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In recent years a considerable body of psychological research has explored the relationship between membership of socio-cultural groups and personal pain perception. Rather less systematic attention has, however, been accorded to how such group membership(s) might influence individual attitudes towards the pain of others. In this paper, immersion in the culture of competitive sport, widely regarded as being exaggeratedly tolerant of risky behaviours around pain, is taken as a case-in-point with students of Physical Education (PE) in tertiary education as the key focus. PE students are highly-immersed in competitive sporting culture both academically and (typically) practically, and also represent a key nexus of cross-generational transmission regarding the norms of sport itself. Their attitudes towards the pain that others should reasonably tolerate during a range of activities, sporting and otherwise, were evaluated through a direct comparison with those of peers much less immersed in competitive sporting culture. In total, N=301 (144 PE, 157 non-PE) undergraduate students in the UK responded to a vignette-based survey. Therein, all participants were required to rate the pain (on a standard 0-10 scale) at which a standardised "other" should desist engagement with a set of five defined sporting and non-sporting tasks, each with weak and strong task severities. Results indicated that PE students were significantly more likely to expect others to persevere through higher levels of pain than their non-PE peers, but only during the sport-related tasks – an effect further magnified when task severity was high. In other tasks, there was no significant difference between groups, or valence of the effect was actually reversed. It is argued that the findings underscore some extant knowledge about the relationship between acculturated attitudes to pain, while also having practical implications for understanding sport-based pedagogy, and its potentially problematic role in the ongoing reproduction of a "culture of risk." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives. We surveyed a large number (combined N = 800) of social and personality psychologists and discovered several interesting facts. First, although only 6% described themselves as conservative “overall,” there was more diversity of political opinion on economic issues and foreign policy. Second, respondents significantly underestimated the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. Third, conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, they are right to do so: In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data from a national survey of public attitudes toward homeless people, this paper evaluates the applicability of the contact hypothesis to in-group/out-group relations that fail to meet the optimal conditions specified in the contact literature. Past efforts are extended by (1) moving beyond face-to-face encounters to consider multiple types of in- group exposure to a highly stigmatized out-group, (2) examining a variety of attitudinal outcomes, and (3) incorporating community context as a possible antecedent of such outcomes. Even after taking selection and social desirability processes into account, all types of exposure are found to affect public attitudes in the predicted (favorable) direction. Moreover, the size of the local homeless population-our primary measure of context-shapes opportunities for most forms of exposure and thus influences attitudes indirectly. These findings suggest that the scope of the contact hypothesis needs to be widened rather than narrowed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy on illegal drugs has been from the beginning also policy on foreigners. But there are periods when the linkage becomes stronger and its profile more distinct. The integration of Europe seems to be a period stimulating a change in the character of the linkage because of the increase of "national uncertainty." The Austrian case is the focus of this paper: it is investigated since the arrival of the "international drug wave." The investigation is based on the analysis of the special police reports on drug offenses published since 1975, on interviews with other drug professionals, and on studies of immigration and attitudes toward immigrants. A main conclusion is that the intensification of the linkage reflects increasing major social conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports three substantive findings from national survey data concerning the relationship between legal approval and moral concern in the abortion dispute. First, the moral beliefs of opponents of abortion reinforce their legal stance, whereas many people favor legal abortion despite personal moral reservations. Second, although there is little difference between men's and women's attitudes towards the legality of abortion, women are far more likely to feel that abortion is morally wrong. This gender difference holds even when education, religious preference, and church attendance are controlled. Third, a content analysis of open-ended responses illustrates the variety of moral concerns. There are no discernible gender differences in concerns mentioned, but opponents of abortion are much more absolute and rule-bound in their moral stance than are those who support legal abortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]