Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race

Racialized science seeks to explain human population differences in health, intelligence, education, and wealth as the consequence of immutable, biologically based differences between "racial" groups. Recent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biological correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science, despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete, reliably measured, or scientifically meaningful. Yet even these counterarguments often fail to take into account the origin and history of the idea of race. This article reviews the origins of the concept of race, placing the contemporary discussion of racial differences in an anthropological and historical context.     

Psychiatric correlates of childhood shyness in a nationally representative sample

Relations between adult anxiety and mood disorders and retrospective reports of excessive childhood shyness were investigated in the US National Comorbidity, Survey (n=5877). Results indicated that 26% of women and 19% of men described themselves as 'very shy' when they were growing up. Of these shy individuals, 53% of women and 40% of men met criteria for a lifetime diagnosis of one or more anxiety or mood disorders. Relations between excessive shyness and each of the anxiety and mood disorders were examined after adjusting for elevated neuroticism, self-criticism, and low maternal care. The largest odds ratios were found for social phobia in both men and women, particularly for the complex subtype of this disorder. Significant associations also emerged for posttraumatic stress disorder in women and for major depressive disorder in men. Childhood shyness remained significantly associated with a lifetime history of social phobia when individuals with current (past year) social phobia were excluded from the analysis. The results of this study suggest that childhood shyness is strongly related to the complex subtype of social phobia in the general population. Excessive shyness does not appear to be strongly associated with other anxiety and mood disorders when related psychosocial and developmental dimensions are statistically controlled. Finally, many individuals who report excessive childhood shyness do not meet criteria for any anxiety or mood disorder. In a similar fashion, approximately 50% of individuals with a lifetime history of complex social phobia did not view themselves as very shy when growing up.     

A multilevel examination of the relationships among training outcomes, mediating regulatory processes, and adaptive performance

This study examined whether cognitive, affective-motivational, and behavioral training outcomes relate to posttraining regulatory processes and adaptive performance similarly at the individual and team levels of analysis. Longitudinal data were collected from 156 individuals composing 78 teams who were trained on and then performed a simulated flight task. Results showed that posttraining regulation processes related similarly to adaptive performance across levels. Also, regulation processes fully mediated the influences of self- and collective efficacy beliefs on individual and team adaptive performance. Finally, knowledge and skill more strongly and directly related to adaptive performance at the individual than the team level of analysis. Implications to theory and practice, limitations, and future directions are discussed.     

The relative contribution of trait and social influences to the links among perceived social support, affect, and self-esteem

Although perceived support is influenced by both the personality traits of support recipients as well as various social factors, it is unknown to what extent these two types of influences account for perceived support's link to mental health. We investigated these relations using multivariate generalizability analyses. In three samples, both the trait and social influence components of perceived support were related to favorable affect and to self-esteem. The magnitude of the correlations between perceived support and mental health was similar for both the trait and social influence components. Similar findings were obtained for social conflict, although the links between conflict and mental health varied somewhat depending upon the level of analysis. These findings suggest that social support theories and interventions should include both trait and social mechanisms to explain and modify perceived support and mental health.     

The career of metaphor

A central question in metaphor research is how metaphors establish mappings between concepts from different domains. The authors propose an evolutionary path based on structure-mapping theory. This hypothesis--the career of metaphor--postulates a shift in mode of mapping from comparison to categorization as metaphors are conventionalized. Moreover, as demonstrated by 3 experiments, this processing shift is reflected in the very language that people use to make figurative assertions. The career of metaphor hypothesis offers a unified theoretical framework that can resolve the debate between comparison and categorization models of metaphor. This account further suggests that whether metaphors are processed directly or indirectly, and whether they operate at the level of individual concepts or entire conceptual domains, will depend both on their degree of conventionality and on their linguistic form.     

What you see is what you set: sustained inattentional blindness and the capture of awareness

This article reports a theoretical and experimental attempt to relate and contrast 2 traditionally separate research programs: inattentional blindness and attention capture. Inattentional blindness refers to failures to notice unexpected objects and events when attention is otherwise engaged. Attention capture research has traditionally used implicit indices (e.g., response times) to investigate automatic shifts of attention. Because attention capture usually measures performance whereas inattentional blindness measures awareness, the 2 fields have existed side by side with no shared theoretical framework. Here, the authors propose a theoretical unification, adapting several important effects from the attention capture literature to the context of sustained inattentional blindness. Although some stimulus properties can influence noticing of unexpected objects, the most influential factor affecting noticing is a person's own attentional goals. The authors conclude that many--but not all--aspects of attention capture apply to inattentional blindness but that these 2 classes of phenomena remain importantly distinct.     

Influence of multiple categories on the prediction of unknown properties

Knowing an item's category helps us predict its unknown properties. Previous studies suggest that when asked to evaluate the probability of an unknown property, people tend to consider only an item's most likely category, ignoring alternative categories. In the present study, property prediction took the form of either a probability rating or a speeded binary-choice judgment. In keeping with past findings, the subjects ignored alternative categories in their probability ratings. However, their binary-choice judgments were influenced by alternative categories. This novel finding suggests that the way in which category knowledge is used in prediction depends critically on the form of the prediction.     

Nonconscious influence of masked stimuli on response selection is limited to concrete stimulus-response associations

A pattern-masked arrow negatively biased the "free choice" between 2 manual responses or between 2 vocal responses. This apparently nonconscious influence occurred only when the free-choice trials were intermixed randomly with other trials that terminated in fully visible arrows, which directed a response of the same modality (manual vs. vocal) as that involved in the free-choice test trials. This indicates that recent conscious processing of the association between specific stimuli and specific responses is needed to activate the nonconscious influence of masked arrows on response selection. Because this influence occurred only when a concrete association was activated, it appears not to be based on deep comprehension of the stimuli and instead is attributable to simple stimulus-response bonds.     

Multiple-object tracking is based on scene, not retinal, coordinates

This study tested whether multiple-object tracking-the ability to visually index objects on the basis of their spatiotemporal history-is scene based or image based. Initial experiments showed equivalent tracking accuracy for objects in 2-D and 3-D motion. Subsequent experiments manipulated the speeds of objects independent of the speed of the scene as a whole. Results showed that tracking accuracy was influenced by object speed but not by scene speed. This held true whether the scene underwent translation, zoom, rotation, or even combinations of all 3 motions. A final series of experiments interfered with observers' ability to see a coherent scene by moving objects at different speeds from one another and by distorting the perception of 3-D space. These reductions in scene coherence led to reduced tracking accuracy, confirming that tracking is accomplished using a scene-based, or allocentric, frame of reference.