The ingroup overexclusion effect: Identity concerns in decisions about group membership

There are circumstances in which one is reluctant to express a judgment on the basis of the available information. This is for instance the case when the decision may jeopardize the integrity of the group one is a member of. In particular, ingroup members are considered less judgeable than outgroup members. This phenomenon corresponds to the ingroup overexclusion effect (Leyens and Yzerbyt, 1992). An experimental situation was designed in order to rule out an explanation of this phenomenon in terms of confirmation of hypothesis. French- or Dutch-speaking subjects heard recordings of 40 sentences and, depending on the specific wording of the question, decided whether the speakers belonged to the group of French-speaking (i.e. Walloon) versus Dutch-speaking (i.e. Flemish) Belgians or not. The 40 sentences enabled to cross three factors with five sentences in each cell: Walloon versus Flemish speakers, French versus Dutch sentences, and short versus long sentences. As predicted, subjects made most errors when ingroup members read short outgroup sentences. Most importantly, the specific wording of the question did not lead to a reversal of the pattern of errors of group identification. Subjects also took longer to make a decision about an ingroup member reading an outgroup sentence than about an outgroup member reading an ingroup sentence. Such a pattern clearly supports a motivational explanation and undermines a confirmation of hypothesis explanation of the ingroup overexclusion effect. Older accounts of ethnic identification phenomena are addressed and it is suggested that identity concerns greatly affect impression formation processes.     

Organization and work of missionaries in the Middle‐Volga in the second half of the nineteenth century

The missionary effort of the Orthodox Church in the Middle‐Volga—a region conquered by Russia in the sixteenth century and inhabited by an ethnically heterogeneous population practising Islam or a variety of indigenous religions—had led to the formation of important communities of converts. But until the nineteenth century, the church made essentially no effort to educate the converts in the meaning and content of the Orthodox faith and movements of apostasy were frequent. In the mid‐nineteenth century, an outstanding group of missionaries, concerned about the spread of Islam among the nominally Christian communities, began to deploy an important activity to enlighten converts in the Orthodox faith. Their methods—evangelization, education, and propaganda in native languages—were novel and radical. Concerned with the defence of nominally Christian populations against Muslim influences, anti‐Muslim activity was an important aspect of work of the missionaries. Missionaries developed a substantial anti‐Islamic literature and used their considerable influence to harm the Muslims culturally and politically. The legacy of the missionary experience contributed to the continuing distrust between Russians and indigenous peoples.     

Effects of Gender and Profession Type on Definitions of Violence Against Women in Hong Kong

This study investigated the criteria chosen by male and female Chinese public servants (clinical psychologists, social workers, police officers, physicians, nurses, teachers, and lawyers) in Hong Kong to classify and define violence against women. Data were gathered via questionnaires completed by 2589 (686 male) public servants from 10,476 polled (response rate 24.7%). The questionnaires included a 14-item check-list of various behaviors constituting violence against women and a 10-item check-list of criteria that could be used to categorize behavior as violence against women. It was found that for this population, use of physical force and lack of consent were the main determinants of violence against women. Only half of respondents considered murder a form of violence against women, the rest categorized it as a crime that was "not merely violence." Most respondents defined sexual harassment, rape, and unwanted physical contact as forms of violence against women. The female public servants were more likely to define behaviors as violence against women and to use more criteria to define violence against women. Public servants who worked with the law enforcement and legal system were more likely than others to choose narrow definitions and rigid criteria.     

The role of teachers’ motivation and mindsets in predicting a (de)motivating teaching style in higher education: a circumplex approach

Motivation and Emotion - Although different measures for (de)motivating teaching are available for primary and secondary education, a fine-grained instrument to assess a variety of motivating and...     

Perception of resyllabification in French

In three experiments, we examined the effects of phonological resyllabification processes on the perception of French speech. Enchainment involves the resyllabification of a word-final consonant across a syllable boundary (e.g., in chaque avion, the /k/ crosses the syllable boundary to become syllable initial). Liaison involves a further process of realization of a latent consonant, alongside resyllabification (e.g., the /t/ in petit avion). If the syllable is a dominant unit of perception in French (Mehler, Dommergues, Frauenfelder, & Segui, 1981), these processes should cause problems for recognition of the following word. A cross-modal priming experiment showed no cost attached to either type of resyllabification in terms of reduced activation of the following word. Furthermore, word- and sequence-monitoring experiments again showed no cost and suggested that the recognition of vowel-initial words may be facilitated when they are preceded by a word that had undergone resyllabification through enchainment or liaison. We examine the sources of information that could underpin facilitation and propose a refinement of the syllable's role in the perception of French speech.     

Cross-modal morphological priming in French

We investigated the lexical representation of morphologically complex words in French using a cross-modal priming experiment. We asked if the lexical representation for derivationally suffixed and prefixed words is morphologically structured and how this relates to the phonological transparency of the surface relationship between stem and affix. Overall we observed a clear effect of the morphological structure for derived words, an effect that is not explicable by a formal effect. Prefixed words prime their stems, even when they have a phonologically opaque relationship, and a prefixed word primes another prefixed word derived from the same stem. However, suffixed words prime their stems only if their relationship is phonologically transparent. Two suffixed words derived from the same stem prime each other. These two latter results differ from those observed in English by Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler, and Older (1994). We argue that it is the specific properties of the language, such as rhythm, that could explain the differences between the results observed for the two languages and we propose a model where prefixed and suffixed words are decomposed at different stages during their identification process.     

Reducing the effects of the stereotype threat that girls perform less well than boys in mathematics: the efficacy of a mixed debate in a real classroom situation

The present research aims at testing the effects of the mixed debate in a classroom situation on reducing the stereotype threat according to which girls perform less well than boys in mathematics. Our work is based on studies conducted on stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson in J Person Soc Psychol 69:797–811. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.69.5.797, 1995), as well as those aiming to reduce the impact of stereotype threat on stereotyped populations (Huguet and Régner in J Educ Psychol 99(3):545–560. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.545, 2007; Marx and Roman in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 28:1185–1197. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672022812004, 2002; Spencer et al. in J Exp Soc Psychol 35:4–28. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1373, 1999). We will more particularly study Smith and Postmes' (Br J Soc Psychol 50(1):74–98. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466610X500340, 2010) work on small group discussions used to reduce the influence of the threat. Results indicate that having a debate as such reduces the impact of the stereotype threat in girls. Possible interpretations of the results and future research perspectives will be put forward.

     

Trauma exposure is associated with increased context-dependent adjustments of cognitive control in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder and healthy controls

Recent evidence has suggested that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with alterations in prefrontal-cortex-dependent cognitive processes (e.g., working memory, cognitive control). However, it remains unclear whether these cognitive dysfunctions are related to PTSD symptomatology or trauma exposure. Furthermore, regarding cognitive control, research has only focused on the integrity of selected control functions, but not their dynamic regulation in response to changing environmental demands. Therefore, the present study investigated dynamic variations in interference control, in addition to overall interference susceptibility and working memory (WM) performance in matched groups of 24 PTSD patients and 26 traumatized and 30 nontraumatized healthy controls. The Simon task was used to measure overall interference susceptibility and the flexible adjustment of cognitive control, on the basis of the occurrence of response conflicts (conflict adaptation effect). WM performance was assessed with the forward and backward digit span tasks. Since we have previously shown that trauma exposure per se is associated with reduced hair cortisol concentrations (HCC), we further explored whether PTSD/trauma-related cognitive alterations are related to HCC in proximal 3-cm hair segments. The results revealed that PTSD patients and traumatized controls showed significantly more pronounced conflict adaptation effects than nontraumatized controls. Moreover, the conflict adaptation effect was positively related to the number of lifetime traumatic events and the frequency of traumatization. The groups did not differ in overall interference susceptibility or WM performance. Exploratory analyses revealed no association between HCC and the observed cognitive differences. These results suggest that context-driven control adjustments constitute a sensitive correlate of trauma exposure, irrespective of PTSD.     

The role of work–family role integration in a job demands–resources model among Chinese secondary school teachers

The current study examines an integrative demands–resources model of the work–family interface in a sample of 259 Chinese secondary school teachers. Participants completed questionnaires relating to job demands, job resources, work‐to‐family conflict, work‐to‐family enrichment, work–family role integration (WFRI) and burnout scale. Results show that: (i) job demands were strongly and positively associated with work‐to‐family conflict, which further led to an increase in burnout; job resources were strongly and positively associated with work‐to‐family enrichment, and consequently to a decrease in burnout. Job demands also had a significant direct impact on burnout; (ii) a newly proposed construct, WFRI, was found to partially mediate the relationship between job demands and work‐to‐family conflict, as well as between job resources and work‐to‐family enrichment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and future research directions are provided.     

Pre-Pandemic Peer Relations Predict Adolescents’ Internalizing Response to Covid-19

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The goal of the current longitudinal study was to investigate the role of adolescents’ peer victimization and aggression prior to COVID-19...