Search

Discrepancies between people`s ought selves and their actual selves and their ideal selves and actual selves predict the emotions that individuals experience. The authors predicted that internal versus external causal attributions for self-discrepancies should moderate the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions, resulting in more refined predictions for both agitation- and dejection-related emotions and for two additional types of emotion, namely, anger-related and discontent-related emotions. Results of two studies generally supported the predictions that agitation-related emotions and dejection-related emotions were positively associated with actual-ought discrepancies and actual-ideal discrepancies, respectively, only when causal attributions for the discrepancies were internally based. Anger-related emotions and emotions of discontent were positively associated with actual-ought and actual-ideal discrepancies, respectively, primarily when causal attributions were externally based. Study 2, which addressed group discrepancies and group-based emotions, generally replicated the findings when group identification was high, yielding a more complex model of the link between discrepancies and emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

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.

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]

Public perceptions of sex discrimination and women's economic opportunity, and attitudes toward the implementation of equal opportunity, are analyzed in data from a 1980 national survey. Results are interpreted in the context of previous findings on whites beliefs about blacks' opportunity, in terms of a general perspective on political cognition. The perspective stresses the influence of general stratification beliefs, self-interest, and affective responses on beliefs about specific groups such as women. Though some of these influences lead to similarities between views on women and blacks, others produce differences, such that overall, barriers to opportunity are more widely perceived in the case of women. Discussion focuses on the psychological processes and aspects of intergroup relations that contribute to opportunity-related beliefs and attitudes, and on their implications for future progress toward equality of opportunity for the sexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study on the representation of an in-group with respect to the self. Analysis of self-categorization theory; Optimal distinctiveness theory; Egocentric social categorization theory.

Several researchers have called for investigation of the psychometric properties of widely used attributional measures. Models involving multiple indicators of a latent (unmeasured) variable provide a valuable approach to this type of problem. A strategy that gives evidence about the relative merit of several attributional measures is illustrated. In general it appears that the best item of those tested is one asking for ratings of the cause of an event on a scale from dispositional to situational. A question about predicted recurrence of the event serves almost as well, while questions about the actor's freedom in, and responsibility for, the event are substantially less adequate measures of an underlying attributional construct. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A survey of the causal attributions of successful and unsuccessful medical school applicants yields evidence that attribution theories are applicable to impactful events outside the laboratory. Applicants viewed admission decisions based on controllable factors as fairer than those based on external or ascribed factors, and they demonstrated ego-defensive attributional tendencies by rating controllable factors as more important causes of success than of failure. The extension of social-psychological theories outside the laboratory through survey and other techniques is advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses beliefs about notions of social stratification. Since stratification is a basic aspect of society, beliefs about stratification are necessarily related to beliefs about society in general. Consideration of the determinants of beliefs about stratification necessitates attention to the effects of culture and subculture, technology, occupational conditions, class and economic position. The article focuses on review of the consequences of beliefs, which requires consideration of political behavior. Recent American research and British work on stratification have taken into consideration to with an aim to summarize about recent research's finding about stratification beliefs, to evaluate critically the basis of this knowledge and to discuss needed directions for future research. Use of the term "belief" is in a broad sense in order to refer to the information about a phenomenon that an individual uses as a basis both for inferring other information and for action. This usage encompasses such more specific social and psychological concepts as values, perceptions and attitudes.

Abstract In this paper we examine the effects of economic self-interest, racial affect, and stratification beliefs on attitudes toward affirmative action programs held by whites. Using data from a recent national survey we find that at present direct and indirect competitive self-interest significantly shape white opposition to these programs. Stronger predictors of opposition, however, are negative racial affect, the perceived egalitarian consequences of affirmative action programs, and the general denial of unequal opportunity. Some suggestions for needed further research are offered, and the implications of our findings for social policy and for understanding the current racial climate are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Goffman's influential treatment of stigma has prompted researchers to generalize from studies of reactions to certain negatively evaluated characteristics (e.g., physical handicaps) to others (e.g., sex), it is argued that such generalizations ignore an important dimension of difference. Social stigma involves membership in a devalued group and may correspond to what is generally understood as "minority status" in our society; individual stigma refers to possession of a single discrediting attribute. Both social and individual stigmata manipulations were introduced into complex and realistic personal descriptions of applicants for jobs involving authority and/or personal contact. Ss were 40 students at an Ivy League university, 16 of whom were female. The hypothesis that social stigma would be a bar to positions of status and authority while individual stigma would restrict access to positions involving interpersonal contact was only partially supported, but the cognitive processes explored appear to be both subtle and realistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a description and explanation of the current character of whites' beliefs about blacks' opportunity: perceptions of equality of opportunity, discrimination, "reverse discrimination," and the over-time trend in black opportunity. Data from a recent national survey show that whites tend to perceive widespread reverse discrimination, to see blacks' opportunity as having greatly improved in recent years, and in general to deny structural limits to blacks' opportunity. We propose that these perceptions are, in part, the product of the prevailing beliefs about stratification held by the American public. Empirical analysis shows that whites' beliefs about blacks' opportunity are significantly influenced by persons' perceptions of their own opportunity, by stratification ideology explaining opportunity in general, and by feelings of relative deprivation. [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.

Presents a letter to the editor commenting on the article by E. Tory Higgins and colleagues entitled "Effects of Group Sex Composition on Self-Presentation and Sex-Typing".

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.

An abstract of the article "Intergroup Emotions in Workgroups: Some Emotional Antecedents and Consequences of Belonging," by Patricia Garcia-Prieto and colleagues is presented.

Exemplar theory (Smith & Zárate, 1992) states that the use of stereotypes and group-level knowledge can be explained without the use of group-level mental representations. To explore this claim, this investigation attempted to show that a single association between a trait and a member of a social group would make it easier to form a later association between that trait and a different member of the same social group. Two experiments were conducted using Carlston and Skowronski's (1994) savings in relearning paradigm. The first experiment, using targets said to attend two different colleges, replicated the basic savings effect but failed to find any influence of group membership. The second experiment, using targets of different gender, also replicated the basic savings effect and additionally found some evidence for a group membership effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

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 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]

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]