Effects of marital conflict on subsequent triadic family interactions and parenting

This study examined marital conflict's indirect effects on children through disruptions in family alliances and parenting. Forty married couples were observed interacting with their 6-8-year-old sons after pleasant and conflictual discussions. After conflictual discussion, fathers showed lower support/engagement toward sons, and coparenting styles were less democratic. Couple negativity was correlated with family negativity, regardless of the topic of discussion, which suggests continuity in the affective quality of the two family subsystems. Mothers' marital satisfaction moderated families' responses to the experimental manipulation. The results provide stronger evidence than previously available of a causal link between conflict and disrupted parenting. Further research is needed to identify which conflict-related disruptions in parenting influence the development of children's problems.     

Political Conservatism,Need for Cognitive Closure,and Intergroup Hostility

Two studies examined the interaction of political conservatism and the need for cognitive closure in predicting aggressiveness in intergroup conflict and hostility toward outgroups. In the first study, Polish participants indicated their preference for coercive conflict strategies in the context of a real‐life intergroup conflict. Only among participants who identify themselves as conservative, need for cognitive closure was positively and significantly related to preference for aggressive actions against the outgroup. In the second study, the predicted interaction was investigated in the context of the terrorist threat in Poland. The findings indicated that high in need for closure conservatives showed greater hostility against Arabs and Muslims only when they believed that Poland was under threat of terrorist attacks inspired by Islamist fundamentalism.     

Three layers of collective victimhood: effects of multileveled victimhood on intergroup conflicts in the Israeli–Arab context

Perceived collective victimhood plays a significant role in conflictual intergroup relations. We suggest a conceptualization of three different layers of collective victimhood: historical victimhood, general conflict victimhood, and conflict event victimhood. Three studies explore the interrelationship between the layers and their effects in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In Study 1, general conflict victimhood mediates the relationship between historical victimhood and willingness for compromise. In Study 2, conducted in two waves, changes in general conflict victimhood predict support for military actions against the out‐group. The relationship between general conflict victimhood and support for military actions was mediated by conflict event victimhood. In Study 3, three new scales were developed, and their relations with different outcomes examined. Findings were nearly identical to the models tested in Studies 1–2.     

Associative priming in color naming: interference and facilitation

In Experiment 1, color-naming interference for target stimuli following associated primes was greater in a group making a lexical decision to the prime than in a group reading the prime silently. High-frequency targets were responded to more quickly than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 2, with subjects naming the prime, there was evidence of associative interference when the prime and the target were grouped temporally but not when the intertrial interval was comparable with the prime-target interval. Associative primes presented at a short (120-msec) prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony facilitated color naming in Experiment 3. Taken together, the results suggest that the effect of faster processing of the base word in a color-naming task is facilitatory and that color-naming priming interference arises when associative prime processing increases conflict between word and color responses by enhancing phonological or articulatory activation of the base word.     

Reactions to Terror Attacks: A Heuristic Model

What are the signature features of the reactions of mass publics to terrorist attacks? We argue that the available empirical evidence suggests a general pattern of reactions: The peaks of mass reactions to terrorist attacks are limited in size and duration and their end states marked by a return to baselines values of tolerance. We label this perturbation effects. In this article, we review the available evidence for perturbation effects, build a heuristic model of such effects and provide an explanation of their characteristic pattern, combing theories of emotional arousal and opinion leadership. Finally, we relate the overlooked existence of perturbation effects to widespread fears about the frailty of democratic norms in the face of mass terrorism.     

Altering traumatic memory

Can you experimentally contaminate memory for truly traumatic events? We investigated this question in a study in which 80 Russian participants reported on their memories for one of two terrorist bombings. Half the participants recalled the 1999 attacks on Moscow apartment buildings while the others recalled the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Participants recalled the events on two separate occasions over a six month period. Just prior to the second recall, we strongly suggested to all participants that they had seen a wounded animal in the attacks and had mentioned it in their original memory reports. While none of the WTC group were convinced by the suggestion, 12.5% of the Moscow group did so, and even elaborated with sensory detail (e.g., a bleeding cat lying in the dust). This group was more susceptible to contamination despite the greater emotion that they experienced about the Moscow terrorist attacks. These findings support the notion that even traumatic memories are experimentally malleable.     

Misreading Islamist Terrorism: The "War Against Terrorism" and Just-War Theory

Abstract: The Bush administration's military war on terrorism is a blunt, ineffective, and unjust response to the threat posed to innocent civilians by terrorism. Decentralized terrorist networks can only be effectively fought by international cooperation among police and intelligence agencies representing diverse nation‐states, including ones with predominantly Islamic populations. The Bush administration's allegations of a global Islamist terrorist threat to the national interests of the United States misread the decentralized and complex nature of Islamist politics. Undoubtedly there exists a “combat fundamentalist” element within Islamism. But the threat posed to U.S. citizens by Islamist terrorism neither necessitates nor justifies as a response massive military invasions of other nations. Not only does the Bush administration's war on alleged “terrorist states” violate the doctrine of just war, but in addition these wars arise from a new, unilateral, imperial foreign‐policy doctrine of “preventive wars.” Such a doctrine will isolate the United States from international institutions and long‐standing allies. The weakening of these institutions and alliances will only weaken the ability of the international community to deter terrorism.     

Early Communications in the War Against Terrorism: An Integrative Complexity Analysis

Integrative complexity reflects the degree to which the source of a communication perceives several dimensions and points of view relevant to the topic (differentiation) and the degree to which such characteristics are seen as related to each other (integration). During international crises, bilateral decreases in the integrative complexity of communications frequently precede the outbreak of war; a unilateral decrease reliably precedes surprise strategic attacks. In the current study, complexity was scored in the messages of selected leaders from before to approximately a month after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Even this limited database replicated some of the complexity patterns found previously, as well as showing some novel characteristics. This was the first application of the method to hostilities other than inter–nation or civil wars.     

Contributors

Abstract

The terrorist attacks on the USA, and the responses to them, brought to light complex social forms and interactions ‐ and varying involvement by churches and religions ‐ amongst the peoples and governments involved. The first responses in the USA were to the attacks as destructive of meaning, with corresponding practical, moral and religious attempts to restore social meaning. Subsequent responses have employed notions of social life performed with the instruments more typical of a modern society, but these usually lack historical and religious awareness: economics, government and military power. The article traces some of the distinctive ideological, rhetorical and religious forms of society in the USA, interacting with those more historically formed, in Europe, the Middle East and amongst Islamists. It argues the need for an international socio‐religious — that is ecclesial ‐ response to present events, as now seen in ‘Scriptural Reasoning’, a movement in which Jews, Christians and Muslims join.     

Americans respond politically to 9/11: understanding the impact of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath

The 9/11 terrorist attacks have had profound effect on U.S. domestic and foreign security policy, leading to several expensive wars and the erosion of civil liberties (under the USA PATRIOT Act). We review evidence on political reactions to the 9/11 attacks and conclude that subjective reactions to terrorism played an important role in shaping support for national security policy in the wake of 9/11. Support for a strong national security policy was most pronounced among Americans who perceived the nation as at threat from terrorism and felt angry at terrorists. In contrast, Americans who were personally affected by the attacks were more likely to feel anxious about terrorism, and this anxiety translated into less support for overseas military action. In addition, Americans who felt insecure after the 9/11 attacks and perceived a high future threat of terrorism were more likely than others to support strong foreign and domestic national security policies. Overall, research on American political reactions to 9/11 suggests that support for a strong government response to terrorism is most likely when members of a population perceive a high risk of future terrorism and feel angry at terrorists.     

Forgiveness and collective guilt assignment to historical perpetrator groups depend on level of social category inclusiveness

The authors examined how categorization influences victimized group members' responses to contemporary members of a historical perpetrator group. Specifically, the authors tested whether increasing category inclusiveness--from the intergroup level to the maximally inclusive human level--leads to greater forgiveness of a historical perpetrator group and decreased collective guilt assignment for its harmdoing. Among Jewish North Americans (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and Native Canadians (Experiment 3) human-level categorization resulted in more positive responses toward Germans and White Canadians, respectively, by decreasing the uniqueness of their past harmful actions toward the in-group. Increasing the inclusiveness of categorization led to greater forgiveness and lessened expectations that former out-group members should experience collective guilt compared with when categorization was at the intergroup level. Discussion focuses on obstacles that are likely to be encountered on the road to reconciliation between groups that have a history of conflictual relations.     

A prospective investigation of the relationship between just-world beliefs and the desire for revenge after September 11, 2001

We prospectively examined the relationship between individuals' belief in a just world and their desire for revenge against the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. Eighty-three undergraduate students who had completed a measure of just-world beliefs prior to the terrorist attacks were assessed approximately 2 months following the attacks. The more strongly they had endorsed just-world beliefs prior to the attacks, the more distressed they felt about the attacks and the more they desired revenge. Furthermore, the relationship between belief in a just world and the desire for revenge was mediated by feelings of distress in response to the terrorist attacks. The results point to the importance of justice beliefs in understanding responses to the terrorist attacks.     

On-line processing of social stereotypes during spoken language comprehension

Four experiments investigated stereotype processing during the on-line comprehension of spoken sentences. Participants listened to a critical prime (terrorist) embedded in a sentence and then made lexical decisions to visually presented standard-related (bomb) or stereotype-related targets (Arab) or unrelated controls for both conditions. For Experiments 1A and 1B, the preceding context provided no contextual information about the critical prime. Targets were presented at prime offset (Experiment 1A) or 300 ms after prime offset (Experiment 1B). In Experiments 2A and 2B, the preceding context was biased towards the stereotype meaning of the critical prime. Visual targets were presented at prime offset (Experiment 2A) or 300 ms after prime offset (Experiment 2B). Experiment 1A revealed a priming effect, but only for the standard meaning (i.e., bomb) of the critical prime. This effect was further replicated in Experiments 1B, 2A and 2B; however, for these experiments, unlike Experiment 1A, the results revealed lexical inhibition for the stereotype meaning of the critical prime. That is, lexical decisions to the stereotype-related targets were actually slower than the stereotype-unrelated controls. The results are discussed in terms of current social cognitive models of stereotype processing.     

Terror Management Theory and Identity: The Effect of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on Anxiety and Identity Change

Baumeister and Muraven (1996) reasoned that those who have a well-formed identity should express a greater amount of fear when faced with the prospect of their own death. In Study 1, terror management theory methodology was applied to test this hypothesis. The results show that individuals who were exploring their identity had greater identity exploration scores when reminded of their death in comparison to those who were not given such a reminder. In Study 2, the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on identity and anxiety were examined using a terrorism salience approach. The results show that reminders of the terrorist attacks produced greater anxiety in those who were exploring their identity and less anxiety in those who were not exploring. Terrorism salience also produced greater identity commitment, especially in those who were exploring their identity.     

Can harmful intergroup behaviors truly represent the self?: The impact of harmful and prosocial normative behaviors on intra-individual conflict and compartmentalization

This research investigates how group members subjectively feel about their prosocial vs. harmful intergroup behaviors, and whether these behaviors can represent who they are more globally as a person. Three experiments tested how group norms (pro-merit/parity vs. pro-discrimination) and congruence with these norms predicted compartmentalization of these intergroup behaviors in the self and intra-individual conflict. Experiment 1 (N = 122) revealed that participants who conformed to a pro-discrimination norm reported compartmentalizing this behavior to a greater extent than participants who conformed to a pro-merit norm. Experiments 2 (N = 149) and 3 (N = 222) replicated and extended these findings in real and conflictual intergroup settings, also over and above the effect of relevant superordinate norms. Mediated moderation analyses also revealed that following discriminatory norms was associated with more intra-individual conflict, and that this conflict in turn predicted higher compartmentalization.     

无意识信息的刺激表征及其时间特性

无意识信息是否存在刺激表征有待解决。实验采用字母Flanker任务, 通过目标和flanker在刺激水平和反应水平上的冲突效应, 重点考察阈下flanker在刺激水平的表征。在相同的实验设计下, flanker可觉察时(实验1A), 观察到经典的刺激冲突效应和反应冲突效应; 而flanker无意识时(实验1B), 重复了反应冲突效应, 却观察到刺激冲突效应发生反转, 提示了无意识信息的反应加工及刺激加工。实验2采用符号材料促使刺激−反应的自动联结, 减少刺激−反应规则的难度, 结果重复了实验1B的发现--无意识信息引起反转的刺激冲突。刺激冲突下反转效应的一致结果表明无意识信息的刺激表征影响了认知加工。实验3考察这种影响在时间进程上的特点。无意识刺激表征的影响随反应时变化：在快速反应中观察到刺激冲突效应, 之后该效应发生反转且反转量随反应时增加而增大。相反, 无意识反应表征的影响在不同反应时下保持稳定。以上结果提供了无意识信息存在刺激表征的行为学证据并揭示了其时间特性, 提供了无意识领域中不一致研究结果的整合思路。     

The role of retributive justice and the use of international criminal tribunals in post‐conflict reconciliation

Four experiments examined people's responses to intergroup violence either committed or suffered by their own group. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Serbs who strongly glorified Serbia were more supportive of future violence against, and less willing to reconcile with, Bosniaks after reading about Serbian victimization by Bosniaks rather than Serbian transgressions against Bosniaks. Replicating these effects with Americans in the context of American–Iranian tensions, Experiment 2 further showed that demands for retributive justice explained why high glorifiers showed asymmetrical reactions to ingroup victimization vs. perpetration. Again in the Serb and the American context, respectively, Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that post‐conflict international criminal tribunals can help satisfy victim group members' desire for retributive justice, and thereby reduce their support for future violence and increase their willingness to reconcile with the perpetrator group. The role of retributive justice and the use of international criminal justice in intergroup conflict (reduction) are discussed.     

Remembering historical victimization: collective guilt for current ingroup transgressions

The authors examined the consequences of remembering historical victimization for emotional reactions to a current adversary. In Experiment 1, Jewish Canadians who were reminded of the Holocaust accepted less collective guilt for their group's harmful actions toward the Palestinians than those not reminded of their ingroup's past victimization. The extent to which the conflict was perceived to be due to Palestinian terrorism mediated this effect. Experiment 2 illustrated that reminding Jewish people, but not non-Jewish people, of the Holocaust decreased collective guilt for current harm doing compared with when the reminder concerned genocide committed against another group (i.e., Cambodians). In Experiments 3 and 4, Americans experienced less collective guilt for their group's harm doing in Iraq following reminders of either the attacks on September 11th, 2001 or the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor compared with a historical victimization reminder that was irrelevant to the ingroup. The authors discuss why remembering the ingroup's past affects responses to outgroups in the present.