Humour is serious: Minority group members’ use of humour in their encounters with majority group members

This article adds to the social psychological literature on how minority group members seek to manage their interactions with majority group members. Specifically, it focuses on minority group members’ use of humour in interactions where they anticipate or actually experience prejudice. The data on which our analysis is based originate from interviews conducted with Roma in Hungary (N = 30). Asked about their interactions with majority group members, interviewees reported using humour as a means to (a) manage embarrassment; (b) gather information about the other's intergroup attitudes; and (c) subvert taken-for-granted understandings of social relations. The humour involved was diverse. Sometimes it entailed the telling of (Roma-related) jokes. Sometimes it involved the exaggerated performance of roles and identities that ironised majority–minority social relations. The significance of humour as a tool for minority group members to exert some control over their interactions with majority group members is discussed.     

Cotherapist modeling in group psychotherapy: Fact or fantasy?

This study examines ratings of cotherapist self-disclosure furnished by members in 20 outpatient groups. Clients completed a specially designed measure to assess three dimensions of therapist transparency: positive or negative valence, low or high risk, and the target of the disclosure, namely, the individual members, the group as a whole, the therapist her/himself, or the co-leader. Exploration of the frequency of therapist-to-therapist disclosure provided an evaluation of the modeling hypothesis that is so prevalent in the literature. The findings demonstrate that although the overall level of therapist self-disclosure was quite low, results were consistent with expectations showing that most of the personal comments were positive, low risk, and rarely directed to the cotherapist. The viability of the modeling concept in co-led groups is challenged.     

Subitizing: Magical numbers or mere superstition?

Summary It is widely believed that humans are endowed with a specialized numerical process, calledsubitizing, which enables them to apprehend rapidly and accurately the numerosity of small sets of objects. A major part of the evidence for this process is a purported discontinuity in the mean response time (RT) versus numerosity curves at about 4 elements, when subjects enumerate up to 7 or more elements in a visual display. In this article, RT data collected in a speeded enumeration experiment are subjected to a variety of statistical analyses, including several tests on the RT distributions. None of these tests reveals a significant discontinuity as numerosity increases. The data do suggest a strong stochastic dominance in RT by display numerosity, indicating that the mental effort required to enumerate does increase with each additional element in the display, both within and beyond the putative subitizing range.     

Personality: a vulnerability factor in rhinitis?

Personality traits were assessed in 63 patients with persistent allergic or non-allergic rhinitis with the Karolinska Scales of Personality, developed with the aim of measuring psychobiological vulnerability factors, and were compared with a reference group comprising a random sample of 400 sex- and age-stratified subjects. The patients' personality profile differed slightly - within one standard deviation - but significantly from the reference group on a number of factors together suggestive of a disinhibitory disposition, an inclination to express anxiety through somatic rather than psychological channels, difficulties in maintaining emotional distance to others, and a limited awareness of aggressive affect, a pattern that suggests that they expose themselves to more stimulation than they can process in terms of thought and feelings, generating sustained physiological arousal that may contribute to the development of their intolerance reactions.     

The odd-even effect in multiplication: Parity rule or familiarity with even numbers?

This study questions the evidence that a parity rule is used during the verification of multiplication. Previous studies reported that products are rejected faster when they violate the expected parity, which was attributed to the use of a rule (Krueger, 1986; Lemaire & Fayol, 1995). This experiment tested an alternative explanation of this effect: the familiarity hypothesis. Fifty subjects participated in a verification task with contrasting types of problems (even x even, odd x odd, mixed). Some aspects of our results constitute evidence against the use of the parity rule: False even answers were rejected slowly, even when the two operands were odd. We suggest that the odd-even effect in verification of multiplication could not be due to the use of the parity rule, but rather to a familiarity with even numbers (three quarters of products are indeed even).     

Conditioned tolerance to morphine hypoalgesia: Compensatory hyperalgesia in the experimental group or conditioned hypoalgesia in the control group?

Five experiments used rats to examine the role of noxious stimulation in the development of contextually controlled morphine hypoalgesic tolerance and in the mediation of this tolerance by an associated hyperalgesic response. There was evidence for contextually controlled tolerance to morphine's hypoalgesic effects and an associated hyperalgesic response in rats injected with morphine and trained with noxious stimulation, but not in rats repeatedly exposed to morphine in the absence of that stimulation (Experiments 1 and 5). Latent inhibition (Experiment 2) and extinction (Experiment 3) of tolerance also depended upon pairing drug-related cues with noxious stimulation. The level of sensitivity-reactivity to noxious stimulation in morphine-tolerant rats tested with the drug was related to the intensity of the noxious stimulation that had been paired with the test context (Experiment 4). The results were interpreted to mean that some of the evidence for a Pavlovian involvement in tolerance development can be explained in terms of morphine's interference with the acquisition, but not with the expression of the hypoalgesic response otherwise acquired by cues paired with noxious stimulation.     

Derogating black sheep: Individual or group protection?

What motivates people to derogate unfavorable ingroup members more harshly than comparably unfavorable outgroup members? Researchers investigating the black sheep effect maintain that this differential derogation is a means of group protection. In contrast, we argue that derogating unfavorable ingroup members may be an individual protection strategy whereby target devaluation distances an unfavorable other from the self as a means of limiting the threat of being associatively miscast. Participants read an article describing an unfavorable ingroup or outgroup target, and then received two means of responding to the target: target devaluation and group disidentification. Importantly, group disidentification was considered to be a uniquely individualistic distancing strategy. We found that both response options substituted for one another, depending on the order of presentation. Substitutability, we argue, suggests that the primary motive behind ingroup derogation in our study was distance augmentation, an individual protection strategy.     

Extended contact effects: is exposure to positive outgroup exemplars sufficient or is interaction with ingroup members necessary?

Previous research does not inform us if exposure to positive outgroup exemplars is sufficient to explain the observed prejudice reduction effect of extended contact or if interaction with ingroup members is necessary. An experiment (N = 108) in which Romanian students read identical stories about the friendship between a Roma and a Romanian/Bulgarian found that, while information about close outgroup-outgroup relationships is sufficient to improve outgroup attitudes and reduce intergroup anxiety, information about close ingroup-outgroup relationships has stronger and broader positive effects. Mediational analyses revealed that group emotions rather than intergroup anxiety, ingroup norms, or outgroup norms mediated the effect of extended contact on outgroup perception. A core affect perspective of group emotions is used to explain the results.     

Female tokens in high-prestige work groups: Catalysts or inhibitors of group diversification?

There is a popular theory-based assumption that women, who are numerical minorities in high-prestige work groups, will advocate for other women as potential work group peers. However, these individuals may face special challenges in fulfilling this role. I examine how the prestige accorded to the work group and their numerical representation interact to impact women’s concerns about being considered valued members of their groups and hence, their propensity to support other women in the selection process. I conducted three studies which showed that women will abdicate the opportunity to support highly or moderately qualified female candidates as potential work group peers. Furthermore, the concern that a highly qualified female candidate will be seen as more of a valued group member (competitive threat) and that a moderately qualified female candidate will adversely affect their value by reinforcing negative stereotypes about their demographic category (collective threat) partially mediated the relationship between numerical representation and work group prestige and women’s preference for other women as work group peers.     

Are head cues necessary for goats (Capra hircus) in recognising group members?

In this study, we investigated whether goats can distinguish a member of their own group from one belonging to a different group even when the head of the goat in question cannot be seen. In the experiment, a total of 45 adult female goats (walkers) were trained to walk along a passageway at the end of which they learnt to expect food (trial run). Walking down this corridor, they passed another adult female goat (stimulus goat) whose trunk and hind legs alone were visible. Using 19 individuals, ten pairs of stimulus goats consisting of one goat from the walker's group and one from a different group were matched in terms of body size, constitution, colour and coat length. In addition, the stimulus goat from the same group as the walker had to be higher ranking than the latter to avoid being attacked. The walkers completed two, four or six trial runs depending on the number of pairs suitable for a given walker. The walker's exploratory behaviour (observing and sniffing at the stimulus goat) was recorded. Data from 109 trial runs were analysed using generalised linear mixed-effects models with crossed random effects. On average, the walker spent a total of 8.7?s exploring the stimulus goat visually and olfactorily if the latter was from a different group and only about half as long (4.2?s) if it was from her own group. In particular, the time a walker spent observing a stimulus goat whilst approaching the latter was significantly longer if the stimulus goat belonged to a different group than to her own (2.5?s as opposed to 1.4?s). Moreover, a stimulus goat from a different group was sniffed at significantly longer (4.6?s) than one from the same group (1.9?s). Results suggest that goats can easily discriminate between members of their own group and those of a different group even when the latter's heads are hidden. Olfactory and visual cues are probably important for identifying group members.     

In need of liberation or constraint? How intergroup attitudes moderate the behavioral implications of intergroup ideologies

This study examined how behavioral responses to ideologies prompting other- or self-focus during intergroup exchanges depend on what individuals see when they look out at an outgroup interaction partner or in toward themselves. Specifically, we predicted that the outward focus on learning about and from outgroup members encouraged by multiculturalism would benefit lower-prejudice individuals (LPs) but instead amplify the implications of negative perceptions for higher-prejudice individuals (HPs). In contrast, we predicted that the evaluative concerns and self-focus induced by anti-racism would harm LPs’ behavior by leading them to second-guess acting on positive impulses but improve HPs’ behavior by leading them to rein in unfavorable reactions. Results were generally consistent with these predictions. Color-blindness had a negative effect not moderated by prejudice. These results suggest that tailoring the ideology promoted in a specific setting to the particular individuals who will be exposed to it might enhance the effectiveness of intervention efforts.     

Fairness or discrimination in intergroup behaviour? a reply to Branthwaite,Doyle and Lightbown

Branthwaite, Doyle and Lightbown (1979) argue that minimal intergroup behaviour represents a compromise or balance between fairness and discrimination, that fairness and discrimination are opposed, generic norms of intergroup relations and that one factor affecting their relative weight is status position since, apparently, different status groups attempt to equalize their positions by varying the degree to which they are fair or discriminatory. This reply reviews evidence to show that minimal groups are never fair but always discriminatory to varying degrees and that a generic norm of intergroup fairness is unnecessary to explain why that discrimination rarely approaches maximum. It also argues that the concept of opposed, generic norms has neither empirical nor theoretical value. Finally, it cites findings that the basic tendency in intergroup behaviour is not to equalize but to accentuate evaluative differences between groups (whether of similar or different status) in favour of the ingroup.     

Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm: categorization, reciprocation, or fear?

H. Tajfel's (1970) minimal group paradigm (MGP) research suggests that social categorization is a sufficient antecedent of ingroup-favoring discrimination. Two experiments examined whether discrimination in the MGP arises from categorization or processes of outcome dependence, that is, ingroup reciprocity and outgroup fear. Experiment 1 unconfounded categorization from outcome dependence. Categorized men discriminated only when dependent on others. Categorized women discriminated regardless of the structure of dependence. Experiment 2 examined dependence on the ingroup versus the outgroup as the locus of male-initiated discrimination. Consistently with an ingroup reciprocity effect, men discriminated when dependent on ingroup, but not outgroup, members. Sex differences are discussed in regard to women's heightened ingroup dependence produced by biological or environmental constraints.     

Ebbinghaus illusions: Size contrast or contour interaction phenomena?

Forty-eight graduate and undergraduate students between 17 and 30 years of age judged the size of the central circle in Ebbinghaus figures presented under either simultaneous or successive viewing conditions. Successive presentation eliminated the illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure and diminished that produced by the underestimated figure. Under simultaneous viewing conditions, increasing the number of surrounding circles reduced the magnitude of the reversed illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure but had no effect on the illusion produced by the underestimated figure. Under successive viewing conditions, increasing the number of surrounding circles had no effect on the magnitude of illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure but increased the illusion produced by the underestimated figure. These data were interpreted as inconsistent with a size contrast explanation of the Ebbinghaus illusions and suggested that these illusions may be produced by a contour interaction process.     

Coalition or derogation? How perceived discrimination influences intraminority intergroup relations

Five studies explored how perceived societal discrimination against one's own racial group influences racial minority group members' attitudes toward other racial minorities. Examining Black-Latino relations, Studies 1a and 1b showed that perceived discrimination toward oneself and one's own racial group may be positively associated with expressed closeness and common fate with another racial minority group, especially if individuals attribute past experiences of discrimination to their racial identity rather than to other social identities (Study 1b). In Studies 2-5, Asian American (Studies 2, 3, and 4) and Latino (Study 5) participants were primed with discrimination against their respective racial groups (or not) and completed measures of attitudes toward Black Americans. Participants primed with racial discrimination expressed greater positivity toward and perceived similarity with Blacks than did participants who were not primed. These results suggest, consistent with the common ingroup identity model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000), that salient discrimination against one's own racial group may trigger a common "disadvantaged racial minority" (ingroup) identity that engenders more positive attitudes toward and feelings of closeness toward other racial minorities.     

Facebook and MySpace: complement or substitute for face-to-face interaction?

Previous studies have claimed that social-networking sites are used as a substitute for face-to-face interaction, resulting in deteriorating relationship quality and decreased intimacy among its users. The present study hypothesized that this type of communication is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction; rather, that it is an extension of communication with face-to-face partners. A survey was administered to examine the use of Facebook and MySpace in this regard among 183 college students. The study confirmed that Facebook and MySpace do act as an extension of face-to-face interaction, but that some users do tend to rely on Facebook and MySpace for interpersonal communication more than face-to-face interaction.     

Women or feminists? Assessing women's group consciousness

Sex Roles - Social psychological research often relies on measures of group identification in assessing levels of group consciousness. However, for women, the relationship between gender...     

An examination of message-relevant affect in road safety messages: Should road safety advertisements aim to make us feel good or bad?

Drawing upon the multiple roles of affect posited by Elaboration Likelihood Model, the current paper examines the effectiveness of message-relevant affect. Specifically, humourous and fear-evoking anti-drink driving messages are examined in terms of perceptions of relative influence on self and others (i.e., the third-person effect) and their performance on a range of persuasion outcomes. The influence of involvement, response efficacy, and gender on persuasion outcomes is also examined. Participants (N = 201) viewed two advertisements and completed two questionnaires: the first, assessed pre-exposure attitudes and behaviour and immediate-post exposure attitudes and intentions; the second, 2–4 weeks later, assessed attitudes and behaviour. The results revealed, as predicted, interactions of the key variables and evidence of the greater persuasiveness of negative appeals immediately after exposure whilst greater improvement of positive appeals over time. The findings highlight the importance of continuing the exploration of positive appeals as a persuasive alternative to negative appeals.     

A Grammatical Specific Language Impairment in Children: An Autosomal Dominant Inheritance?

The aim of this study is to provide further characterization of a subgroup of so-called “Grammatical specific language-impaired (SLI)” children. The Grammatical SLI children have a persistent and disproportionate impairment in grammatical comprehension and expression of language. Previous research has indicated that their language impairment may be characterized by a domain-specific and modular language deficit. This study provides an initial investigation as to whether there is a genetic basis underlying their disorder as has been found for other forms of SLI and for SLI in general. The incidence of familial aggregation of language impairment was investigated in 12 Grammatical SLI children (aged 9:3 to 12:10). A familial language impairment (LI) history was classified as positive if one or more of the probands' relatives had a history of a speech/language or reading/writing problem which required speech therapy or any other form of remedial help. Case history information provided an initial indication that the Grammatical SLI children had a significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than could be expected by chance. A questionnaire provided evidence of a positive LI history in the first-degree relatives of the SLI probands and 49 normally developing control probands. The SLI probands had a clearly and significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than the control probands (77.8 vs. 28.5%, respectively). The results are consistent with a genetic basis underlying Grammatical SLI. The pattern of impairment in the SLI probands' relatives is consistent with an autosomal dominant genetic inheritance. In contrast to the control probands, the SLI probands' impaired relatives did not show a male gender bias. Thus, the gene does not appear to be sex-linked. The data indicate that further research is warranted to investigate the nature of the LI in the relatives of the Grammatical SLI probands and the genetic characteristics of this subgroup. The implications for the biological, domain-specific, and modular bases to language are discussed.