Restoring identity through outgroup helping: beliefs about international aid in response to the December 2004 tsunami

In this paper, the December 2004 tsunami tragedy was used as a background to investigate beliefs about intergroup helping. The general aim of the research was to test the proposal that helping can be used to reaffirm a threatened social identity. Two experiments conducted with Dutch participants (N = 78 and N = 73) tested the hypothesis that a threatened Dutch national identity would result in stronger preferences for help to the victims of the tsunami, but only in a domain that is positively and distinctly related to that national identity (i.e. water management). Results from both studies confirmed this hypothesis. Study 2 also showed a reversal of this effect in a domain negatively related to that identity. Moreover, perceived identity threat in Study 2 reduced over time in the high threat condition but not in the low threat condition, and this reduction was positively associated with the endorsement of water management help. Also, as predicted, in both studies a threatened national identity resulted in stronger beliefs that Dutch relief organisations should stay in control over their aid. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Separating ability from need: clarifying the dimensional structure of the Need for Closure Scale

The validity of the Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) has recently been debated in the research literature. In the present study, it is argued that the traditional Decisiveness scale primarily taps ability content instead of the hypothesized motivational need; therefore, new items that explicitly probe the need for quick and unambiguous answers were developed. It was shown that these need items form a reliable scale (Study 1); were predictive of the seizing process over and beyond ability, whereas the old Decisiveness scale was not (Study 2); and were sensitive to experimentally manipulated levels of task motivation (Study 3). Finally, a reassembled NFCS with the new items replacing the traditional Decisiveness items showed superior fit as a unidimensional model. In the Discussion, it is argued that the specific position of Decisiveness is due to its particular operationalization, not to its theoretical status.     

Negativity and positivity effects in person perception and inference: Ability versus morality

The present paper deals with negativity and positivity effects in trait inferences and impression formation. In the first experiment we tested the suggestion of Skowronski and Carlston (1987) that in the domain of morality negative information is more diagnostic, will therefore receive more weight and result in a negativity effect whereas in the domain of abilities, positive information is more diagnostic resulting in positivity effects. Results of our first experiment support these predictions: negative behavioural information leads to more certain inferences concerning morality and positive behavioural information leads to more certain inferences concerning ability. In a second experiment, we investigated the relative weight of positive versus negative ability-and morality-related traits in an impression formation task. We counterposed traits from both morality and ability domains to see which was the most dominant in determining evaluative impressions. Findings of this second experiment showed strong negativity effects but also revealed that information related to morality is more influential in forming an evaluative impression than equally extreme information related to ability. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Stress management and burnout prevention in female blue-collar workers: Theoretical and practical implications

Occupational stress is a pervasive problem among blue-collar workers, and women employees are especially vulnerable, yet this population is rarely addressed. The study concerns a stress management training program developed for female production workers with little formal education, based on the cognitive approach of Rational-Emotive-Behavioral Training (REBT). Several strategies and teaching aids suitable for such a population are suggested. Twenty-seven women participated in the program. Fourteen of them comprised the waiting-list control group. Burnout, tension, listlessness, cognitive weariness, and work/home conflict were assessed before, at the end, and at 12 months follow-up. At the end of the six-session program, four of the five measures in the experimental group were significantly reduced compared to the control group. At the 12 months follow-up, tension and burnout were still reduced compared to baseline suggesting that REBT can be successfully taught to such participants but booster sessions are required.     

Do Obese Women Have Poorer Social Relationships Than Nonobese Women? Reports by Self,Friends, and Coworkers

Both theory and research suggest that obese women may have relatively poor social relationships even if their self-reports about their relationships do not differ from the reports of nonobese women. Seventy-seven obese and 78 nonobese women completed self-report measures of social anxiety, social self-esteem, social competence, social network size, and perceived social support from friends and family. Friends and coworkers also rated these women on the same measures. The self-reports of obese and nonobese women did not differ significantly on any of these social measures, and ratings from friends and coworkers of obese women were not different from ratings of nonobese women by friends and coworkers. These results suggest that obese women may be able to overcome prejudice against obese people in their relationships with others.     

EVIDENCE FOR SUPERIOR ORTHOGRAPHIC SKILLS IN DYSLEXICS

Abstract— The purpose of this study was to assess the development of both phonological and orthographic skills in normally achieving and dyslexic readers The subjects were 257 dyslexic and 342 normally achieving readers, matched at eight reading levels They were administered the Woodcock (1987) Word Attack Subtest, a measure of phonological skills requiring the designed to measure awareness of the properties of English words and the probable sequences and positions of letters within words The dyslexics had significantly higher scores than the normally achieving readers on the orthographic awareness task However, the normally achieving readers had significantly higher scores on the Word Attack Subtest Therefore, the difficulties with phonological processing and the increased orthographic awareness of the dyslexics may indicate a reading strategy that relies more on the visual than the phonological.