Symbols of pride or prejudice? Examining the impact of Native American sports mascots on stereotype application

For over 50 years, a debate has existed over the use of Native American sports mascots; however, few empirical studies on the topic exist. The present study examined if supraliminal exposure to Native American mascots results in the application of negative stereotypes toward Native American people. Results indicated that the effect of Native American mascots was moderated by people’s racial attitudes toward Native people. When exposed to Native mascots, people with a prejudiced attitude rated a Native American individual more stereotypically aggressive than those with a non-prejudiced attitude. However, this pattern did not occur when people were exposed to White mascots or neutral images. Furthermore, this pattern was not evident when people evaluated a non-Native individual. This overall pattern of results indicates that Native American mascots selectively facilitate the application of negative stereotypes, resulting in harmful evaluations of Native American people.     

A question of honor: Chief Wahoo and American Indian stereotype activation among a university based sample

For over 30 years, a debate has raged regarding the appropriateness of high school, university, and professional sports teams using American Indian mascots. Proponents of such mascots state that these images are traditions and honor Indigenous People. Opponents of these images argue that the symbols foster stereotypes (Pewewardy, 1999) and negatively affect American Indians (Fryberg, Markus, Oyserman, & Stone, 2008). The purpose of this investigation was to examine if exposure to an American Indian mascot activated American Indian stereotypes in a predominately European American sample. In addition, we explored the role of personal motivation, prejudice level, and experience on stereotype activation. We found that the Chief Wahoo image (i.e., Cleveland Indian's logo) compared to other images activated negative, but not positive, American Indian stereotypes. Participants' motivation to control prejudice, prejudice level, and experience did not predict negative stereotype activation. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Therapeutic jurisprudence in the courts

Therapeutic jurisprudence is an emerging field of law and social science inquiry that explores the role of the law in fostering therapeutic or antitherapeutic outcomes. This article considers the relationship between therapeutic jurisprudence and court performance goals, examines applications of therapeutic jurisprudence in court settings, discusses the steps involved in incorporating therapeutic jurisprudence principles into the work of courts, outlines the pros and cons associated with practicing therapeutic jurisprudence primarily in specialized courts, and offers suggestions for fostering continued experimentation by courts.     

Measuring Time Costs in Interventions Designed to Reduce Behavior Problems Among Children and Youth

The economic evaluation of psychosocial interventions is a growing area of research. Though time costs are central to the economist's understanding of social costs, these costs generally have been ignored by prevention scientists. This article highlights the need to measure such costs and then reviews the principles economists use in valuing time. It then considers the specific time costs that often arise in interventions designed to reduce behavior problems among children and youth. These include classroom time devoted to program activities, the time of parents or other caregivers, the time of teachers (outside of the classroom), and the time of volunteers. We consider the economic principles that govern how economists value these inputs and then apply these principles to data from an evaluation of a prominent intervention in the field, the Incredible Years Program. We find that the time costs are potentially rather large and consider the implications for public policy of ignoring them.     

Cases of Social Innovation: Lessons From Two Innovations in the 20th Century

Social innovations, new ideas about people's interactions, have begun to receive more attention in studies of creativity. This article considers the conclusions emerging from two recent books examining the history of two notable 20th century social innovations--the development of scientific management and the use of standardized tests for college admissions. We examine the implications of these books with respect to three key topics, (a) the generation of creative ideas about social interactions, (b) the factors influencing development of these ideas, and (c) the social settings that lead to acceptance and diffusion of these ideas. The implications of these observations for understanding social innovation are discussed.     

Sociobiology and Moral Discourse

In the intellectual lineage of sociobiology (understood as evolutionary social science), this article considers the place of moral discourse in the evolution of emergent systems for mediating behavior. Given that humans share molecular systems, reflex systems, drive systems, emotional systems, and cognitive systems with chimpanzees, why is it that human behavior is so radically different from chimpanzee behavior? The answer is that, unlike chimps, humans possess symbolic systems, empowering them to override chimplike default morality in favor of symbolically mediated moral codes. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the power of religious symbols to influence moral behavior by reprogramming emotional systems.     

Approaching Nature, ‘Sustainability’ and Ecological Crises from a Critical Social Psychological Perspective

This article considers the potential contribution of critical social psychology to the study of the relationship between humans and nature, particularly in terms of the role of human activities in ecological degradation. That human behaviour is having a profound impact on global climate and related phenomena has garnered broad scientific consensus and is communicated to the public in increasingly sophisticated ways. Psychology has been increasingly drawn upon by policy makers, pressure groups and related institutions in this context, in the hope of understanding, predicting and shaping behaviour and lifestyles towards more sustainable ends. In the past few decades, cognitive behaviourist models have dominated research and policy agendas concerned with identifying barriers to, and/or promoting ‘environmentally sustainable’ or ‘pro‐environmental’ behaviour. Yet despite the emergence of critical work, to date, there has been very little work in this field explicitly under the banner of critical social psychology. In this article, a brief outline of some of the tenets of critical social psychology is followed by a consideration of how these principles have been taken up in existing cross‐disciplinary critical approaches to the interrelated issues of environment, sustainability and human behaviour and the potential contribution of critical social psychology in these areas.     

The Fork in the Road

This article conducts a normative evaluation of Operation Iraqi Freedom undertaken in 2003 by employing principles of prudence to enquire whether the use of force could be described as an action by a responsible great power. Along with relating the principles of prudence to the concept of great power responsibility, it highlights two pillars of prudent decision-making: circumspection and awareness of one's limits. This normative framework is then utilised to evaluate the invasion of Iraq from the perspective of these specific aspects of prudence. The conclusion shows that on the basis of this normative yardstick, it is not possible to classify Operation Iraqi Freedom as a prudent action by a responsible great power.     

Equity,equality, and need: Three principles of justice or one? An analysis of “equity as desert”

Contemporary reviews of the psychology of distributive justice have tended to emphasize three main allocation principles, equity, equality, and need, and to propose that each operates within a specific sphere of influence. However, results in this area are not entirely consistent, and do not tie in readily with work on attributions of responsibility. This article reviews research into this issue and attempts to encorporate the three principles, together with the notion of causal responsibility, with a single compound equity principle, labelled “equity as desert” (EAD), based on traditional historical and philosophical conceptions of proportional desert. Two empirical studies are reported in support of this idea. The author argues that a compound equity principle of the kind proposed here may be able to provide a unifying theme in an otherwise fragmented area.     

Craziness and criminal responsibility.

This article addresses why mental disorder is relevant to criminal responsibility. It begins by considering the meaning of criminal responsibility because it is impossible to understand the relevance of mental disorder unless one understands responsibility clearly. The next section provides a theoretical account of responsibility and excuse in general and addresses common misconceptions about these topics. The third section examines in detail why mental disorder can sometimes produce either a complete or partial excusing condition, such as legal insanity or "partial responsibility," and whether the U.S. Constitution requires the provision of an excuse based on mental disorder. The section proposes that mental disorder should produce an excusing condition in appropriate cases. The next section considers the relation of mental disorder to mens rea, the mental state "element" that is a definitional criterion of most crimes, and whether the U.S. Constitution requires that defendants be permitted to use evidence of mental disorder to negate mental state elements of the crime charged. This section argues that mental disorder rarely negates mens rea, but in those cases in which a plausible claim for negation could be made, defendants should be allowed to make this claim.     

La perception de la responsabilité sociale des Entreprises : adaptation et validation française de l’échelle de Maignan et Ferrell, 1999

This study proposes to apply the paradigm of Churchill in the case of the adaptation in french and validation of the Maignan and Ferrell scale (1999) based on the model developed by Carroll (1979). This model proposes to distinguish four principles of social responsibility: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. Four factors were highlighted in a first exploratory study conducted among 320 workers. This structure was confirmed during a second confirmatory investigation among 287others workers. If the four identified factors do not match exactly to the theoretical chosen model, they bring value to support the differences in social responsibility between the internal actors and external actors.     

Compétences exceptionnelles en mathématiques

Some individuals have exceptional abilities in mathematics. They can either do fast calculations or understand problems, symbols and methods specifically used in mathematics, use them with other symbols and methods to solve other types of problems. Thus, great calculators and children gifted in mathematics are distinguished. This review of the literature presents studies about these abilities to expose the regular characteristics of these individuals, and the educational system that would be the more efficient for gifted children. Thus, this article would present the debates about the cognitive functioning and development of these individuals.     

Consumer Decision Making and Image Theory: Understanding Value‐Laden Decisions

Consumers are often confronted with value‐laden decisions that challenge their principles and beliefs. For example, many consumers with strong social responsibility principles consider the effects of general corporate behavior (e.g., political views, environmental disasters) and of the product's manufacture, consumption, or disposal (e.g., animal testing, environmental harm) on society's overall well‐being. Because these product dimensions do not fit easily into traditional decision theories, a new conceptual framework that incorporates and emphasizes the consumer's enduring principles and values is explored in this study. The results indicate that image theory (Beach & Mitchell, 1987) provides a useful structure for describing the decision process in a value‐laden decision context. This study also expands our understanding of image theory by examining all 3 images (values, goals, and strategies) simultaneously in the same decision context for the first time.     

On the Iatrogenic Nature of the Child Sexual Abuse Discourse

In the last decades of the twentieth century there was an unprecedented surge of anxieties and alarm over erotic experiences involving minors and adults, which has continued as a social and scientific discourse in which these relationships invariably are seen as abusive, harmful, and criminal. In this paper, the fundamental characteristics of this discourse, whose basis and pertinence are questioned, are analyzed for their possible iatrogenic effects; i.e., those induced by professional intervention, in four key areas of social reality: the erotic dimension of human beings, individual responsibility, the use of penal law as a mechanism of social control, and fostering better relations between the sexes and generations. Critical reflection on the social and professional handling of the problem includes the undesirable effects which such treatment may be producing.     

Conversational skills for autistic adolescents: An autistic peer as prompter

In this study, an autistic youth served as peer prompter for three other autistic adolescents. The peer prompter encouraged the other boys to talk about sports, a topic frequently discussed by typical teenagers. A multiple-baseline design across participants was used to assess the effectiveness of the peer-prompting procedure. During baseline, the youth rarely talked about sports, although all three had previously completed a sports-appreciation class and had displayed large pre-to-post gains on a paper-and-pencil test. During intervention, when a peer prompted sports discussions, all three youth engaged in much more sports-related conversation. Generalization measures indicated that: (1) the youth engaged in sports discussions in groups, as well as in the dyads that characterized the training situation; (2) they talked about sports in a setting other than the training setting; (3) they discussed sports with their peers when an unfamiliar teacher was present; and (4) they continued to discuss sports when training tapes and behavioral contracts between the teacher and the peer prompter were withdrawn. Previously, it has been common to use nonhandicapped or less-handicapped peers as tutors; this study demonstrates that an autistic youth may also effectively serve as a prompter who assists his schoolmates in acquiring conversational skills that contribute to their normalization.     

The challenge of prejudice: counsellors’ talk about challenging clients’ prejudices

This paper considers the implications for training and practice of counsellors’ responses to the notion of challenging clients’ prejudices. It explores tensions in counselling discourse between social responsibility, responsibility to the client and responsibility for one's self as counsellor. Three focus groups of counsellors were asked whether a counsellor should challenge clients’ prejudices. Responses were categorised as challenge, not-challenge or exit responses. Discursive themes identified in the responses are: managing congruence and being non-judgemental; self-care and self-respect; and social responsibility. Strategies for managing the discursive conflicts identified in responding to counsellor-identified client prejudices are summarised.     

A qualitative exploration of alcohol use among student sportspeople: A social identity perspective

Research indicates that university student sportspeople are a high‐risk subgroup for hazardous alcohol consumption. Adopting a social identity perspective, we explored the social and psychological processes linking sports participation and alcohol use. Twenty‐two individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted with UK student sportspeople (male: 12; female: 10). A deductive thematic analysis identified three core themes: social identification and sports group membership, identity processes in (alcohol) behaviours and sport context‐specific significance of alcohol. Results suggest that the consumptive practices among student sportspeople were strategic activities underpinned by social identity processes, and which served to provide a positive sports experience at the group level. Our findings highlight the interactions between the sport environment, the social structure of sport participation and the multipurpose function of alcohol in this context. We discuss the implications of these results in support of a social identity approach to sport‐related drinking.     

The Gift of Respect: Tourist Gift Giving and the Construction of Self-Respect Among Authorized Sightseeing Rickshaw Drivers in Bharatpur,India

Tourism workers may actively cultivate relationships with tourists to counter the social and economic marginalization they face by others involved in the tourism economy. In this article I explore the ways in which sightseeing rickshaw drivers use gifts as symbols of these relationships with tourists. I base my analysis on sixteen months of fieldwork that I conducted in 2008–9 with the authorized sightseeing rickshaw drivers at Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India. I argue that they use gifts, both materially and discursively, to create a space in which they can construct narratives of self-respect.