Perceptions of candidate strength in job recruitment: Does candidate race moderate the attractiveness bias in White women?

The attractiveness bias suggests that people who are more attractive will be positively favored across life outcomes. This study sought to test whether candidate attractiveness, sex, and race, affect perceptions of candidate strength in a job recruitment task. In total, 338 White women (M_age = 20.94 ± 5.65) were asked to make judgements of a potential candidate for an administrative job (resume with candidate photograph). The vignettes differed in terms of candidate ability (strong/weak), sex (male/female), race (Black/White), and attractiveness (attractive/less attractive). Participants rated perceived candidate strength and likelihood to invite for interview. Results showed no significant main effects for attractiveness. However, there was a significant interaction for target attractiveness and race, such that attractive/White candidates were more likely to be invited for interview than less attractive/White candidates. There was also a significant main effect for race such that Black candidates were rated as stronger and more likely to be interviewed. Sensitivity analyses (with nonheterosexual women removed from the sample) also showed a main effect for target sex such that female candidates were favored over male candidates. Overall, these findings provide evidence that attractiveness, sex, and race have important, albeit complex, effects on hiring decisions in the workplace.     

Voter Preference and Emotion: Using Emotional Response to Classify Decided and Undecided Voters1

This study tested the utility of using the emotioneliciting qualities of candidates to classify both decided and undecided voters. Based on Mehrabian and Russell's (1974b) theoretical perspectives, a hypothesis was developed that emotional response to candidates could be used to discriminate between voters. Three hundred eighty-six registered voters in Bexar County, Texas, were randomly polled. These voters were asked a series of attitude and behavior questions. Of special interest for this study were questions about the Texas Governor's race between Bill Clements and Mark White. Voters were asked to identify their preference for either man and to respond to questions that tapped the emotioneliciting qualities of each candidate. The results indicated that the emotioneliciting qualities of the political candidates could be used to discriminate both decided and undecided voter preference. Specifically, over 90% of the decided voters and 80% of the undecided voters were accurately classified. This was seen as important for two reasons. First, it supported the claim that emotions may play an important role in voter preference. Second, it suggested a method for discriminating between voters even when voters were unable to immediately identify their own candidate preferences. Also of importance was the finding that the emotioneliciting quality scales became a “clarification” tool for some voters who were “on the fence” about the two candidates. After these voters responded to questions about thek feelings, candidate preference could be more clearly verbalized. A refinement of the “emotion-eliciting quality” instrument was suggested for future research.     

The Mediating Role of Information Search in the Relationship Between Prejudice and Voting Behavior

Evidence on the extent to which prejudice serves as a barrier to black and Latino candidates for office is mixed. Some research has found that black and Latino candidates are disadvantaged in terms of their chances of winning election and that they are evaluated differently by voters, while other findings suggest that this may not be the case. This article examines the effects of racial prejudice on candidate evaluation and voting behavior. It uses a unique experimental design to test for direct effects of prejudice on candidate evaluation and voting behavior, as well as indirect effects of prejudice on these variables via the information that subjects seek out. I find that subjects higher in symbolic racism are less likely to vote “correctly” when their preferences most closely align with a black or Latino candidate and that they rate minority candidates more negatively than their white counterparts. I also find that subjects high in prejudice search for less information about minority candidates and that this less robust information search mediates the relationship between prejudice and candidate evaluation and vote measures. Results also suggest that increased information search may mitigate the effects of prejudice on correct voting.     

Experimental tests of an attitudinal theory of the gender gap in voting

This research examined the hypothesis that gender gaps in voting stem from differences in the extent to which men and women agree with candidates' issue stances. Two initial experiments portraying candidates by their sex and attitudes and a third experiment that also included information about political party produced the predicted attitudinal gender-congeniality effect: Participants of each sex reported greater likelihood, compared with participants of the other sex, of voting for the candidate who endorsed positions typically favored more by their own sex than the other sex. In addition, this gender-congeniality effect was present among Republican and independent participants but absent among Democratic participants because Democratic men as well as women favored candidates who advocated the positions typically favored by women. Interpretation invoked the importance of group interest based on gender as an influence on women's voting.     

Regulatory Fit and Voting1

The problem of many democracies is low voter turnout. One reason is the voting procedure, which only allows voting for a party or candidate. Introduction of voting against could bring more voters to the polls. The concept of regulatory focus ( Higgins, 1998 ) suggests that people who focus on prevention would vote more eagerly if they are given the opportunity to blackball disliked candidates. This article describes 2 studies that verify this hypothesis. In the first study, over two thirds of participants declared that they would vote more willingly if they had a “for or against” choice at the election. The second study shows that the “pro or anti” formula is especially attractive to participants with a prevention regulatory focus.     

Age,sex, training,and the measurement of field dependence

This study was designed to: (a) examine the effects of age and sex on a person's susceptibility to field dependence training; (b) determine whether the field dependence phenomenon is a function of “cognitive style” or of a person's general inability to make correct judgments in the face of too much confusing and inaccurate information. Traditional Rod and Frame scoring is based on the latter assumption. Interpretation of results, however, has traditionally been based on the “cognitive style” assumption. Results indicate that Rod and Frame results are not a function of cognitive style. This seems particularly true of two aspects of the field dependence phenomenon: (a) the sex difference effect and (b) the correlation between Rod and Frame and Embedded Figures results. Age, more than sex, may be a function of both cognitive style and general ability to perceive the upright. A training effect was not demonstrated. Hypotheses were put forward to explain the nature of field dependence, the magnitude of field dependence errors, and the lack of a training effect.     

Counterfactuals,the National Economy,and Voting Choice

Previous research has shown that counterfactual thinking (“if only…”) is related to event explanation, blame assignment, and future decisions. Using data from a large-scale electoral panel survey (ITANES), we investigated the association between pre-election counterfactual thoughts on the national economy and subsequent voting choice. Results revealed that voters focused counterfactuals on the government and other political or economic actors but also, and more frequently, on unspecified or reified actors. Whereas counterfactuals focused on the government were associated with voting for the challenger, counterfactuals focused on political or economic actors or on reified actors were associated with voting for the incumbent. These associations were even stronger when counterfactuals had a subtractive (“if only X had not…”) rather than an additive (“if only X had…”) structure. The inclusion of the targets of the counterfactuals added significantly to the predictive value of a model of voting choice based on voters’ evaluation of the national economy.     

Sexist language and person perception: Evaluation of candidates from newspaper articles

Use of sexist language significantly affects the evaluation and perception of candidates for office. Simulated newspaper articles describing a candidate were presented to subjects who rated candidates on evaluation and gender-stereotyping measures. Variables of degree of linguistic sexism, stimulus person sex, gender appropriateness of elective office, and subject sex were manipulated in a 2×2×3×2 factorial design. A significant three-way evaluation interaction indicated that linguistic sexism causes women to be negatively evaluated when seeking a “masculine” or “neutral” office. A significant two-way stereotype interaction suggested that linguistic sexism made more salient the gender appropriateness of the offices — candidates running for the “masculine” offices were perceived as more “masculine,” and candidates for the “feminine” offices as more “feminine.”     

What Determines Voting Behaviors of Muslim Minorities in Europe: Muslim Identity or Left-Right Ideology?

Voting is key to political integration of immigrant-background minorities, but what determines their voting preferences remains unclear. Moreover, dual-citizen minorities can vote differently in their country of residence and origin. Using a representative survey of Turkish-Muslim minorities in two cities in Belgium (N = 447, M_age = 36.3), we asked whether left-right ideology or religious identity predicted their voting in their country of residence and origin, besides typical predictors of right-wing voting (i.e., efficacy, deprivation, and authoritarianism). Authoritarianism, low political efficacy, and high deprivation predicted voting for right-wing parties in Turkey, whereas the latter two, surprisingly, predicted voting for the left in Belgium. Latent class analyses of their religious practices distinguished “moderate” versus “strict” Muslims. While “strict” Muslims voted for right-wing parties in Turkey, ideology did not predict their voting. Conversely, in Belgium, while Muslim identity did not predict their voting, ideology did. Analyzing their combined effects, “moderate” Muslims voted based on their ideology—right-leaning voting for the right, whereas “strict” Muslims voted according to their interests as a disadvantaged minority in Belgium—thus voting for the left—or as a devout Muslim in Turkey—thus voting for the right. Our results elucidate processes underlying the voting behaviors of European-Muslim minorities.     

Women who do and women who don't,join the women's movement: Issues for conflict and collaboration

The women's movement as a social movement with intentions to create social change has had a cyclical history of appearance and disappearance. At its periods of reemergence, “backlash” reactions also occur. This paper deals with the women's movement in this context. Using a social movement analysis, it considers the possibility of success in creating social change, given that powerful groups of women oppose it. There is a renewed interest in antifeminism since the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. Questions that arise: (1) Why do some women become feminists and others antifeminist? (2) What are the characteristics of social movements and the backlash that would explain these differences and lead to possible reconciliation? The material that forms the empirical basis of this paper is drawn from 24 feminists and antifeminists in five countries who wrote according to a structured outline about their relationship to the women's movement. Contributors differed in background, age, race, sexual preference, and life-style. Through their stories the issues that both separate and unite women emerge—issues such as abortion, men, motherhood, and the family. Surprising similarities emerge between those supposedly on different “sides” of the fence, and it becomes evident that no clear dividing line does exist, but rather a complex interweaving of the issues, experiences, and difficulties of being “woman.”     

Understanding Voter Vengeance

This article proposes that, in electoral contexts, decision makers may experience a desire for vengeance or a desire to “get even” with an entity, such as a political candidate, in response to a perceived wrongdoing. This article draws on research from the domains of psychology and sociology to develop a theoretical framework for examining factors that may influence the extent to which voters exact revenge on political candidates with their voting behavior. The results of 3 experiments are reported in which voters are shown to exact revenge on a candidate who has won an earlier round of elections by defeating a favored candidate. This process is mediated by damage to self‐identity and is strengthened by perceived share of blame attributed to the perpetrator candidate. This research shows how vengeful voters are delighted when a perpetrator candidate later performs poorly while in office. This research also shows how making salient a shared affiliation with the perpetrator candidate (such as race or university major) can attenuate vengeful voting behavior. The research builds on a growing body of work that explores negative and potentially counterproductive emotions in choice contexts.     

Competency,and other constructs,in right to die cases

Subjects had to make a “remove” or “do not remove” life-sustaining measures decision in three right to die cases where the patients differed in competence; for half the subjects, a living will was present in all the cases, whereas, for the other half, it was not. Subjects also gave their determinative reasons for their decisions. Support for the right to die varied by case, but not by competency, or by the presence of a living will. The subjects' reasons were highly predictive of their decisions, and related to the way case-specific facts were construed, revealing a number of disparities between the way courts and citizens construe whether the patient's condition is “terminal,” “irreversible,” and “painful,” or not. Beyond construing facts differently, the results also revealed a disparity between evolving case law and the community's “common sense justice” over a fundamental belief: whether dying is seen as private matter, outside the bounds of State intervention, or not.     

“I'm Not Prejudiced,but . . .”: Compensatory Egalitarianism in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary

The historic 2008 Democratic presidential primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton posed a difficult choice for egalitarian White voters, and many commentators speculated that the election outcome would reflect pitting the effects of racism against sexism ( Steinem, 2008 ). Because self‐reported prejudices may be untrustworthy, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess White adults’ (1) condemnation of prejudices, and (2) attitudes toward the candidates in relation to voting decisions, as part of an online survey. Results supported the proposed compensatory egalitarianism process, such that Whites’ voting choice was consistent with their implicit candidate preference, but in an effort to remain egalitarian, participants compensated for this preference by automatically condemning prejudice toward the other candidate's group. Additional findings showed that this process was moderated by participants’ ethnicity and level of prejudice, as expected. Specifically, compensatory egalitarianism occurred primarily among Whites and individuals low in explicit prejudice. Implications for candidate support, aversive racism theory, and implicit compensation processes are discussed.     

Digit ratios,but not facial width-to-height ratios,are associated with the priority placed on attending to faces versus bodies

Testosterone has been linked to a sexual preference for bodies rather than faces. Low digit ratio (2D:4D) and high facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) are associated with high prenatal testosterone. We tested whether low 2D:4D and high facial WHR were correlated with a preference for bodies over faces. Our sample consisted of 109 college students (64 males). A two-way analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect of digit ratio on the priority placed on paying attention to faces or bodies such that low 2D:4D was linked to a preference for bodies, but the effect of sex was not significant. There were no significant interaction effects. Another two-way analysis of variance revealed no significant effects for facial WHR and attentional priority but significant associations between sex and attentional priority. There were no significant interaction effects. Our findings indicate that individuals with low digit ratios tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with individuals with higher digit ratios, independently of sex. We also found that males tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with females, independently of facial WHR.     

社会分类的特性,维度及心理效应

社会分类是个体基于共享相似性将人群分为不同类别的一种主观心理过程, 具有自动化,灵活性和潜在模糊性等特性.社会分类的维度既包括性别,年龄和种族等自然线索, 也包括语言,职业和社会身份等重要社会线索.在社会分类过程中, 不同维度往往具有相对重要性, 表现为优势维度效应; 不同维度相互之间也会发生作用, 产生交叉分类效应, 研究者从不同的视角对这种交叉分类效应进行了解释.未来研究应该采用多样化的方法和技术从分类主体,分类目标,分类情境以及社会文化因素等多角度探讨社会分类的心理加工机制, 构建更具整合性的社会分类理论模型.     

Sex,Race, and Biopower: A Foucauldian Genealogy

For many years feminists have asserted an “intersection” between sex and race. This paper, drawing heavily on the work of Michel Foucault, offers a genealogical account of the two concepts showing how they developed together and in relation to similar political forces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus it attempts to give a concrete meaning to the claim that sex and race are intersecting phenomena.     

Sex differences in estimating multiple intelligences in self and others: A replication in Russia

This was a crosscultural study that focused on sex differences in self‐ and other‐estimates of multiple intelligences (including 10 that were specified by Gardner, 1999 and three by Sternberg, 1988) as well as in an overall general intelligence estimate. It was one of a programmatic series of studies done in over 30 countries that has demonstrated the female “humility” and male “hubris” effect in self‐estimated and other‐estimated intelligence. Two hundred and thirty Russian university students estimated their own and their parents’ overall intelligence and “multiple intelligences.” Results revealed no sex difference in estimates of overall intelligence for both self and parents, but men rated themselves higher on spatial intelligence. This contradicted many previous findings in the area which have shown that men rate their own overall intelligence and mathematical intelligence significantly higher than do women. Regressions indicated that estimates of verbal, logical, and spatial intelligences were the best predictors of estimates of overall intelligence, which is a consistent finding over many studies. Regressions also showed that participants’ openness to experience and self‐respect were good predictors of intelligence estimates. A comparison with a British sample showed that Russians gave higher mother estimates, and were less likely to believe that IQ tests measure intelligence. Results were discussed in relation to the influence of gender role stereotypes on lay conception of intelligence across cultures.     

A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces

The “bouba/kiki effect” is the robust tendency to associate rounded objects (vs. angular objects) with names that require rounding of the mouth to pronounce, and may reflect synesthesia-like mapping across perceptual modalities. Here we show for the first time a “social” bouba/kiki effect, such that experimental participants associate round names (“Bob,” “Lou”) with round-faced (vs. angular-faced) individuals. Moreover, consistent with a bias for expectancy-consistent information, we find that participants like targets with “matching” names, both when name-face fit is measured and when it is experimentally manipulated. Finally, we show that such bias could have important practical consequences: An analysis of voting data reveals that Senatorial candidates earn 10% more votes when their names fit their faces very well, versus very poorly. These and similar cross-modal congruencies suggest that social judgment involves not only amodal application of stored information (e.g., stereotypes) to new stimuli, but also integration of perceptual and bodily input.     

Attitude toward the Ten Commandments

Summary

This study investigated helping behavior on Election Day, 1972, at 20 polling places in southeastern Michigan. One experimenter, posing as a “campaign worker,” dropped his political literature as he attempted to give some to a subject approaching or exiting from the polls, while a second experimenter recorded the subject's behavior and then ascertained the subject's presidential preference and/or party affiliation. It was found that (a) subjects were more likely to help the “campaign worker” if he had the same political preference; (b) McGovern supporters were more likely to help than were Nixon supporters; and (c) neither sex of subject or campaign worker, nor whether the interaction took place before or after voting, was significantly related to the likelihood of helping behavior occurring.     

Face recognition algorithms and the other‐race effect: computational mechanisms for a developmental contact hypothesis

People recognize faces of their own race more accurately than faces of other races. The “contact” hypothesis suggests that this “other‐race effect” occurs as a result of the greater experience we have with own‐ versus other‐race faces. The computational mechanisms that may underlie different versions of the contact hypothesis were explored in this study. We replicated the other‐race effect with human participants and evaluated four classes of computational face recognition algorithms for the presence of an other‐race effect. Consistent with the predictions of a developmental contact hypothesis, “experience‐based models” demonstrated an other‐race effect only when the representational system was developed through experience that warped the perceptual space in a way that was sensitive to the overall structure of the model's experience with faces of different races. When the model's representation relied on a feature set optimized to encode the information in the learned faces, experience‐based algorithms recognized minority‐race faces more accurately than majority‐race faces. The results suggest a developmental learning process that warps the perceptual space to enhance the encoding of distinctions relevant for own‐race faces. This feature space limits the quality of face representations for other‐race faces.