Does European citizenship breed xenophobia? European identification as a predictor of intolerance towards immigrants

The European Union is generally perceived as endorsing universalistic and multi‐cultural values. However, social identity and self‐categorization theories predict that, when certain conditions are met, a negative relation between ingroup identification and tolerance towards outgroup members should be observed. We argue that the creation of the status of ‘Citizen of the Union’ in Maastricht may contribute to meeting those conditions and therefore to increase intolerance towards resident foreigners. If that is the case, a paradoxical situation could emerge, in which people's levels of tolerance towards foreigners would contradict group values. We examined the relations between values associated with Europe, European and national identification, and tolerance towards foreigners through a survey study with a—non‐representative—sample of undergraduate French‐speaking Belgian students. Results show that Europe was generally associated with humanistic values. But they also reveal that strong European identifiers tended to express more xenophobic attitudes than weak European identifiers, whilst national identification was not related with such attitudes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mediation in a sibling context: the relations of older siblings' mediating behaviour and younger siblings' task performance

We investigated the sibling relationship as a context for cognitive development. Forty preschoolers (ages 5–6) and their younger siblings (ages 2–3) were visited at home. Four games were presented to the older siblings and they were asked (a) to estimate how well their younger sibling will perform on each game and (b) to teach the younger sibling how to use the games. The older siblings' mediating behaviours during the teaching session and the younger siblings' performance on the four tasks were coded. The frequency of mediating behaviours—including attention focusing, amplifying affect and providing meaning, fostering a sense of competence, regulating of the learning process, de‐contextualization, and negative feedback in the form of mocking and laughing at errors, predicted the younger siblings' task performance. The older sibling's accurate perception of the younger child's competence was uniquely predictive of task performance. The highest amount of mediation was observed in older‐brother–younger‐brother pairs, in particular the behaviours of negative feedback and amplifying affect. Results contribute to the discussion on the role of siblings as moderators of cognitive development and are discussed in terms of Vygotsky's cultural–historical perspective on apprenticeship. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does attention follow the motion in the “shooting line” illusion?

When a line is presented in the vicinity of a recent luminance change (peripheral cue), it is perceived to be drawn over time away from its “cued” end even though the line is actually presented all at once. This study was designed to determine whether attention, exogenously attracted to the cue, would come under the exogenous control of this illusory motion and follow the drawing motion from the cued end to its terminus. Each trial began with the display of four small squares at the corners of an imaginary square centered about fixation. On the critical trials, one of the four squares brightened briefly, after which a horizontal line was presented joining either the two upper or the two lower squares. Shortly thereafter, the distribution of attention was determined by asking the observer to indicate the nature of a change that was equally likely to occur to one of the squares. Responses to targets presented at a noncued location that was at the end of an illusorily drawn line were as fast as those to targets at the cued location and were much faster than those to targets at the remaining noncued locations. This pattern was not shown when the line preceded the cue, strongly suggesting that attention follows the motion in this illusion.     

Sex differences in predictors of adolescent smoking cessation.

Sex differences in predictors of smoking cessation were investigated among 337 male and 490 female participants in the RAND adolescent panel study. Participants reported smoking at least 11-20 times during the past year at Grade 10, with cessation defined as not smoking during the past year at Grade 12. Controlling for demographics, sex-specific analyses indicated that girls who quit smoking within 2 years had friends who smoked less frequently, perceived less parental approval of their smoking, had weaker intentions to continue smoking, used marijuana less frequently, attended fewer different schools, were more likely to have an intact nuclear family, experienced greater peer support, and rated themselves as healthier. Similar analyses for boys yielded results that were generally weaker and nonsignificant, with smoking quantity accounting for several associations in the sex-specific models. Despite these differences, interaction tests revealed significant sex differences for only three predictors. Implications of these results for understanding adolescent smoking cessation are discussed.     

Disinhibition of return: Unnecessary and unlikely

Recently, from data obtained with a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, Gibson and Egeth (1994) concluded that inhibition of return (IOR; a response time effect that reveals slower responding to targets at previously cued versus uncued locations) reflects impaired perceptual processing. By replotting their data, we demonstrate that the perception of temporal order is influenced only by the facilitatory effect of a cue at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and is unaffected by IOR at long SO As. The target paper proposed that, when extra stimuli are presented at task-relevant locations (i.e., in the TOJ task), IOR is prevented by a hypothetical process that is known as disinhibition of return (DOR). We argue that the assumptions that IOR affects perceptual processing and that DOR exists are unnecessary, as a more parsimonious response-based interpretation of IOR is consistent with their data. Further, we summarize recent results and present new data that demonstrate that DOR is unlikely.     

A check on hypothetical personality structures and their theoretical interpretation at 14-16 years in T-data.

Basing hypotheses on interpretations of 12 personality factors most replicated in 10 past researches with children, this experiment sets up about eight subtests as specific markers for each. Ninety-five tests, taking eight hours in all, were administered to 394 14-16-year olds. A majority of the personality pattern hypotheses were sustained factor analytically by evidence on number of factors, significance of unique simple structure reached, and goodness of identifying match (chi-square test). Concept validities can be obtained for some six of the factors rivalling those for intelligence tests. A brief discussion is given of the bearing of the present results upon theoretical explanations of the given source traits, including extraversion, and it is pointed out that the psychological meaning of most, for personality research, is as important, in variance terms, as for the one or two, such as anxiety and extraversion, which have tended to monopolize discussion.     

Persistence of acquired behavioral control in the context of imprinting

Newly hatched Khaki Campbell ducklings (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) were exposed to a moving object that immediately suppressed distress vocalizations occurring in a novel environment. The static visual and auditory features of this object acquired the ability to suppress distress vocalizations after eight 20-min sessions of exposure to the object in motion. The acquired suppressive properties of these features were found to persist throughout thirty 20-min sessions given over 10 days. During these sessions, the ducklings were continually exposed to the static features in the absence of visual movement. In a second experiment, the ability of these features in the absence of visual movement. In a second experiment, the ability of these features to serve as reinforcement for a pecking response was shown to persist for up to 56 hr. In one duckling, presentations of the static visual features did not maintain pecking behavior. However, it was shown that pecking responses could be re-instated in this duckling by introducing novel stimuli to the environment.