Mechanisms of moral disengagement and their differential use by right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in support of war

Right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) are associated with the approval of war as a political intervention [McFarland, 2005]. We examined whether the effects of RWA and SDO on war support are mediated by moral‐disengagement mechanisms [i.e., responsibility reduction, moral justification, minimizing consequences, and dehumanizing–blaming victims; Bandura, 1999] and whether the ideologies use the mechanisms differently. Our data were consistent with the possibility that minimizing consequences (Study 1) and moral justification (Study 2) mediate the effects of RWA and SDO on approval of war. Both ideologies were positively associated with all moral‐disengagement mechanism though more strongly so for RWA. Comparisons within ideologies suggest that RWA was most strongly associated with moral justification and SDO was most strongly associated with dehumanizing–blaming victims. We discuss implications and limitations. Aggr. Behav. 36:238–250, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Avoiding awareness of betrayal: Comment on Lindblom and Gray (2009)

Betrayal trauma theory (BTT) predicts that unawareness of abuse by someone on whom a victim is dependent may serve to protect a necessary relationship. Lindblom and Gray (2009) contribute to a growing line of BTT studies by measuring narrative detail in a sample of undergraduates who met Criterion A of the PTSD diagnosis and who rated the abuse as their most distressing trauma. Although many core betrayal traumas do not fit Criterion A, Lindblom and Gray found a small effect in the predicted direction. Having found an effect as predicted by BTT, curiously the authors then argue that PTSD Avoidance is a confound for forgetting the abuse to be statistically managed. This is particularly curious since symptom 3 of Criterion C is ‘inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma’. Despite constraining participant selection and other methodological issues, Lindblom and Gray's results add support to BTT. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The other side of we: when outgroup members express common identity

Previous research on the common ingroup identity model has focused on how one's representations of members of the ingroup and outgroup influence intergroup attitudes. Two studies reported here investigated how learning how others, ingroup or outgroup members, conceive of the groups within a superordinate category affects intergroup bias and willingness to engage in intergroup contact. Across both studies, high school students who learned that other ingroup members categorized students at both schools within the common identity of "students" showed less intergroup bias in evaluations and greater willingness for contact. However, consistent with the hypothesized effects of identity threat, when participants read that outgroup members saw the groups within the superordinate category, they exhibited a relatively negative orientation, except when ingroup members also endorsed a superordinate identity (Study 1). This result occurred even when the relative status of the groups was manipulated (Study 2).     

Outcomes and Findings of Program Evaluation for the Intensive Mental Health Program

We describe changes in adaptive functioning for children enrolled in the Intensive Mental Health Program (IMHP), an innovative model for serving children with the most severe forms of SED. Most children show marked improvements in multiple indicators of role performance and symptomatology. Although a high risk, high need group, most children attended school regularly and lived with a stable caregiver at discharge.     

Presidential speechmaking style: Emotional response to micro-expressions of facial affect

Research considering the effect of Presidential speech making style shows individuals are likely to attend to and be emotionally affected by the facial expressions of leaders, especially those that are inappropriate for the context. In this study we tested how rapid and subtle expressions of facial affect (i.e., expressions of less than one-second, often termed micro-expressions) in speeches by a political leader impacts participants’ emotional state. We do this by removing seven brief expressions (less than one-second) from a nearly twelve minute televised speech by President George H. W. Bush concerning the 1990 commitment of US military in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. FACS coding identified all these expressions as containing a component of smiling (lip corner puller: AU12), in some cases with the addition of other facial movements (sometimes associated with anger and/or disgust). Experiments carried out on 206 university undergraduates showed emotional state was altered as a result of these micro-expressions when the control (unaltered speech) and experimental group (micro-expressions removed from speech) were compared. Specifically, participants who viewed the micro-expressions felt less threatened and less angry. Thus, facial expression (even very brief micro-expressions) can have a significant impact on the receiver of a political speech.

The survival of a cooperative tradition in the intergroup discontinuity context

Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity is the tendency, in mixed-motive situations, for groups to interact more competitively, or less cooperatively, than individuals, even though mutual competition yields worse results that mutual cooperation. The present laboratory experiment attempted to assess whether the discontinuity effect could be reduced by the establishment of an intergroup cooperative tradition. Cooperation between intact pairs of groups was induced by placing in each group confederates who successfully convinced their fellow group members of the long-term advantage of trust and cooperation. On subsequent blocks of trails, the confederate was replaced by an actual subject, and then each of the original subjects was replaced so as to simulate generational turnover. By the time all initial members were replaced, their level of cooperation had eroded to the level of groups never experiencing mutual cooperation. The results are discussed in the context of other means of reducing discontinuity. This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants (BNS-9007414 and SBR-9408760) to John Schopler and Chester A. Insko.     

The Relations of Regulation and Emotionality to Children's Situational Empathy-Related Responding

The relations of dispositional regulation (attentional control, ego control), ego resiliency, and emotionality (general emotional intensity and negative emotionality) to situational measures of sympathy and personal distress were examined. Situational sympathy and personal distress were assessed with facial, self-reported, and heart rate reactions to an empathy-inducing film. Teachers and parents completed measures of children's dispositional regulation and emotionality. In general, children who evidenced sympathy (e.g., facial sadness, mean heart rate decline, and self-reported sympathy) were rated higher in regulation and resiliency, although findings sometimes were obtained for only one sex. Children who evidenced personal distress (e.g., facial distress), as well as facial sadness, were rated relatively high in emotionality. Gaze aversion from the film was correlated with regulation and boys' resiliency, and was negatively related to negative emotionality.     

How Groups Merge: The Effects of Merger Integration Patterns on Anticipated Commitment to the Merged Organization1

This study examined the influence of merger integration patterns on expectations about the merger process. The integration patterns included the absorb, in which the merged organization closely resembled the acquiring company; the blend, in which features of both companies were maintained, and the combine, in which the organization resembled neither pre-merger company. Undergraduates role-played employees of a merging organization and written scenarios manipulated the integration pattern and membership in the acquired or acquiring organization. Participants' commitment to the merged organization was most favorable in the combine pattern. Path analyses indicated that the relationship between merger integration pattern and organizational commitment is mediated by the conditions of intergroup contact, perceptions of organizational support, organizational unity, and the degree of threat experienced.     

The attribution of arousal and emergency helping: A bidirectional process

J. M. Piliavin, J. A. Piliavin, and J. Rodin (1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 289–299) and J. A. Piliavin, J. F. Dovidio, S. L. Gaertner, and R. Clark (1981, Emergency intervention, New York, Academic Press) proposed that physiological arousal is causally related to a bystander's response to an emergency. Examining this proposition, the current research investigated the hypothesis that residual arousal from an extraneous event has the capacity to facilitate as well as to inhibit bystander intervention during an emergency depending on whether the extraneous arousal is attributed to the emergency or whether the emergency-generated arousal is attributed to the extraneous event. Specifically, it was predicted that during an Unambiguous emergency, extraneous arousal from the prior performance of physical exercise would be attributed to the emergency and thus facilitate bystander responsiveness. During an Ambiguous emergency, however, emergency-generated arousal would be attributed to the prior performance of physical exercise and thus bystander responsiveness would be inhibited by higher levels of arousal. Fifty-four male subects performed no, moderate, or high levels of exercise before exposure to an Unambiguous or Ambiguous emergency. Results indicated that during the Unambiguous emergency, higher levels of prior exercise facilitated helping. However, when the emergency was Ambiguous, high levels of exercise tended to inhibit bystander responsiveness. Correlational analysis of telemetered heart rates and latency to intervene corroborated the above pattern of findings.