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In an information search model, evaluative concerns during intergroup interaction are conceptualized as a joint function of uncertainty regarding and importance attached to out-group members' views of oneself. High uncertainty generally fosters evaluative concerns during intergroup exchanges. Importance depends on whether out-group members' evaluations are perceived as diagnostic of one's social standing and outcomes. Perceived diagnosticity can arise from the out-group's control over resources (contingency) and/or ability to provide accurate assessments (expertise) and is a function of the relative status of one's group and the perceived legitimacy of the group status difference. Evaluative concerns trigger information search efforts and forms of uncertainty reduction that have a variety of negative downstream effects. Implications for efforts to improve intergroup relations are discussed.

Describes a study of college students that examined how the use of computer mediated communication affected the transmission of performance and interpersonal appraisal information. Examined whether interpersonal judgments obtained through face-to-face communication resulted in greater positivity, but compromised accuracy, relative to computer-mediated interactions using electronic mail. (Author/LRW)

Four studies demonstrate that perspective taking can backfire in intergroup interaction, leading lower prejudice individuals to treat an outgroup member less positively than they do when they adopt alternative mind-sets; for higher prejudice individuals, perspective taking instead had a positive, albeit less consistent, effect on behavior. The net result was behavior disruption, whereby individuals' treatment of an outgroup member became incongruent with their inner attitudes. This disruption effect was evident for cognitive and affective forms of perspective taking, in ostensible and real face-to-face intergroup interactions, and for feelings of happiness experienced by individuals' interaction partner as well as outside observers' behavior assessments. Results further suggested that self-regulatory effort mediated the effect of perspective taking on intergroup interaction behavior, with the negative consequences of perspective taking for lower prejudice individuals' behavior appearing to stem from complacency rather than trying too hard. Overall, the findings reveal that perspective taking rather than self-focus accounts for the cognitive resource depletion and behavior disruption effects previously demonstrated to stem from evaluative concern in intergroup interaction and indicate that perspective taking may be more reliably helpful outside of intergroup interaction situations than within them. Keywords: perspective taking, intergroup interaction, meta-stereotypes, metaperceptions, evaluative concern

Four studies examined whether the intensity of individuals' concern with evaluation is affected by whether they are engaged in intragroup or intergroup interaction. According to the authors' theoretical framework, the importance that individuals attach to another person's opinion is a function of how predictive that person's evaluation seems to be of their social standing and outcomes. Members of lower status groups are more invested in outgroup members' opinions with increasing perceived legitimacy of the group status difference because outgroup members are seen as better judges of the competencies necessary for success in society. Members of a higher status group are more invested in outgroup members' opinions with decreasing perceived legitimacy of the group status difference because out-group members are seen as better judges of moral goodness. Results were generally consistent with these predictions and demonstrated that intergroup exchanges are sometimes characterized by heightened levels of the basic motivation to know one's social standing with others. Findings also revealed that the interactive effect of group status and perceived legitimacy extends to egocentric biases that contribute to tension and miscommunication in intergroup interaction. Keywords: intergroup interaction, evaluative concerns, perceived legitimacy of group status differences, higher and lower status groups

Two studies examined the communication of friendship interest within versus across group boundaries in relatively intimate exchanges. The main hypothesis was that so long as reasonable levels of friendship interest were in place, individuals would be more apt to exaggerate the clarity of their overtures (i. e., to exhibit a signal amplification bias) in intergroup as compared to within-group interaction. In line with predictions, this pattern was evident for lower-prejudice individuals, who were equally interested in ingroup and outgroup members as potential friends, but not for higher-prejudice individuals, who were relatively disinterested in cross-group friendship and instead tended to underestimate the friendship interest they conveyed to outgroup members. In contrast with the implications of past research centering on trait impressions and impersonal exchanges, both of these effects appeared to be driven by heightened feelings of transparency in intergroup as compared to within-group interaction. Keywords: cross-group friendship; social overtures; intergroup interaction; prejudice

Three studies examined the hypothesis that evaluative concerns exert a disruptive effect on intimacy-building behaviors exhibited by dominant group members in intergroup interaction. The authors predicted that although evaluative concerns would lead individuals with a negative baseline response to outgroup members to shine (i.e., to exhibit warmer, more friendly behavior), such concerns would have a contrary, choking, effect on individuals with a more positive baseline response. Results were generally consistent with these hypotheses across 3 different operationalizations of evaluative concerns and regardless of whether individuals' orientation toward outgroup members was assessed in terms of prejudiced racial attitudes or racial ingroup identification. Implications for lower status group members' experience of intergroup interaction and for the prejudice-reduction process are considered.

As family caregivers assume more prominent roles in the provision of home care to persons with serious illness, investigators must test the effectiveness of novel interventions to facilitate family caring for cancer patients. This article is based on results derived from a larger study carried out in Canada that was designed to compare 98 advanced cancer patient and family caregiver perceptions of 32 patient symptom experiences as captured by the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale. We examined two main questions: (1) whether 'natural' family caregivers' perceptions of patient lack of energy and worrying are more closely related to a self- or patient-oriented viewpoint and (2) whether induced 'imagine-patient' perspective-taking can assist caregivers to achieve better perceptual accuracy. The caregiver's natural responses to neutral instructions that neither encouraged nor discouraged perspective-taking served as the baseline comparison with three other instructional sets, in which caregivers were prompted to: (1) provide a self-report on their own symptom experiences, (2) imagine how they would feel in the patient's situation (imagine-self), or (3) imagine how the patient would respond to his or her symptom situation (imagine-patient). Findings suggested that the family caregivers' natural judgments correspond most closely to what they do under an imagine-patient set than to what they do under any other set. Findings with respect to accuracy indicated that instructions to imagine the patient's perspective helped to prompt adjustments down from a self-oriented viewpoint, although definitive conclusions were precluded by difficulties with order effects. [C] 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Canada; Caregivers; Family caregivers; Assessment; Symptoms; Perspective

Four studies demonstrated that fears of rejection prompt individuals to exhibit a signal amplification bias, whereby they perceive that their overtures communicate more romantic interest to potential partners than is actually the case. The link between rejection anxieties and the bias was evident regardless of whether fears of rejection were assessed in terms of chronic attachment anxiety or were induced by reflection on a previous rejection experience. Mediation analyses suggested that the bias stems in part from an expected-augmenting process, whereby persons with strong fears of rejection incorrectly assume that the recipient of their overtures will take their inhibitions into account when interpreting their behavior. Implications for understanding the link between attachment anxiety and loneliness and for designing social skills interventions are discussed.

An experiment examined how low- and high-prejudice dominant group members' (LPs' and HPs') reactions to intergroup contact were affected by whether they were accompanied by fellow ingroup members who exhibited prejudice-relevant behavior. Participants answered questions alone or in a group and then estimated how they were viewed by an observer who was an ingroup or an outgroup member. HPs believed that they were viewed more negatively by an outgroup member in the individual than the group condition. LPs showed the opposite effect, which led them to evaluate the outgroup member more negatively in the group condition. All participants in the group condition expected an outgroup member to exaggerate their similarity to the other ingroup members present, and LPs evaluated the other ingroup members more negatively when the observer was an outgroup member. The results suggest that intergroup attitudes guide the types of intergroup contact situations that are experienced most positively. Keywords: intergroup contact; prejudice; metaperceptions

The present research demonstrated that horizontal collectivism (HC), the tendency to emphasize social bonds and interdependence, is associated with overestimating the extent to which one's preferences, feelings, and behavioral inclinations are transparent to close others. The link between HC and felt transparency was mediated by self-other merging but was not significantly mediated by perceived similarity, behavioral closeness, or metaperception positivity. Evidence of a causal connection was obtained in an experiment where individuals for whom interdependence was primed exhibited greater transparency overestimation than did those for whom it was not. Additional results indicated that higher HC is associated with greater confidence but not greater accuracy in judgments about a friend. The authors argue that other perspective-taking deficits involving overuse of the self in judgments of others should also be exacerbated by the self-other merging that is associated with HC.

The article discusses studies indicating that increased-self awareness is associated with increased feelings of transparency. One study explored the relation between dispositional self-awareness and feelings of transparency, one the effects of state self-awareness on feelings of transparency, and one compared individuals' self-awareness in an evaluative context that induced this feeling with a nonevaluative context.

Two studies demonstrated that individuals can fail to detect changes in their actions that are induced by implicit social influence. In both studies, observers' impressions indicated that actors matched the positivity of their remarks about themselves to the positivity of another person's self-description. However, actors' own judgments of the types of impressions they conveyed revealed that they did not perceive the effect of the other's self-description on their self-presentation. Study 1 suggested that actors' relatively poor access to their own nonverbal behavior could not fully account for their failure to perceive how they were influenced. Study 2 indicated that actors' metaperceptions were connected to actors' general beliefs about themselves, whereas observers' impressions were not. The 'blindness' effect was driven primarily by actors low in self-esteem. Implications for self-presentation and other social phenomena are discussed.

What kinds of social interactions help individuals recover from an embarrassing experience? The present experiment examined the possibility that whereas individuals do not benefit from interacting with someone who is merely trying to understand and empathize, they do benefit from interacting with someone who has undergone the same experience and thus accurately understands their feelings. The 'target' member of 142 dyads performed an embarrassing task in front of the 'perceiver', after which they had a face‐to‐face discussion. Unbeknownst to targets, some perceivers did the task themselves beforehand, and some perceivers adopted an empathic mindset during the exchange. Perceivers' previous experience predicted improvements in targets' self‐evaluations that were mediated by more accurate perceptions of targets' feelings. In contrast, perceivers' empathic mindset had no benefits for targets, alone or in concert with prior experience. The only apparent benefits of perceivers' empathic mindset were that perceivers felt more empathy and liking for targets (both undetected by targets), and felt viewed more favourably by targets (not corroborated by targets). These results suggest greater efficacy of perceiver experience over empathic concern in facilitating targets' recovery from embarrassing events. Perceivers' dispositional empathy, involving a different type of experience accumulated over time, also predicted benefits to targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the precursors and consequences of systematic miscommunications regarding relationship interest during intergroup interaction. Pairs of previously unacquainted same-sex students (White-White, White-Chinese, or Chinese-Chinese) engaged in a relatively intimate controlled interaction. White participants who had had little prior contact with Chinese persons were more apt to exhibit a signal-amplification bias (i.e., to perceive that their overtures had conveyed more interest than was actually the case) in intergroup as compared with intragroup exchanges. In contrast, White participants with high levels of prior contact with Chinese persons and Chinese participants did not show enhanced signal amplification in intergroup relative to intragroup exchanges. These results support our hypothesis that lack of intergroup contact experience sets the stage for miscommunications regarding friendship interest. White participants' tendency to feel that they had initially communicated more interest in being friends than their Chinese partner mediated a downward shift in their actual friendship interest over time, suggesting that signal amplification triggers defensive distancing and ultimately lowers the likelihood of cross-group friendship formation.

This research demonstrated that both dominant and lower status group members' responses to interacting with an out-group member can center largely on thoughts and feelings about themselves. Pairs of students (either two White Canadians or one White Canadian and one Aboriginal Canadian) had casual get-acquainted discussions. Consistent with our hypothesis that individuals would tend to frame the interaction in terms of the other person's evaluation of them, high-prejudice White Canadians felt stereotyped by an Aboriginal partner even though they actually were not stereotyped and even though they themselves did not stereotype an Aboriginal partner. Moreover, Aboriginal Canadians appeared to personalize negative behaviors exhibited by their White partner. These individuals experienced discomfort and self-directed negative affect--but not other-directed negative affect--when their White partner was high in prejudice.

Participants in Study 1 either engaged in a negotiation with a 'phantom' second negotiator or observed the negotiation. Negotiators judged whether the observer would be able to accurately discern their goals from their behavior; observers judged the negotiator's goals. Results indicated that negotiators overestimated the transparency of their objectives. An interaction between goal salience and constraints on communication was also evident: When communication was highly constrained, negotiators overestimated their transparency only when they were led to focus on their goals; when communication was less constrained, negotiators overestimated their transparency regardless of goal salience. Study 2 revealed that motivational forces are not necessary for transparency overestimation to occur: Observers informed about a negotiator's goals also overestimated the extent to which his or her goals would be transparent to an uninformed observer., Negotiation is typically necessary when people or groups who are interdependent find that they have a conflict of interest and there are no established rules for deciding what to do [...]

What power dynamics are instantiated when a minority group member empathizes with a dominant group member during social interaction? How do these dynamics compare to those instantiated when the dominant group member instead does the empathizing? According to a general power script account, because empathy is generally directed “down” toward disadvantaged targets needing support, the empathizer should come out “on top” with respect to power-relevant outcomes no matter who it is. According to a meta-stereotype account, because adopting an empathic stance in intergroup contexts leads individuals to think about how their own group is viewed (including with respect to power-relevant characteristics), the dominant group member might come out on top no matter which person empathizes. Two studies involving face-to-face intergroup exchanges yielded results that overall were consistent with the meta-stereotype account: Regardless of who does it, empathy in intergroup contexts seems more apt to exacerbate than mitigate group-based status differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]