Actitudes nacionales en Canarias

Re?umen

Con el fin de acumular información sobre las características definitorias del hecho diferencial canario, se llevaron a cabo tres investigaciones en el marco general de las actitudes. En todas ellas se tomaron variables sociológicas y geográficas como base de los contrastes, utilizando en todos los casos muestras representativas dé la población estudio.     

The Necessary Limits to Temptation: The Turnkey Project

In case of special engineering projects of important relevance it is interesting to pay attention to several possible risks; some of them are in the field of morality or ethics. Due to the social importance of these risks, additional considerations or even additional warranties are justified.     

Joint stimulus control in a temporal discrimination task

The ability to identify stimuli that signal important events is fundamental for an organism to adapt to its environment. In the present paper, we investigated how more than one stimulus could be used jointly to learn a temporal discrimination task. Ten pigeons were exposed to a symbolic matching-to-sample procedure with three durations as samples (2, 6, and 18 s of keylight) and two colors as comparisons (red and green hues). A 30-s intertrial interval (ITI), illuminated with a houselight, separated the trials. Both the houselight and the sample keylight could control responding, so two tests were run to assess how these stimuli influenced choice. In the no-sample test, the keylight was not presented; in the dark-ITI test, the houselight was not illuminated. Results suggest that both houselight and keylight controlled choice, and with the exception of one animal, the more a pigeon relied on one of these stimuli, the less it appeared to rely on the other.     

A New Experience: The Course of Ethics in Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering,University of Granada

A course in professional ethics for civil engineers was taught for the first time in Spain during the academic year 2007/08. In this paper a survey on the satisfaction and expectation of the course is presented. Surprisingly the students sought moral and ethical principles for their own ordinary lives as well as for their profession. Students were concerned about the law, but in their actions they were more concerned with their conscience, aware that it can be separate from the law.     

Motivation to support a desired conclusion versus motivation to avoid an undesirable conclusion: The case of infra‐humanization

Social motivation has been shown to influence various cognitive processes. In the present paper, it is verified that people are motivated to view out‐groups as possessing a lesser degree of humanity than the in‐group (Leyens et al., 2000 ) and that this motivation influences logical processing in the Wason selection task. So far, studies on infra‐humanization have been shown to influence attribution of uniquely human characteristics to groups. Most of these studies focused on the attribution of secondary emotions. Results have shown that secondary emotions are preferentially attributed to in‐group members (Leyens et al., 2001 ). Also, people tend to react differently to in‐group and out‐group members displaying secondary emotions (Gaunt, Leyens, & Sindic, 2004 ; Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003 ). In the present paper, it is argued that infra‐humanization is a two‐direction bias and that it does influence logical processing among perceivers. Specifically, infra‐humanization motivation impacts logical processing in two different directions. First, most motivation is spent to reach the desirable conclusion that the in‐group is uniquely human. Second, least motivation occurs to support the undesirable conclusion that the out‐group is uniquely human. These hypotheses are tested in four cross‐cultural studies that varied the status and the conflicting relations between groups. Results were in line with the predictions and further confirmed that infra‐humanization biases can be obtained independently of status and conflict (but see Cortes, Demoulin, Leyens, & de Renesse, 2005 ). The discussion relates these findings with in‐group favouritism and out‐group derogation (Brewer, 1999 ) and underlines the importance of infra‐humanization in counteracting system justification biases (Jost & Banaji, 1994 ).     

The lay distinction between primary and secondary emotions: A spontaneous categorization?

In line with the psychological essentialism perspective, Leyens et al. ( 13 2000) have hypothesized that people attribute different essences to groups and that they attribute more uniquely human characteristics to their own group than to out‐groups. Leyens et al. have focused on two types of emotions, which in Roman languages have specific labels, such as sentimientos and emociones in Spanish. A cross‐cultural study showed that sentimientos (or secondary emotions) are considered uniquely human emotions whereas emociones (or primary emotions) are perceived as nonuniquely human emotions. The present study focuses on whether this categorization into primary and secondary emotions is a spontaneous distinction that people use in their everyday lives, or whether, on the contrary, it is the result of experimental demands. The paradigm “Who says what to whom” was used to test this question. Geometrical shapes of different colours were systematically associated with different stimuli that varied in meaningfulness. In a first condition, shapes were associated with small or large items of furniture (meaningful categories) and with primary and secondary emotions. In a second condition, the items of furniture were replaced by words ending with a vowel or a consonant (meaningless categories). Subsequently, participants had to recognize which shape was associated with each stimulus. Intra‐category errors were significantly more numerous than inter‐category errors, except for the words ending with a vowel or a consonant. Stated otherwise, types of emotions were recognized like the meaningful difference between items of furniture. These results show that the distinction between primary and secondary emotions is an implicit one that people use spontaneously, and not as a result of task demands. The findings are discussed from the perspective of psychological essentialism and inter‐group relations.     

The effect of reinforcement probability on time discrimination in the midsession reversal task

We examined how biasing time perception affects choice in a midsession reversal task. Given a simultaneous discrimination between stimuli S1 and S2, with choices of S1 reinforced during the first, but not the second half of the trials, and choices of S2 reinforced during the second, but not the first half of the trials, pigeons show anticipation errors (premature choices of S2) and perseveration errors (belated choices of S1). This suggests that choice depends on timing processes, on predicting when the contingency reverses based on session duration. We exposed 7 pigeons to a midsession reversal task and manipulated the reinforcement rate on each half of the session. Compared to equal reinforcement rates on both halves of the session, when the reinforcement rate on the first half was lower than on the second half, performance showed more anticipation and less perseveration errors, and when the reinforcement rate on the first half was higher than on the second half, performance showed a remarkable reduction of both types of errors. These results suggest that choice depends on both time into the session and the outcome of previous trials. They also challenge current models of timing to integrate local effects.     

Emotional prejudice,essentialism, and nationalism The 2002 Tajfel lecture

In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra‐humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively (in terms of altruism, imitation, and approach) with an outgroup member who expresses himself through secondary emotions. Infra‐humanization occurs for high and low status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups. It does not occur when the outgroup target is adequately individualized, by a complete name or through perspective taking, for instance. The differential familiarity with the ingroup and the outgroup cannot explain infra‐humanization. Yet, preliminary results show that subjective essentialism and ingroup identification may mediate the effects of infra‐humanization. A connection is made between nationalism and infra‐humanization. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.