Ethnic Identity, Legitimizing Ideologies, and Social Status: A Matter of Ideological Asymmetry

This paper examines the ideological asymmetry hypothesis with respect tothe interface between legitimizing ideologies and psychological attachment to one's ethnic group. The ideological asymmetry hypothesis suggests that hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing ideologies should be positively associated with ingroup attachment among high-status groups, but that among low-status groups these associations should be either less positive in magnitude (isotropic asymmetry) relative to high-status groups or negative in direction (anisotropic asymmetry). The opposite pattern should be found with respect to the interface between hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing ideologies and ingroup attachment: Among high-status groups these associations should be negative, but among low-status groups these associations should be either less negative in magnitude (isotropic asymmetry) relative to high-status groups or positive in direction (anisotropic asymmetry). The presence of isotropic versus anisotropic asymmetry is hypothesized to depend on the degree of disparity in status between the groups being compared: Wider status gaps should tend toward anisotropic asymmetries. The relationships between legitimizing ideologies and ingroup attachment were compared for (1) relatively high-status ethnic groups (European and Asian Americans) versus relatively low-status ethnic groups (Latinos and African Americans) in the United States, (2) the higher-status Jewish ethnic group (Ashkenazim) versus the lower-status Jewish ethnic group (Mizrachim) in Israel, and (3) the high-status Israeli Jews versus the low-status Israeli Arabs. The data were largely consistent with the ideological asymmetry hypothesis. The implications of these findings are discussed within the theoretical frameworks of social dominance theory and other approaches to intergroup relations.     

Education and the Interface between Racial Perceptions and Criminal Justice Attitudes

Recent work has implicated negative attitudes toward blacks in support for toughened criminal-justice measures. This suggests that the issue of crime may be implicitly "racialized," despite a lack of overt racial content. The present study examines the hypothesis that education may weaken the relationship between negative racial perceptions and crime-related policy attitudes. In contrast to traditional views about the role of education in the domain of race-related attitudes, the results of analyses using several different general-population samples suggest that the effects of education are somewhat paradoxical: they reduce the intensity of negative racial perceptions, while bolstering the relationship between these perceptions and criminal justice attitudes.     

Racial Perceptions and Evaluative Responses to Welfare: Does Education Attenuate Race‐of‐Target Effects?

A growing body of research indicates that welfare attitudes may be strongly shaped by negative perceptions of Blacks. This raises questions about what might inhibit the racialization of welfare attitudes. In this vein, a long line of work indicating that education leads to increased tolerance suggests that the relationship between negative racial perceptions and welfare attitudes may be weaker among the highly educated. However, recent studies suggest that the role of education may be more complex: While negative racial perceptions may be less prevalent among the highly educated, the relationship between these perceptions and policy attitudes appears to be stronger among highly educated individuals. The present study attempts to extend this finding by examining the hypothesis that the presence of a racial cue would be more (rather than less) likely to strengthen the relationship between negative racial perceptions and evaluative responses to welfare among college-educated Whites. Data from a survey-based experiment included in the 1991 National Race and Politics Study provided a clear pattern of support for this hypothesis.     

The consolidation of object and context recognition memory involve different regions of the temporal lobe

These experiments investigated the involvement of several temporal lobe regions in consolidation of recognition memory. Anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, was infused into the hippocampus, perirhinal cortex, insular cortex, or basolateral amygdala of rats immediately after the sample phase of object or object-in-context recognition memory training. Anisomycin infused into perirhinal or insular cortices blocked long-term (24 h), but not short-term (90 min) object recognition memory. Infusions into the hippocampus or amygdala did not impair object recognition memory. Anisomycin infused into the hippocampus blocked long-term, but not short-term object-in-context recognition memory, whereas infusions administered into the perirhinal cortex, insular cortex, or amygdala did not affect object-in-context recognition memory. These results clearly indicate that distinct regions of the temporal lobe are differentially involved in long-term object and object-in-context recognition memory. Whereas perirhinal and insular cortices are required for consolidation of familiar objects, the hippocampus is necessary for consolidation of contextual information of recognition memory. Altogether, these results suggest that temporal lobe structures are differentially involved in recognition memory consolidation.     

PIGEONS (COLUMBA LIVIA) APPROACH NASH EQUILIBRIUM IN EXPERIMENTAL MATCHING PENNIES COMPETITIONS

The game of Matching Pennies (MP), a simplified version of the more popular Rock, Papers, Scissors, schematically represents competitions between organisms with incentives to predict each other's behavior. Optimal performance in iterated MP competitions involves the production of random choice patterns and the detection of nonrandomness in the opponent's choices. The purpose of this study was to replicate systematic deviations from optimal choice observed in humans when playing MP, and to establish whether suboptimal performance was better described by a modified linear learning model or by a more cognitively sophisticated reinforcement‐tracking model. Two pairs of pigeons played iterated MP competitions; payoffs for successful choices (e.g., “Rock” vs. “Scissors”) varied within experimental sessions and across experimental conditions, and were signaled by visual stimuli. Pigeons' behavior adjusted to payoff matrices; divergences from optimal play were analogous to those usually demonstrated by humans, except for the tendency of pigeons to persist on prior choices. Suboptimal play was well characterized by a linear learning model of the kind widely used to describe human performance. This linear learning model may thus serve as default account of competitive performance against which the imputation of cognitively sophisticated processes can be evaluated.     

Attention control and susceptibility to hypnosis

The present work aimed at assessing whether the interference exerted by task-irrelevant spatial information is comparable in high- and low-susceptible individuals and whether it may be eliminated by means of a specific posthypnotic suggestion. To this purpose high- and low-susceptible participants were tested using a Simon-like interference task after the administration of a suggestion aimed at preventing the processing of the irrelevant spatial information conveyed by the stimuli. The suggestion could be administered either in the absence or following a standard hypnotic induction. We showed that, outside from the hypnotic context, the Simon effect was similar in high and low-susceptible participants and it was significantly reduced following the posthypnotic suggestion in high-susceptible participants only. These results show that a specific posthypnotic suggestion can alter information processing in high-susceptible individuals and reduce the interfering effect exerted by arrow stimuli.     

Predicting attitude extremity: the interactive effects of schema development and the need to evaluate and their mediation by evaluative integration

Research on attitude extremity suggests that schemas containing more information about a particular attitude domain are more likely to be associated with extreme attitudes toward objects in that domain when perceivers' responses toward features of the domain are evaluatively integrated. The present study argues that a high need to evaluate may play an important role in determining when schema development will be associated with the integrated responses to different domain features necessary for extremity. Consistent with this argument, data from a nationally representative survey of political attitudes indicated that the need to evaluate was associated with increased extremity across two different indices of the latter; that it moderated the relationships between schema development (in the form of political expertise), on one hand, and increased extremity and integration, on the other; and that the moderating effects of the need to evaluate vis-a-vis extremity were mediated by integration.     

On the ethics of facial transplantation research

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced by Dr. Francis Moore in the late 1980s for introducing innovative procedures in transplant surgery. In addition to these we also insist that human face transplantation must meet all the ethical requirements usually applied to health care research. We summarize the achievements of transplant surgery to date, focusing in particular on the safety and efficacy of immunosuppressive medications. We also emphasize the importance of risk/benefit assessments that take into account the physical, aesthetic, psychological, and social dimensions of facial disfiguration, reconstruction, and transplantation. Finally, we maintain that the time has come to move facial transplantation research into the clinical phase.     

The role of cortical cholinergic pre- and post-synaptic receptors in taste memory formation

A number of studies have implicated cholinergic activity in the mediation of learning and memory processes. However, the specific role of muscarinic receptors in memory formation mechanisms is less known. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effects of muscarinic antagonist M2 presynaptic receptor, AFDX-116 (0.5mM) and M1 and M3 post-synaptic receptor pirenzepine (100mM), as well as a non-selective muscarinic antagonist, scopolamine (136mM), in the insular cortex (IC) during acquisition and retrieval of conditioned taste aversion (CTA). In addition, we evaluate the effects of those antagonists in cortical ACh release by in vivo microdialysis and the effects on the induction of in vivo LTP in the BLA-IC projection. The results showed that the cortical microinjections of scopolamine and pirenzepine, but not AFDX-116, produced significant disruption in the acquisition of CTA, without effects during retrieval. Microinjections of scopolamine and AFDX-116 produced significant cortical ACh release, while infusions of pirenzepine did not produce any release. Application of scopolamine and pirenzepine diminished induction of LTP in the BLA-IC projection, but not AFDX-116, as compared with vehicle. The induction of BLA-CI LTP seems to be modulated by post-synaptic muscarinic acetylcholine receptors and not by pre-synaptic muscarinic receptors. These results suggest a differential involvement of cholinergic receptors during acquisition and retrieval of aversive memory formation, as well as a differential role of muscarinic receptors in the biochemical and electrophysiological processes that may underlay aversive memory.     

The Syzygy,Reformulation and New Perspectives: Dreams,Anima-Animus and Gender1

The main objective of this qualitative and quantitative research paper is to explore the occurrences and relations of the anima, animus and androgynous in dreams, with particular emphasis on the consideration of the androgynous in the human psyche. The sample consists of 9 series of dreams (141 dreams in total), from 9 dreamers, 7 women (female sex/gender) and 2 men (male sex/gender), aged 25–57, heterosexual, undergoing Jungian psychotherapy, and presenting couple-related themes. Statistical results and qualitative analysis offer new input for the re-vision of the classical anima-animus model, and the addition of in-depth explorations into the androgynous, paving the way for a new model of psychopathology and psychotherapeutic clinical work, in transition.