Race versus belief about race as determinants of attraction: Belief prejudice and two kinds of race prejudice

An experiment was conducted to assess the effects of actual racial membership versus similarity of beliefs about racial issues on interpersonal evaluations. Prejudiced and unprejudiced White male students observed a videotaped interaction of two Black and two White male actors discussing racial issues and then evaluated the actors on several scales. One White and one Black actor took a conservative stand on racial issues, and the other White and Black pair of actors took a liberal position. Results from the ratings showed strong belief prejudice effects. Prejudiced subjects were attracted to conservative actors while unprejudiced subjects were attracted to liberal actors. Additionally, there were two kinds of race effects. Prejudiced subjects preferred White to Black actors, but unprejudiced subjects showed a reverse bias, preferring Black to White actors. A tentative explanation for this unusual finding was proposed.     

Race and climate as influences on anxiety

Lynn (1971) argues that Nordic race and cool climates independently predispose people to low levels of chronic anxiety. He also associates high economic growth and high anxiety. Random population samples of the cities of Sydney (Australia), Munich (W. Germany) and Bombay (India) received the short form of Eysenck's MPI N scale and the means obtained were compared with one another and with the scale's English norms. Two studies of the Parsee communities in Bombay and Sydney were also carried out. Except for the Bombay Parsees, all translations of the scale (into Gujurati, Hindi, Marathi and German) appeared to have been successful as evidenced by satisfactory levels of α. There were no significant differences between the Indian, Australian, English and German means—thus upsetting Lynn's theories. Sydney Parsees were however significantly less anxious than Bombay Parsees—thus suggesting that Parsee immigration to Australia is a viable solution to the threatened position in which Parsees find themselves in India.     

Complicating race: the relationship between prejudice, race, and social class categorizations

Although racial stereotyping and prejudice research have received considerable attention, the important element of social class has been largely excluded from social psychological research. Using the Statement Recognition Procedure, two experiments investigated social categorization along race and social class dimensions, the influence of racial and social class prejudice on these categorizations, and differences between White and Black perceivers. Analyses conducted at the subtype of race and social class memberships demonstrated differing patterns of categorization based on subtype membership. For example, lowerclass Black targets were primarily categorized by race, whereas middle-class Black targets were primarily categorized by social class. The results demonstrate the importance of considering social class membership independent of and in conjunction with race. Theoretical and methodological implications regarding the study for race and social class categorizations are discussed.     

Racial identity and self-esteem among black Brazilian men: race matters in Brazil too!

The contribution of J. E. Helms's (1990) people of color racial identity model to the collective and individual self-esteem of Black Brazilian men (N = 203) was explored. The relationships between racial identity attitudes and other racial constructs such as skin color, racial group self-designation, and racial mistrust were also examined. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the set of racial identity attitudes (conformity, dissonance, resistance, and internalization) was significant in predicting self-esteem (collective and individual). Results from a multivariate analysis of variance showed an effect for skin color on racial attitudes. In addition, racial identity was significantly related to mistrust of Whites by Black Brazilian men. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of racial relations in Brazil.     

The relation between level of general knowledge and feeling-of-knowing: An adult age study

Younger and older adults were examined in recall and recognition of factual information varying in datedness. It was found that younger adults performed better for questions related to the time period 1970–1983, while the older adults performed better for questions related to the time period 1930–1950. The subjects also did confidence ratings of their "feeling-of-knowing" of the actual questions. On the basis of the cross-over interaction between age and datedness, the relationship between the level of general knowledge and the ability to monitor the knowledge was investigated. Only minor differences were observed between the graphs describing recall and recognition performance as a function of feeling-of-knowing in the four age by datedness combinations. Thus, the results suggest that the ability to supervise context-free semantic information may be intact despite an inferiority in level of knowledge. Comparisons were made between the results of the present study and those of previous studies on metamemory and episodic remembering.     

Race and gender on the brain: electrocortical measures of attention to the race and gender of multiply categorizable individuals

The degree to which perceivers automatically attend to and encode social category information was investigated. Event-related brain potentials were used to assess attentional and working-memory processes on-line as participants were presented with pictures of Black and White males and females. The authors found that attention was preferentially directed to Black targets very early in processing (by about 100 ms after stimulus onset) in both experiments. Attention to gender also emerged early but occurred about 50 ms later than attention to race. Later working-memory processes were sensitive to more complex relations between the group memberships of a target individual and the surrounding social context. These working-memory processes were sensitive to both the explicit categorization task participants were performing as well as more implicit, task-irrelevant categorization dimensions. Results are consistent with models suggesting that information about certain category dimensions is encoded relatively automatically.     

When feeling attractive matters too much to women: A process underpinning the relation between psychological need satisfaction and unhealthy weight control behaviors

This study examined a process model linking psychological need satisfaction to unhealthy weight control behaviors. Female University students (N = 220; M age = 20.47; SD = 5.07) completed questionnaires measuring need satisfaction, appearance-contingent self-worth, weight-related appearance anxiety and unhealthy weight control behaviors. Structural equation modeling revealed that need satisfaction indirectly related to engagement in unhealthy weight control behaviors through appearance-contingent self-worth and weight-related appearance anxiety. The results indicate that appearance-contingent self-worth might help to explain how low levels of psychological need satisfaction are related to maladaptive weight-related outcomes in young women.     

Children's differentiation between beliefs about matters of fact and matters of opinion

Two experiments investigated children's implicit and explicit differentiation between beliefs about matters of fact and matters of opinion. In Experiment 1, 8- to 9-year-olds' (n = 88) explicit understanding of the subjectivity of opinions was found to be limited, but their conformity to others' judgments on a matter of opinion was considerably lower than their conformity to others' views regarding an ambiguous fact. In Experiment 2, children aged 6, 8, or 10 years (n = 81) were asked to make judgments either about ambiguous matters of fact or about matters of opinion and then heard an opposing judgment from an expert. All age groups conformed to the opposing judgments on factual matters more than they did to the experts' views on matters of opinion. However, only the oldest children explicitly recognized that opinions are subjective and cannot be "wrong." Implications of these results for models of children's reasoning about epistemic states are discussed.     

A mutual acculturation model of multicultural campus climate and acceptance of diversity

This study examines the relationship between college students' perceptions of their campus' multicultural climate and their acceptance of racial/ethnic diversity. A two-mediator model, based on acculturation principles, was successfully fit to survey data from 434 college students of diverse racial/ethnic heritage. Results showed that valuing positive interactions with members of ethnocultural groups other than one's own is a positive mediator and strength of ethnocultural identity is a (much less important) negative mediator of the relationship between student perceptions of multicultural campus programming and personal acceptance of diverse racial/ethnic groups. Furthermore, each mediator independently contributed to the prediction of such acceptance. Overall, the model accounts for about 25% of the variance in acceptance of diversity and was a better fit to the data than a reverse path model. Follow-up analyses, separately by ethnic group, showed that perceptions of campus programming predicted acceptance of diversity for the White subsample, but not for the Latino subsample. Nevertheless, the two acculturation-related constructs were important for both groups, with the model accounting for 28% and 24% of their respective variances in acceptance of diversity. Practical implications are drawn.     

The relation of white matter hyperintensities to cognitive performance in the normal old: education matters

This study examined whether the severity of cerebral white matter abnormalities (evident on MR images as white matter hyperintensities (WMH)) was related to the cognitive performance of 141 high-functioning older adults. The elderly showed the typical age decrement on measures of processing speed, working memory, and inhibition; however WMH severity was significantly related only to processing speed. The strength of this relationship was, however, influenced by the educational level of the participants, such that processing speed was more associated with WMH severity in less-educated than in well-educated participants. This is consistent with recent concepts of cognitive reserve, but does raise a question as to the underlying source of the cognitive decrement found in the sort of well-educated elders typically used in cognitive-aging studies.     

Trust differences between supervisors and subordinates: Examining the role of race and gender

This study examined trust differences between supervisor and subordinate dyads that differ in race or gender as well as in dyads that were similar. The results of 301 (the sample consisted of 241 whites and 41 blacks, 216 were women and 86 were men) respondents indicated gender and race do affect trust. More specifically, the highest level of trust was found between female subordinates reporting to male supervisors. It was also found that whites reporting to whites perceived significantly less trust than blacks reporting to blacks, but significantly greater trust than whites reporting to blacks. The results also indicated that whites reporting to blacks and blacks reporting to whites perceive significantly less trust than blacks reporting to blacks. A discussion of these results is also included.     

Resilience matters: Explaining the association between personality and psychological functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background/ObjectiveThe objective of the study was to elucidate the underlying mechanism through which basic personality dimensions predict indicators of psychological functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic, including subjective well-being and perceived stress. As a personality characteristic highly contextualized in stressful circumstances, resilience was expected to have a mediating role in this relationship. Method: A sample of 2,722 Slovene adults, aged from 18 to 82 years filled in the Big Five Inventory, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Mental Health Continuum. A path analysis with the Bootstrap estimation procedure was performed to evaluate the mediating effect of resilience in the relationship between personality and psychological functioning. Results: Resilience fully or partially mediated the relationships between all the Big Five but extraversion with subjective well-being and stress experienced at the beginning of the COVID-19 outburst. Neuroticism was the strongest predictor of less adaptive psychological functioning both directly and through diminished resilience. Conclusions: Resilience may be a major protective factor required for an adaptive response of an individual in stressful situations such as pandemic and the associated lockdown.     

Motor imagery: the relation between age and imagery capacity

The imagination of motor actions forms not only a theoretical challenge for cognitive neuroscience but may also be seen as a novel therapeutic tool in neurological rehabilitation, in that it can be used for relearning motor control after damage to the motor system. However, since the majority of rehabilitation patients consist of older individuals it is relevant to know whether the capacity of mental imaging is compromised by age. Scores on the vividness of movement imagery questionnaire were obtained for 333 participants, divided in three age groups. Results showed that elderly participants were slightly worse in motor imagery capacity than younger participants, particularly in relation to motor imagery from an internal (first person) perspective. Furthermore, a possible relation between the level of physical activities and motor imagery capacity is discussed.     

Perceptions of campus climate, academic efficacy and academic success among community college students: an ethnic comparison

The present study examined whether there are ethnic differences in perceptions of campus climate, social support, and academic efficacy among community college students, and whether student perceptions were associated with academic success. A total of 475 community college students completed a questionnaire that measured students’ perceptions of cultural congruity, college environment, mentoring, peer social life and academic self efficacy. Ethnic differences were observed, as African American and Caucasian students reported higher levels of cultural congruity than Asian students and higher academic self efficacy than Asian and Latino students. There were also ethnic differences in the relationship between the students’ perceptions and GPA. Cultural congruity and efficacy correlated with GPA among Latino students, academic efficacy correlated with GPA among Asian students, peer social support and college environment correlated with GPA among Caucasians, however, none of the perceptions scales correlated with GPA among African American students. The lack of relationship between academic efficacy and GPA among African American and Caucasians students is discussed.     

The relation between perceived parent-created sport climate and competitive male youth hockey players' good and poor sport behaviors

The authors examined achievement goal orientation (J. L. Duda & J. G. Nicholls, 1992), parental influence (M. L. Babkes & M. R. Weiss, 1999), and the parent-initiated motivational climate (S. A. White, 1996, 1998) in combination to broaden understanding of competitive male youth hockey players' (N = 259) perceptions of the parent-created sport climate and its relation to their self-reported good and poor sport behaviors (GPSB). Exploratory factor analysis revealed a multidimensional measure of GPSB. Multiple regression analyses indicated that athletes' GPSB were significantly predicted by different forms of parental influence. Canonical correlations revealed a complex picture of the contributions of goal orientation and the parent-created sport climate on boys' GPSB in youth hockey. Results expand knowledge of the influence that parents have in youth sport and emphasize the importance of understanding how children's interpretations of parental beliefs and behaviors affect their choices to engage in good and poor sport behaviors.     

Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race

Racialized science seeks to explain human population differences in health, intelligence, education, and wealth as the consequence of immutable, biologically based differences between "racial" groups. Recent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biological correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science, despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete, reliably measured, or scientifically meaningful. Yet even these counterarguments often fail to take into account the origin and history of the idea of race. This article reviews the origins of the concept of race, placing the contemporary discussion of racial differences in an anthropological and historical context.     

Belief and credence: why the attitude-type matters

Philosophical Studies - In this paper, I argue that the relationship between belief and credence is a central question in epistemology. This is because the belief-credence relationship has...