Ingroup and outgroup inferences: when ingroup bias overwhelms outcome bias

Two experiments investigated conditions under which participants drew outcome-biased inferences about ingroups and outgroups. Participants read about ingroup and outgroup targets whose success or failure was influenced by an arbitrary decision rule. In Experiment 1, ingroup and outgroup members experienced two inconsistent outcomes (first success and then failure, or vice versa) despite almost identical performances. After reading about the first performance participants made outcome-biased inferences, but when the role of the decision rule became obvious inferences became group-serving. That is, outcomes continued to influence inferences when they cast the ingroup in a positive light (as when initial failure was followed by success) but failed to affect inferences when they were detrimental to the ingroup (as when initial success was qualified by later failure). In contrast, inferences about outgroups were outcome-biased when failure followed success, but not when success followed failure. The results of Experiment 2 showed that outcome biases influenced inferences when decision rules produced outcomes that promoted the ingroup but not when they produced outcomes that hurt the ingroup. No such benefit occurred for outgroups. The results confirm the impact of motivational concerns such as ingroup bias on the occurrence of outcome biases in inferences. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Valorisation du multilinguisme et de l’éducation bilingue dans des familles immigrantes

In this article, we explore the values attributed to multilingualism and bilingual education expressed in interviews with immigrant parents whose children are enrolled in French Immersion programs in the Vancouver metropolitan area. Our analysis indicates that language socialization and language learning encompass more than the transmission of values, practices, and language repertoires to include a collective construction of new practices and language identities. Furthermore, a dialectic of integration and resistance to assimilation appears to underlie the actions of these parents who foster multilingualism in their children as part of a national and international integration strategy.     

Parent as Saboteur in the Therapeutic Treatment of Children

Children present some unique challenges to the therapist regarding treatment. Unlike adult patients, they are obviously still dependent upon the parent for transportation, the payment of fees, and the success or failure of treatment. Thus the parents make the ultimate decision to continue or terminate treatment. But sometimes a parent's characterological problems are activated by their child's treatment. These diagnostic problems can be classified as envy, jealousy, competition, and narcissism. When any or all of these unresolved parental issues are touched by the treatment of their child, some parents become determined to sabotage therapy, despite the necessity of the treatment for their child. The author's intent is to identify the parental characterological issues for sabotaging therapy through both a theoretical analysis and a discussion of the particular methods parents employ to achieve this end. Identification of the various strategies for handling hostile parents and elaboration of various methods that the therapist may employ are discussed when parental sabotaging of treatment becomes a problem. Recommendations for particular interventions are suggested to illuminate the challenges the therapist faces with those parents whose intent is to sabotage treatment.     

Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane

The mentalistic view of early theory of mind posits that infants possess a robust and sophisticated understanding of false belief that is masked by the demands of traditional explicit tasks. Much of the evidence supporting this mentalistic view comes from infants’ looking time at events that violate their expectations about the beliefs of a human agent. We conducted a replication of the violation‐of‐expectation procedure, except that the human agent was replaced by an inanimate agent. Infants watched a toy crane repeatedly move toward a box containing an object. In the absence of the crane, the object changed location. When the crane returned, 16‐month‐old infants looked longer when it turned toward the object's new location, consistent with the attribution of a false belief to the crane. These results suggest that infants spontaneously attribute false beliefs to inanimate agents. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/qqEPPhd9FDo     

Psychological maladjustment mediates the link between remembrances of parental rejection in childhood and loneliness in adulthood: A cross-cultural comparative study

Drawing stimulus from interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this multicultural study examined relations between men's versus women's remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood and their current level of loneliness, as mediated by adults' self-reported psychological maladjustment. Adults (N = 899) from five nations (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States) responded to the Adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-short form for mothers and fathers, the Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-short form, and the Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale. Adults' remembrances of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted feelings of loneliness but remembered paternal rejection was more strongly related to these feelings than were remembrances of maternal rejection. Psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of remembered maternal rejection but only partially mediated the effect of remembered paternal rejection on loneliness. There were no significant differences in these results across the five countries or genders. Overall, the results suggest that adults' remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the theoretically expected development of psychological maladjustment—are likely to be associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.     

Validity and reliability of the Test of Early Reading Ability-Second Edition with preschool age children

Criterion validity and test-retest reliability across the two forms of the Test of Early Reading Ability-Second Edition were examined. 18 preschool age children, 4 boys and 14 girls, between the ages of 37 and 59 mo. (M = 48.5, SD = 7.6) were randomly administered Forms A and B as well as the sound-blending, letter-word identification, spelling, and sound-awareness reading subtests from the 2001 Woodcock Johnson-III. Correlations were moderate between the children's performance on the Test of Early Reading Ability-2 Forms A and B and their reading subtest scores from the Woodcock Johnson-III and also between Forms A and B of the Test of Early Reading Ability-2. However, Forms A and B of the Test of Early Reading Ability-2 were not clinically equivalent.     

The nature and dimensionality of organizational citizenship behavior: a critical review and meta-analysis

This article reviews the literature on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and its dimensions as proposed by D. W. Organ (1988) and other scholars. Although it is assumed that the behavioral dimensions of OCB are distinct from one another, past research has not assessed this assumption beyond factor analysis. Using meta-analysis, the authors demonstrate that there are strong relationships among most of the dimensions and that the dimensions have equivalent relationships with the predictors (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, fairness, trait conscientiousness, and leader support) most often considered by OCB scholars. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to how the OCB construct should be conceptualized and measured in the future.     

Top-down influences on perceptual grouping

Observers are faster to find and discriminate a target pair of adjacent, same-shaped objects that are within the same perceptual group (within group) versus within adjacent perceptual groups. Manipulating the probability of a within-group pair modulated this grouping effect such that it increased as the percentage of within-group trials (25%, 50%, or 75%) increased. This probability effect was stronger for extrinsic grouping factors (common region and connectedness) than for intrinsic factors (proximity and color similarity). Further experiments, however, suggested that this extrinsic-intrinsic difference was due to differences in overall speed with which the target pair was found. The results are interpreted as indicating that grouping is sensitive to top-down influences as long as there is sufficient time for feedback to operate.     

Positron emission tomography methods with potential for increased understanding of mental retardation and developmental disabilities

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a technique that enables imaging of the distribution of radiolabeled tracers designed to track biochemical and molecular processes in the body after intravenous injection or inhalation. New strategies for the use of radiolabeled tracers hold potential for imaging gene expression in the brain during development and following interventions. In addition, PET may be key in identifying the physiological consequences of gene mutations associated with mental retardation. The development of high spatial resolution microPET scanners for imaging of rodents provides a means for longitudinal study of transgenic mouse models of genetic disorders associated with mental retardation. In this review, we describe PET methodology, illustrate how PET can be used to delineate biochemical changes during brain development, and provide examples of how PET has been applied to study brain glucose metabolism in Rett syndrome, serotonin synthesis in autism, and GABAA receptors in Angelman's syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome. Future application of PET scanning in the study of mental retardation might include measurements of brain protein synthesis in fragile X syndrome and tuberous sclerosis complex, two common conditions associated with mental retardation in which cellular mechanisms involve dysregulation of protein synthesis. Mental retardation results in life-long disability, and application of new PET technologies holds promise for a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of mental retardation, with the potential to uncover new treatment options.     

African Americans and High Blood Pressure: The Role of Stereotype Threat

We examined the effect of stereotype threat on blood pressure reactivity. Compared with European Americans, and African Americans under little or no stereotype threat, African Americans under stereotype threat exhibited larger increases in mean arterial blood pressure during an academic test, and performed more poorly on difficult test items. We discuss the significance of these findings for understanding the incidence of hypertension among African Americans.