract external force producing generic psychological effects. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unconditional respect for persons is an orientation that rests on the assumption that all people have intrinsic worth and deserve respect simply by their being human. This paper reports three cross-sectional studies concerning unconditional respect in intergroup relations in three very different contexts. In all three studies, unconditional respect was positively related to positive action tendencies, and negatively related to negative action tendencies, toward other groups. Regression analyses showed that respect was a significant predictor of negative action tendencies even when attitude to the other group, social dominance orientation, empathy, and the quality and quantity of intergroup contact were statistically controlled. Moderation analyses showed that respect was particularly important under conditions of high threat. The implications of unconditional respect for intergroup relations are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study of public order policing during a major ‘anti-capitalist’ riot. Officers were observed in the control room at New Scotland Yard throughout the event, and the two senior commanders were interviewed. The analysis demonstrates both the importance and the complexity of accountability concerns in determining police decisions. Officers are simultaneously accountable to multiple audiences who place different and sometimes contradictory demands upon them. Moreover officers in different positions may be subject to different accountability concerns. These lead to different action preferences that can create intra-organizational conflict. For instance, senior commanders were reluctant to use tactics that the general public and other external audiences might view as escalating the conflict or endangering the safety of protestors. In contrast, junior officers were less concerned with external audiences and supported these tactics as necessary to protect police safety. The theoretical significance of these findings is framed in terms of the SIDE model. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a renewal of interest in intergroup contact theory. A meta-analysis of more than 500 studies established the theory's basic contention that intergroup contact typically reduces prejudices of many types. This paper addresses the issue of process: just how does contact diminish prejudice? We test meta-analytically the three most studied mediators: contact reduces prejudice by (1) enhancing knowledge about the outgroup, (2) reducing anxiety about intergroup contact, and (3) increasing empathy and perspective taking. Our tests reveal mediational effects for all three of these mediators. However, the mediational value of increased knowledge appears less strong than anxiety reduction and empathy. Limitations of the study and implications of the results are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which a set of people is perceived as a meaningful group, as one entity, is called entitativity. In this paper, we propose that there are two qualitatively different group construals, or ways of thinking, about groups: as dynamic groups or as categorical groups. Two experiments investigated this distinction. An analogy was used to induce these construals by having participants think of the same group (the group “bees”) either dynamically (as the interacting members of a hive) or categorically (as the members of the species). We then gave participants information about a social group and assessed the impact of the construal manipulation on how that information was processed. Study 1 showed that perceivers recall and report different perceptual cues (similarity and interaction characteristics, respectively) when groups are thought of in these different ways. Study 2 showed that judgments of entitativity are differentially based on a group's similarity versus interaction under these different group construals. The results suggest that group construals change the properties on which entitativity is based. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper experimentally examines the effects of passing (versus revealing) a contextually devalued identity on performance-related self-confidence. An experimental scenario was developed on the basis of the results of a pilot study. Studies 1 and 2 (total N = 255) experimentally manipulate passing versus revealing a contextually devalued identity, to an ingroup or an outgroup partner. The results show that, although passing makes participants believe that their partner has more positive expectations of them, it also undermines performance-related self-confidence. Moreover, the results show that negative self-directed affect (i.e., guilt and shame) mediated the negative effect of passing on performance-related self-confidence. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the hypothesis derived from self-categorization theory (SCT) that the relationship between groups and stereotyping will be affected by the social structural conditions within which group interaction occurs. A mixed design experiment (n=56) measured low-status groups' stereotypes and preferences for conflict with a high-status outgroup prior to and after within-group discussion across varying social structural conditions. Over time, participants in [open] conditions consensualized around positive conceptions of the outgroup and endorsed acceptance of their own [low status] position. However, in [closed] conditions participants consensualized around positive conceptions of the ingroup, negative conceptions of the outgroup, and tended towards preferences for collective protest. It is argued that the data support S-CT's contention that stereotyping and group processes are fundamentally interlinked and that neither can be properly understood in isolation from the dynamics of the surrounding intergroup context. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological inquiry into social phenomena has become virtually indistinguishable from controlled experimentation. Although the assets and liabilities of psychological experiments have been subject to periodic debate, a continued increase in the reliance placed on experiments is evidenced. The present paper re-examines the adequacy of experimentation in light of major features of social interaction. Significant failures of the experiment emerge when the following characteristics of social events are considered: their imbeddedness in broader cultural patterns, their position within extended sequences, their open competition within real-life settings, their reliance on psychological confluences, and their complex determination. The additional consideration of social phenomena within historical context indicates that all reasonable hypotheses are valid and that critical testing between hypotheses about social behaviour is fruitless. Criteria for the productive usage of experiments are detailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is a rejoinder to Plods critique of the social psychology of conflict published in this Journal. The rejoinder reviews the history of American social psychology, the meaning of 'conflict resolution', the nature of the dilemma in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and other related matters which Plon has apparently misconstrued. The rejoinder criticizes Plon's crude 'economic determinism' version of Marxist theory and briefly considers the role of power in politics. The characteristics of the present author's social-psychological approach to conflict is outlined, and it is suggested that such an approach has direct relevance to the intellectual concerns of those who seek to bring about social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to extend the social identity approach to crowd behaviour (Reicher, 1984, 1987) in order to understand how crowd events, and crowd conflict in particular, develop over time. The analysis derives from a detailed account of a violent confrontation between students and police during a demonstration held in November 1988- the so-called `Bank of Westminster'. It focuses on how students came to be involved in the conflict, how the conflict spread and upon the psychological consequences of involvement. This analysis is used to develop general hypotheses concerning the initiation and development of collective conflict, it is concluded that, while the social identity model is of use in understanding these phenomena, it is necessary to recognize how social categories are constructed and reconstructed in the dynamics its of intergroup interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attribution theorists typically have conceived the attribution process in terms of universal laws of cognitive functioning, independent of social interaction. In this paper we argue for the notion, grounded in recent ordinary language philosophy, that any consideration of the form of everyday explanation must take into account its function as an answer to a 'why' question within a conversational framework. Experiment 1 provides support for the idea that speakers should identify as causally relevant that necessary condition for the occurrence of an event about which the enquirer is ignorant. Experiment 2 replicates this basic finding and further demonstrates that speakers will change their explanations to enquirers believed to be sharing different knowledge about the same target event. Experiment 2 also assessed the role of individual differences in conversational rule-following, and found in apparent contrast some previous predictions that high self-monitoring individuals were no more likely than lows to tailor their explanations to suit the enquirer's knowledge state. If anything, the reverse occurred. Taken together, these experiments support the central contention of the abnormal conditions focus model (Hilton and Slugoski, 1986), that the common sense criterion of causality is that of an 'abnormal condition' rather than constant conjunction as instantiated in the ANOVA model of causal attribution (Kelley, 1967, 1973). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper report the results of a meta-analytic integration of the results of 137 tests of the ingroup bias hypothesis. Overall, the ingroup bias effect was highly significant and of moderate magnitude. Several theoretically informative determinants of the ingroup bias effect were established. This ingroup bias effect was significantly stronger when the ingroup was made salient (by virtue of proportionate size and by virtue of reality of the group categorization). A significant interaction between the reality of the group categorization and the relative status of the ingroup revealed a slight decrease in the ingroup bias effect as a function of status in real groups, and a significant increase in the ingroup bias effect as a function of status in artificial groups. Finally, an interaction between item relevance and ingroup status was observed, such that higher status groups exhibited more ingroup bias on less relevent attributes, whereas lower status groups exhibited more ingroup bias on less relevent attributes. Discussion considers the implication of these results for current theory and future research involving the ingroup bias effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports a study concerned with effects of cognitive conflict, socio-cognitive conflict and imitation on children's. socio-Iegal thinking. Nine-year-old children whose socio-legal thinking was Iower level were paired with 9- and 11-year-old children whose socio-legal thinking was intermediate between lower and higher level for interaction in same sex dyads on legal transgression items. In total. 54 9-year-old children (1111/ 18 11-year olds participated in the study. An experimental board game was used for all dyadic interactions. The four investigative phases included a pre-test interview. dyadic interaction, one immediate and one delayed post-test: interview. The results indicated no overall superiority of subjects who could engage in socio-cognitive conflict over subjects who were limited to cognitive conflict alone. In addition, lower and intermediate level subjects in both conflict conditions advanced over both post-tests compared to a control group, arguing against a straightforward imitation account. Elements of subjects discourse during conflict were correlated with post-test advancement. Marked differences emerged between lows and intermediates for socio-cognitive conflict con- sonant with the constructivist view that social interactions and cognitive stages are interdependent. A complementary pattern of positive correlations emerged between (us- course and cognitive conflict subjects advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moscovici has ushered in the 'era of social representations', widely welcomed as a European alternative to what are increasingly regarded as the shortcomings of mainline' American social psychology. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption by many psychologists of Moscovici's theoretical approach has not so far evoked a great deal of critical appraisal of the ideas he put forward. The present paper seeks to make a start in filling this gap by an examination of the conceptual structure and sonic of its underlying assumptions. There appear to be a number of internal inconsistencies and some doubt concerning the logical status of social representations'. It is suggested that clarification of such issues, together with the establishment of closer links with the findings of neighbouring disciplines, would help to strengthen what is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating new departures in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the publication of a special issue on "Origins of Intergroup Bias: Developmental and Social Cognitive Research on Intergroup Attitudes" by the "European Journal of Social Psychology" in 2010. The special issue is designed to bring together research that examines children's and adolescents' intergroup attitudes. It suggests that interested authors should submit a letter of intent to one of the guest editors on or before May 15, 2009.

Crossed categorization typically refers to the crossing of two dichotomous social dimensions, resulting in four groups (double-ingroup, two mixed groups, and double-outgroup). This paper reports the results of a meta-analysis comparing the effects of crossed categorization on intergroup evaluations with the effects of simple categorization on intergroup evaluations. The crossed categorization paradigm is shown to increase or decrease ingroup bias, depending on how ingroup bias is defined in the crossed categorization paradigm. Moreover, just as in simple categorization, ingroup bias in crossed categorization is shown to be greater when the proportionate size of the ingroup is smaller. However, contrary to the patterns established in simple categorization, the reality of the group categorizations does not increase ingroup bias in crossed categorization. We discuss the implications of these results for future research on intergroup evaluations. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews developments in the field of close relationships from an interdependence theory perspective. It concludes that focusing on the relational, dyadic aspects of relationships has led to a much better understanding of social cognition and of interpersonal processes. In this vein, the nature and function of relational schemas seems a particularly promising new direction for research. It encompasses recent work on self-in-relation-to-other schema structure, the organization of schemas in cognitive networks, motivated construal in service of a need for felt security, and the dynamics of attachment and dependency regulation. Despite some impressive advances in research on close relationships, however, a more social psychological emphasis on the causal influence of features of social situations on cognition and behavior is important for the future health of the field. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a brief view of current trends in Norwegian social psychology. The ultimate test of any educational system is the practice of those educated within it. Therefore everyone now rushes to comment upon current research in social psychology in Norway. To make the present review a potentially useful guide, the author first draws a map at the institutional level, indicating where social psychological research is being conducted. The degree to which social psychology in Norway has won the status of an applied social science has been mentioned in the article.

The objective behind the periodical "European Journal of Social Psychology" (EJSP) was to provide a forum for European work and a bridge between European traditions and scientific communities. EJSP has become the natural home for work on intergroup relations, social identity and influence processes. If there is a European tradition in social psychology it must be broader than these or any specific topics. Social psychology should not be a ghetto; it has the potential to be the rich and fascinating centre of social sciences. EJSP will be publishing empirical research to converge towards this accent of the discipline.

M. Plon commits the same offense that he finds so odious in American social psychology: A confounding of political axioms and scientific reasoning. His desire to demonstrate ideological blindness in Americans leads him to misinterpret some published works on the Prisoner's Dilemma paradigm in bargaining research and to ignore the issue of the most useful balance in emphasis between conflict maintenance and conflict resolution when these topics are studied experimentally. Thus, M. Plon's angry attack is not a clarification of the deep issues that he essays but, rather, another data point that will itself need to be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies investigated the association of social approach and avoidance motivation with cognition, behavior, emotions, and subjective well-being. Study 1 (N = 245), a correlative self-report study, showed that approach and avoidance motivation mediated the effects of adult attachment-styles on social anxiety. A secure attachment-style was associated with co-occurring approach and avoidance motivation. Study 2, a social-interaction study (N = 38), revealed an association of avoidance motivation with a negative experience and passive behavior, and approach motivation with a positive experience and active behavior. Interestingly, the interaction of approach and avoidance motivation predicted engaged behavior and a positive emotional experience. Study 3 (N = 203), an online survey, showed that subjective well-being was negatively associated with high avoidance motivation, irrespective of the strength of approach motivation. Taken together, the studies show that social approach and avoidance motivation interact in predicting positive experiences and social behavior in a concrete social situation. However, from the long-term perspective, the negative consequences of social avoidance motivation seem to prevail when approach and avoidance motivation co-occur. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation in social dilemmas is often challenged by negative noise, or unintended errors, such that the actual behavior is less cooperative than intended—for example, arriving later than intended for a meeting due to an unusual traffic jam. The present research was inspired by the notion that doing a little more for one's interaction partner, which may be movitvated by empathetic feelings, can effectively reduce the detrimental effects of “negative noise,” or unintended incidents of noncooperation. Consistent with hypotheses, negative noise exhibited detrimental effects on cooperation, but such effects were absent when empathy-motivated cooperation was present. We conclude that empathy has broad benefits for social interaction, in that it can be an effective tool for coping with misinterpreted behaviors, thereby maintaining or enhancing cooperation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present set of studies investigates the role of competitive conflict regulation and informational dependence in peer learning. Previous studies have shown that peer work on identical information produces not only confrontation of viewpoints but also competitive conflict regulation, the latter of which is detrimental for learning. Conversely, working on complementary information produces positive interactions but also informational dependence, and good quality information transmission is needed to foster learning. The present research shows that discussion aids (note-taking and access to the study materials during discussion), a variable related to the quality of informational input, moderated the relationship between information interdependence and learning. This moderation was mediated by competitive conflict regulation: Students who worked on identical information with discussion aids reported more competitive conflict regulation than those without discussion aids, which in turn reduced learning, a pattern that did not appear for students working on complementary information. Moreover, when students worked on complementary information, the good quality of information transmission elicited by discussion aids led to high levels of learning for all students. Contributions to research on resource interdependence, socio-cognitive conflict, and peer learning are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that embodiment (via use of action-based representations) plays a crucial role in dialogue. To illustrate the argument we use studies of language comprehension. We first compare two distinct literatures, one concerned with the activation of non-linguistic action-based representations of meaning, and the other with representations of linguistic form associated with language production. We then argue that both types of embodiment support emulation and prediction. Hence, such embodiment enables addressees to anticipate both what their partner is likely to say next and what she is likely to do. We conclude by suggesting that such anticipation is essential for fluent and timely social interactions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors discuss aspects of the embedded-embodied approach to social psychology by Kerry L. Marsh, Lucy Johnston, Michael J, Richardson, and R. C. Schmidt. They comments that the approach to social psychology is vague and mentions that the key feature of dynamical systems theory and complexity science is emergence. They also note that social interaction and relations involves coordination of the movements and actions of an individual which is critical.

In this article, the author discusses aspects of the existence of social cognition and self-cognition. He mentions that individuals must perceive and react to their social environments due to social cognition. He states that social interaction and experience of social emotions are parly influenced by heredity as evidenced by the genetic disorder William's syndrome. He also discusses the role of enhanced self-esteem for the development of reproductive success through group involvement.

People's interactions with others typically take place in specific situations. Therefore, it is likely that expectancies of others are often situation-specific. In two studies, we examined when and how this situation-specificity of expectancies affects judgment. We showed that situation-specific expectancies (“Michael is kind at work”) lead to surprise and contrast effects when incongruent behavior refers to the same specific situation (work), but not in other situations (general or home), whereas general expectancies (“Michael is kind”) lead to such surprise and contrast effects, regardless of the target situation. These results suggest that people sometimes are “situationalists” and do not always show dispositional biases. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the underlying mechanism yielding a positive correlation between dyad members' mutual liking and meta-accuracy (i.e., dyad members who like each other tend to be accurate in judging how their partner sees them). Two pilot studies were first conducted to confirm the presence of the positive correlation. The main study was conducted to test several possible explanations for the observed positive correlation. In the main study, each participant took part in a series of brief interactions with an unacquainted opposite-sex partner three times. In each interaction, participants rated their liking for the partner, evaluated their impression of the partner on 15 items, and finally inferred the partner's impression of them on the same 15 items. The meta-accuracy was operationally defined as the correlation between the partner's impression and the participant's inference. Neither of the two types of unilateral liking (i.e., participant's liking for the partner nor the partner's liking for the participant) predicted meta-accuracy. However, when both members found the partner likeable (i.e., mutual liking was present), the within-dyad average meta-accuracy tended to be high. The implications of these results for meta-perception research are discussed on the basis of Brunswik's lens model framework. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present experiment it was investigated whether the evaluation of rivals could be an unconscious process, engaged in automatically whenever a rival is present. To this end, participants were subliminally primed with words relating to rival characteristics after which they read a jealousy inducing scenario and their jealousy was assessed. It was hypothesized that for women, their self-reported mate value would act as a moderator on the effect the rival characteristics would have on jealousy. For men, it was expected that their satisfaction with their current relationship would act as a moderator. The results confirmed the expectations: women with low mate value reported more overall jealousy, but women with high mate value were more jealous after priming with attractiveness words. Men with high relationship satisfaction reported more overall jealousy than men with low relationship satisfaction, and especially after priming with social dominance words. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that people form impressions of others based on their facial appearance in a very fast and automatic manner, and this especially holds for trustworthiness. However, as yet, this process has been investigated mostly in a social vacuum without taking interpersonal factors into account. In the current research, we demonstrate that both the relationship context that is salient at the moment of an interaction and the performed behavior are important moderators of the impact of facial cues on impression formation. It is shown that, when the behavior of a person we encounter is ambiguous in terms of trustworthiness, the relationship most salient at that moment is of crucial impact on whether and how we incorporate facial cues communicating (un)trustworthiness in our final evaluations. Ironically, this can result in less positive evaluations of interaction partners with a trustworthy face compared to interaction partners with an untrustworthy face. Implications for research on facial characteristics, trust, and relationship theories are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In complex social interactions, such as co-operation or competition with another person on an ability test, people tend to activate stereotypes strategically in order to achieve their self-enhancement goals. If multiple ways of categorizing the target person are available, the selected stereotypical traits that serve their motives might also depend on the specific task context in which the interaction is situated. We assumed that people selectively process trait information in order to increase their perceived chances to win in a currently performed task. We tested this hypothesis in a study in which participants were told to perform an analytical or emotional skills task having as a co-operator or rival, a multiple categorizable target person (female computer science student). In the analytical task context, we found stronger inhibition of stereotypically female traits in the co-operation than in the competition condition. In the emotional skills task context, we found stronger inhibition of computer scientist traits in the co-operation than competition condition. The interactive nature of goals and context influences on stereotype activation is discussed and some theoretical implications about the dynamics of stereotype activation processes are drawn. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence that we may be more likely to share stories about other people to the extent that they arouse emotion. If so, this emotional social talk may have important social consequences, providing the basis for many of our social beliefs and mobilising people to engage or disengage with the targets of the talk. Across three studies, we tested the situated communicability of emotional social information by examining if the ability of emotionality to increase communicability would depend on the emotion that was aroused and the identity of the audience. Study 1 showed that participants were more willing to share social anecdotes that aroused interest, surprise, disgust and happiness with an unspecified audience. Study 2 provided a behavioural replication of these findings. Study 3 showed that the communicability of emotional social talk did vary with audience identity (friend or stranger). Together, these findings suggest that emotional social events (particularly those that arouse disgust and happiness) are likely to become part of a society's social beliefs, with important consequences for the structure of social relationships. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research rests on the assumption that individual differences approaches to prejudice benefit from an integration of intergroup factors. Following Duckitt (2001), we assumed that two prominent individual differences variables, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), would differentially predict majority members' levels of ethnic prejudice depending on specific factors of the intergroup context: RWA as an index of motivational concerns about social cohesion, stability and security should drive prejudice against outgroups perceived as socially threatening, and SDO as an index of concerns about ingroup superiority and dominance should predict prejudice against outgroups perceived as potential competitors for power-status. Across two studies (Ns = 82, 176), using between-participants and within-participants experimental designs, the effects of RWA on prejudice were particularly powerful when the outgroup was manipulated to be socially threatening, but the effects of SDO on prejudice appeared not to increase when the outgroup was manipulated to be competitive. In Study 2, presenting the outgroup as having low status also increased the effect of RWA, but not the effect of SDO. These results support the differential prediction assumption for RWA, but not for SDO. Implications for the conceptualisation of RWA and SDO are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on regulatory focus theory, the present work examined the motivations underlying intergroup attitudes expressed under conditions of majority versus minority support. In two studies, participants expressed their attitudes towards equality and non-discrimination of foreigners and were informed that the equality and non-discrimination principle was supported by either a majority or a minority. Regulatory focus was assessed as the extent to which participants felt promotion-related and prevention-related emotions when acting either inconsistently or consistently with the egalitarian principle. Results provided evidence supporting the hypothesis that attitudes are related to prevention emotions when supported by a majority, but to promotion emotions when supported by a minority. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment (N = 239) investigated the effects of group power and legitimacy of power differentials on intergroup discrimination, measured through negative outcome allocations and linguistic abstraction. Furthermore, it examined the mechanisms through which group power affects discrimination by testing the mediating role of perceived interdependence and social identification. Three power conditions were created by modifying the standard minimal group paradigm: equal, high and low power conditions. Power was directly proportional (legitimate conditions) or inversely proportional (illegitimate conditions) to group members' performance in a problem-solving task. Results showed that intergroup discrimination in the high and low power conditions was higher than in the equal power condition on both the allocation and the linguistic measures. Legitimacy moderated the effect of group power on negative outcome allocations, while it had a main effect on the linguistic abstraction. In addition, perceived interdependence turned out to be the main mediator of the effect of power on negative outcome allocations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longitudinal study (N = 109) of interschool contact and attitudes was conducted to test Allport's (1954) Contact Hypothesis and Brown and Hewstone's (2005) addendum to it on the moderating role of typicality in the contact-attitude relationship. Three different measures of intergroup attitude were employed, including a new measure of infrahumanisation (Leyens et al., 2000). Support for the hypotheses was found on all three measures in the longitudinal analyses. Quantity of contact with a member of the outgroup was consistently associated with more favourable attitudes towards the outgroup as a whole. Importantly, contact was found to predict attitude but the reverse causal path was not significant. Also, on one measure there was an indication that the effects of contact quality were more beneficial when the contact persons were seen as typical of the outgroup than when they were not. It is concluded that, as originally hypothesised by Allport, contact with members of an outgroup can improve intergroup attitudes, but especially if those people can be seen as representative of their group. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the relational model that people use for organizing specific social interactions in any culture determines whether people self-enhance. Self-enhancement is not a functional consequence of the (independent or interdependent) cultural model of self. Across three studies, Danes self-enhanced considerably less than did Americans but were more independent on the Twenty Statements Test, made more individual attributions about social life, made more autonomous scenario choices, and were more independent on the self-construal scale. Public modesty did not account for these Danish-American differences in self-enhancement. However, Danes practiced interpersonal leveling, preferring equality of outcome more than did Americans. This leveling strongly and inversely predicted self-enhancement within both cultures and mediated Danish-American differences in self-enhancement. In contrast, no independence measure systematically predicted self-enhancement within both cultures nor mediated the cultural differences in self-enhancement. This dissociation of independence and self-enhancement demonstrates that self-enhancing downward social comparisons are not functionally necessary for an independent concept of self. We conclude that social relationships, not the model of the self, mediate the mutual constitution of psyche and culture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A social identity framework was employed to understand why people support the exclusionary treatment of refugee claimants (‘asylum seekers’) in Australia. Over and above individual difference effects of social dominance orientation and individuals' instrumental threat perceptions, insecure intergroup relations between citizens and asylum seekers were proposed to motivate exclusionary attitudes and behaviour. In addition, perceived procedural and distributive fairness were proposed to mediate the effects of social identity predictors on intergroup competitiveness, serving to legitimise citizens' exclusionary behaviours. Support for these propositions was obtained in a longitudinal study of Australians' social attitudes and behaviour. Small and inconsistent individual-level effects were noted. In contrast, after controlling for these variables, hostile Australian norms, perceived legitimacy of citizen status, and threatening socio-structural relations were strongly and consistently linked to intentions to support the harsh treatment of asylum seekers, and exclusionary attitudes and action at Time 2. Moreover, perceived procedural and distributive justice significantly mediated these relationships. The roles of fairness and intergroup socio-structural perceptions in social attitudes and actions are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact research often manipulates the salience of group membership, with little consideration of how such manipulations affect feelings toward intergroup contact, and how contextual features may moderate its effects. We propose that feelings toward intergroup contact may not depend solely on the degree to which group membership appears to be salient, but on how references to group membership are interpreted in the intergroup context. Two experimental studies examined how references to group membership may be interpreted differently depending on their source (ingroup or outgroup) and the recipient (minority or majority), and how these interpretations predict feelings toward cross-group interactions. In Study 1, references to group membership were interpreted more negatively from an outgroup source among majority participants, yet a reverse pattern was observed for minority participants. Similar effects were obtained in Study 2, yet participants tended to respond negatively when an outgroup member referred specifically to their group. Moreover, feelings about cross-group interactions were predicted only (Study 1) and strongly (Study 2) by the degree to which outgroup members' references were interpreted negatively, beyond what was predicted by participants' general awareness of group membership. Implications of these findings for future research on contact and salience are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on group identification has shown it to be a surprisingly weak predictor of intentions to take large-scale social action. The weak links may exist because researchers have not always examined identification with the type of group that is most relevant for predicting action. Our focus in two studies (one in Romania and one in Australia, both Ns = 101) was on opinion-based groups (i.e. groups formed around shared opinions). We found that social identification with opinion-based groups was an excellent predictor of political behavioural intentions, particularly when items measuring identity certainty were included. The results provide clear evidence of the role of social identity constructs for predicting commitment to social action and complement analyses of politicised collective identity and crowd behaviour. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of an experimental manipulation of perceived experience on self and others' likelihood ratings for a set of relatively commonplace misfortunes. Participants were randomly assigned to a condition in which they were asked whether they had ever experienced the events (designed to induce higher perceived experience) or whether they had done so frequently, typically, etc. (designed to induce lower perceived experience). The manipulation led to increases in ratings of both perceived self-likelihood and others' likelihood, in ease of imagining the outcome and recall of a past occurrence, and to decreases in perceived control over the events in the higher perceived experience condition. The increases in ease of imagining mediated the impact of manipulated experience on comparative likelihood whereas the decreases in perceived control did not. There was little evidence that event controllability moderated the impact of experience on comparative likelihood for these events. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test a courage hypothesis of minority influence, participants read a jury transcript in which a four person majority argued for conviction, while a two person minority argued for acquittal. Across two studies a harassed minority was more persuasive than an un-harassed minority on both obvious and subtle measures of social influence. In certain cases, these effects occurred only when weak minority arguments were used. In-group/out-group status of the minority, manipulated in Study 2, had negligible effects on persuasion. In Study 2, comparisons to a control condition in which all participants argued for acquittal, did not verify the contention that minority influence provokes more careful processing than majority influence despite the fact that harassed minorities were more persuasive on several measures than this type of majority-control. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]