Who Gets What and Why: Determinants of Social Allocations

Four experiments were conducted to explore how people allocate social resources between meritorious and needy parties. As predicted, participants with high social dominance orientation (SDO), who prefer hierarchical relationships in society, favored meritorious parties. In contrast, participants with low SDO, who value social equality, favored needy parties. Participants appealed to merit- or need-based ideologies to justify their allocations. Apparently, the notion of fairness denotes merit-based reasoning to people with high SDO, whereas it denotes need-based reasoning for those with low SDO. Among the participants, merit- and need-based ideologies were not simply post hoc rationalizations, but rather mediated the allocation decisions. Implications for the study of ideology and for theories of distributive justice are discussed.     

The role of trace strength in recency and frequency judgements by amnesic and control subjects

Amnesic and control subjects were required to judge the recency and frequency of presentation of complex pictures. The pictures were shown either once or three times 10 min or 24 h before testing. In both groups recency judgements were influenced by frequency of presentation, and frequency judgements by recency of presentation. Because the amnesic patients were unable to discriminate between the effects of repeated presentation and recent presentation, it was concluded that their judgements were determined solely by trace strength. Because controls showed some ability to make this discrimination, it was concluded that their judgements were determined jointly by trace strength and specific information about time and frequency of presentation.     

Muslims’ emotions toward Americans predict support for Hezbollah and Al Qaeda for threat-specific reasons

Using a random sample of 243 Muslims in Lebanon and Syria, we examined whether support for Hezbollah or for Al Qaeda is predicted by functionally-relevant emotional responses to specific threats perceived to be posed by Americans. In line with the sociofunctional approach, perceived resource domination threat from Americans elicited anger, and perceived value contamination threat elicited disgust/contempt toward Americans. Importantly, these intergroup emotions in turn differentially predicted support for Hezbollah and Al Qaeda through desires for the organizations to accomplish different goals to address the threat perceptions. Specifically, anger toward Americans predicted support for Hezbollah through desires for the organization to restore threatened symbolic resources by bringing pride and respect to Arabs. In contrast, disgust/contempt toward Americans predicted support for Al Qaeda through desires for the organization to protect threatened ingroup values by de-contaminating Islam from Western cultural influence. Theoretical explanations and implications for addressing and mitigating hostilities between the groups are discussed.     

Predicting Support for Arabs' Autonomy from Social Dominance: The Role of Identity Complexity and Dehumanization

The present study extends previous research on the influence of social dominance orientation (SDO) in international affairs by investigating the role of sociocognitive processes such as social identity complexity (SIC) and intergroup dehumanization in explaining the relationship between SDO and support for Arabs' autonomy. An Italian heterogeneous sample (N = 123), in terms of gender, age, political orientation, religiosity, and income level, was considered. We expected that those low on SDO would be more likely to support Arabs' autonomy, would have higher SIC, and would be less likely to dehumanize Arabs. We also expected that SIC and dehumanization would sequentially mediate the relationship between SDO and support for Arabs' autonomy. Results revealed that Italians low on SDO have higher SIC (i.e., a more inclusive social identity) which endorses lower dehumanization of Arabs. This in turn explained the influence of SDO on support for Arabs' autonomy. These findings integrate the literature about SDO and SIC and enhance the understanding of the sociocognitive processes underlying people's support for international egalitarian movements.     

A Pilot Evaluation of Portfolios for Quality Attestation of Clinical Ethics Consultants

Although clinical ethics consultation is a high-stakes endeavor with an increasing prominence in health care systems, progress in developing standards for quality is challenging. In this article, we describe the results of a pilot project utilizing portfolios as an evaluation tool. We found that this approach is feasible and resulted in a reasonably wide distribution of scores among the 23 submitted portfolios that we evaluated. We discuss limitations and implications of these results, and suggest that this is a significant step on the pathway to an eventual certification process for clinical ethics consultants.     

The Development of New Tests of Source Memory and a New Approach to the Testing of Equivalence of Parallel Versions

The principal aim of this study was to develop tests of source memory in both the verbal and visuo-spatial domains, which would be brief and easy to use in clinical and population settings. Source memory, that is, memory for context or attributes, is very vulnerable to the effects of ageing and to the early stages of dementia. Because longitudinal studies of cognitive function, including clinical trials, involve repeat testing, practice effects may hamper interpretation when identical tests are administered on each occasion. Accordingly, we developed parallel versions of each of the source memory tests. Rather than assuming equivalence by design, we tested the parallel versions to determine whether they were in fact equivalent in difficulty. We also explored the use of different analytic approaches to establishing equivalence. We report the results of a study in which we compared within- and between-subject performance on three parallel versions of visuo-spatial and verbal source memory tests, as well as three parallel versions of standard tests of episodic memory (word list recall) and executive function (letter fluency, category fluency, ideational fluency) in a sample of healthy elderly volunteers. Participants were tested on three occasions separated by 1 week, and test versions were counterbalanced across test sessions. We also examined performance in a group of participants tested on one occasion only, with test versions being allocated at random. We found that for a number of tests, versions which were designed to be parallel, failed to produce equivalent performance in our sample. We show how the results of this study may be of general use to researchers wishing to select particular versions of the tests in our battery. We also urge researchers to be cautious when using parallel versions of other tests. The careful matching or random allocation of items to parallel versions of a test is no guarantee that performance on the different versions will be equivalent.     

Social dominance theory and the dynamics of intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward

This chapter reviews the last 15 years of research inspired by social dominance theory, a general theory of societal group-based inequality. In doing so, we sketch the broad outlines of the theory and discuss some of the controversies surrounding it, such as the “invariance hypothesis” regarding gender differences in social dominance orientation (SDO) and the effect of social context on the expression of SDO. We also discuss the central role of gender in the construction and maintenance of group-based inequality, and review some of the new research inspired by the social dominance perspective. Finally, we identify and discuss some of the most important theoretical questions posed by social dominance theory that are yet to be researched.