Put yourself in my wheelchair: Perspective-taking can reduce prejudice toward people with disabilities and other stigmatized groups

This study aimed to compare perspective-taking with a hypothetical target and perspective-taking occurring during a real interaction with an outgroup member in reducing prejudice toward people with disabilities and other groups (e.g., immigrants, homosexual people), via increased empathy. We adopted an experimental design with two treatment groups (Hypothetical target vs. Real target) and one control group (no intervention), one pretest and two posttest measures. Participants, who were 437 students aged 11–17 years (M = 14.28; SD = 1.17), were randomly assigned to the various conditions on a classroom basis. Perspective-taking was facilitated asking participants to travel in a wheelchair on a path that simulated a real pavement in the presence (or not) of an individual with a motor disability. Findings showed that perspective-taking in the presence of a real target was more effective in reducing prejudice toward people with disabilities than perspective-taking task without encountering an outgroup member. Perspective-taking with a hypothetical target was not sufficient to increase participants' empathy toward people with disabilities, which instead was enhanced when the task was performed at the presence of a real member of that group. Positive effects produced by perspective-taking (with both a hypothetical and a real target) were transferred to immigrants and homosexuals. These findings suggest that, when possible, perspective-taking in the presence of the target, which can improve empathy by favoring a two-way exchange process, is highly recommended to improve attitudes toward different stigmatized groups, not necessarily targeted by the intervention.     

Context-effect bias in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.): exploring decoy influences in a value-based food choice task

Animal Cognition - Decision making is known to be liable to several context effects. In particular, adding a seemingly irrelevant alternative (decoy) to a set of options can modify preferences:...     

Wierenga on theism and counterpossibles

Philosophical Studies - Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected...     

Functional representation of 3d space in endogenous attention shifts

The aim of this study was to explore whether the attentional system, as far as an endogenous orienting is concerned, allocates resources along the sagittal plane and whether such a process is affected by, and is likely to be based on, different functional representations of 3D space in the brain. Several models make a main action-based distinction between representations of peripersonal space and of those extrapersonal space. Accordingly, if attention has to move from one representation to another, it should be possible to observe a decrease in performance during such a transition. To test this hypothesis three experiments were run in which participants performed a cued detection task. Cue stimuli were informative and were centrally located around the fixation point. Target stimuli were displayed at four different depth planes. In the first experiment, assuming that the border between the peripersonal space and the extrapersonal space was at 1 m from the observer, half the target stimuli were located in the peripersonal space and half in the extrapersonal space. The fixation point was located at 1 m from the observer. In the second experiment, the fixation point was moved at 2 m from the observer in order to rule out the possible effects of ocular motor programming. In the third experiment, in order to rule out effects related to the spatial layout of target stimuli (i.e., centre of mass effect) two target stimuli were located in the peripersonal space and six in the extrapersonal space. In all the experiments, besides a validity effect, we observed greater reaction times when attention shift was across spatial representations than when it was within the same representation. The implications for action-oriented models of attention are discussed.