Perceived discrimination as worldview threat or worldview confirmation: implications for self-esteem

In 3 studies, the authors tested the hypothesis that discrimination targets' worldview moderates the impact of perceived discrimination on self-esteem among devalued groups. In Study 1, perceiving discrimination against the ingroup was negatively associated with self-esteem among Latino Americans who endorsed a meritocracy worldview (e.g., believed that individuals of any group can get ahead in America and that success stems from hard work) but was positively associated with self-esteem among those who rejected this worldview. Study 2 showed that exposure to discrimination against their ingroup (vs. a non-self-relevant group) led to lower self-esteem, greater feelings of personal vulnerability, and ingroup blame among Latino Americans who endorsed a meritocracy worldview but to higher self-esteem and decreased ingroup blame among Latino Americans who rejected it. Study 3 showed that compared with women informed that prejudice against their ingroup is pervasive, women informed that prejudice against their ingroup is rare had higher self-esteem if they endorsed a meritocracy worldview but lower self-esteem if they rejected this worldview. Findings support the idea that perceiving discrimination against one's ingroup threatens the worldview of individuals who believe that status in society is earned but confirms the worldview of individuals who do not.     

Further confirmation ofsame vs.different processing differences

Two four-digit numbers were matched in a “same-different” reaction time paradigm. In the “all-same” condition, the subject respondedsame if all digits matched anddifferent otherwise. In the “all-different” condition, the subject responded same if at least one digit matched anddifferent if all digits differed. In either condition, the number of matching digits ranged from zero to four. The all-same results supported previous work: the fewer the number of mismatches, the slower the response, except that zero mismatches resulted in a response faster than one mismatch. These findings have been taken as supporting a two-process model: an identity detector mechanism and a self-terminating feature-matching process. An alternative one-process model could explain the results by assuming that the “same” response is primed during the match process. However, the all-different results showed reaction time to be a monotonie function of the number of matching digits. Such a finding contradicted the priming model and supported a two-process model.     

Perceived area and the luminosity threshold.

Observers made forced-choice opaque/luminous responses to targets of varying luminance and varying size presented (1) on the wall of a laboratory, (2) as a disk within an annulus, and (3) embedded within a Mondrian array presented within a vision tunnel. Lightness matches were also made for nearby opaque surfaces. The results show that the threshold luminance value at which a target begins to appear self-luminous increases with its size, defined as perceived size, not retinal size. More generally, the larger the target, the more an increase in its luminance induces grayness/blackness into the surround and the less it induces luminosity into the target, and vice versa. Corresponding to this luminosity/grayness tradeoff, there appears to be an invariant: Across a wide variety of conditions, a target begins to appear luminous when its luminance is about 1.7 times that of a surface that would appear white in the same illumination. These results show that the luminosity threshold behaves like a surface lightness value--the maximum lightness value, in fact--and is subject to the same laws of anchoring (such as the area rule proposed by Li & Gilchrist, 1999) as surface lightness.     

Redundancy in perceptual-motor testing: confirmation and generalization.

The Developmental Test of Visual-motor Integration was administered to 63 children in regular classrooms and 51 children in Special Education. Prediction based on total score (r = .68) was similar to a multiple R utilizing only five scores (.67). The over-all raw test score, based on all 24 designs, correctly classified 85% of the children while a combined abbreviated score utilizing only 5 designs achieved an 80% differentiation. Results were interpreted as confirming the hypothesis of redundancy in this perceptual-motor test.     

Determinants of confirmation

Epistemologists often suppose that the extent to which evidencee confirms hypothesisH depends on probabilities involvinge andH, and nothing more. We show experimentally that human reasoners sometimes violate this assumption.     

Perceived depth scales with disparity gradient.

Perceived difference in depth between two adjacent stimuli decreases with increasing disparity gradient even if the disparity stays constant, ie when the stimuli approach each other along paths within fronto-parallel planes. This depth scaling effect is more pronounced with line stimuli than with two isolated points or two small symbols and is insignificant for easily discriminable symbols. The decrease in perceived depth is more pronounced for horizontal orientation than for oblique or vertical orientation. The ratio of perceived depth difference to displayed disparity difference also decreases when the distance between the stimuli increases at a constant gradient in depth. This is to say that we are more correct in our depth estimates for steep gradients in depth when the euclidean distance between the stimuli is short.