Emotional prejudice,essentialism, and nationalism The 2002 Tajfel lecture

In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra‐humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively (in terms of altruism, imitation, and approach) with an outgroup member who expresses himself through secondary emotions. Infra‐humanization occurs for high and low status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups. It does not occur when the outgroup target is adequately individualized, by a complete name or through perspective taking, for instance. The differential familiarity with the ingroup and the outgroup cannot explain infra‐humanization. Yet, preliminary results show that subjective essentialism and ingroup identification may mediate the effects of infra‐humanization. A connection is made between nationalism and infra‐humanization. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Catching up with wonderful women: The women‐are‐wonderful effect is smaller in more gender egalitarian societies

Inequalities between men and women are common and well‐documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women‐are‐wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross‐cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self‐reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women‐are‐wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.     

Critical Encounters with Rabbinic Doctrines of Creation: The Teacher as Source of Authority or as Partner in Dialogue

This is a case study based upon my experience of teaching an introduction to rabbinic thought to a group of Orthodox Jewish students. The study of one particular midrashic pericope allowed for major tensions between academic and religious approaches to the text to surface. The tension revolved around the apparent contradiction between the rabbinic mythical perception of creation as proceeding from primary negative matter and later philosophical belief in creatio ex nihilo. This contradiction touches upon issues of authority and of interpretation. The article explores various strategies dealing with issues of authority in general and of the meaning of the individual text in particular. Following a presentation of these strategies I offer my reflections upon my role as a teacher in this context. Dialogue emerges as an important element in the teaching process, creating a common ground between teachers and students and making them partners in a common quest for the truth of the text. Traditional dialogical modes of Jewish learning serve as the basis for the introduction of the academic agenda. This agenda is introduced as an extension of classical religious concerns rather than as an alternative to them.     

Are Telecommuters Remotely Good Citizens? Unpacking Telecommuting's Effects on Performance Via I‐Deals and Job Resources

Despite their widespread adoption, concerns remain that virtual work arrangements can harm employee job performance and citizenship behavior. Does telecommuting really hamper these critical dimensions of employee effectiveness? To answer this question, we develop a theoretical framework linking telecommuting to task and contextual performance via a dual set of mechanisms—reflecting proposed effects of i‐deals and job resources. Further, we propose that the meaning of and outcomes from these paths depend on the social context surrounding telecommuting. We test the framework with field data from 323 employees and 143 matched supervisors across a variety of organizations. As predicted, we find that telecommuting is positively associated with task and contextual performance, directly and indirectly via perceived autonomy. These beneficial effects are contingent upon two aspects of the social context: leader‐member exchange and signals of its normative appropriateness among coworkers and one's supervisor.     

Reactions to tokenism: The role of individual characteristics in shaping responses to token decisions

When only a handful of members from a disadvantaged group occupy positions of power, they are considered tokens. Previous research suggests that observers tend to consider tokenism as an egalitarian practice. Given its ambiguous nature, we hypothesized that reactions to tokenism would be shaped by individuals' sensitivity to inequality. In Study 1, we showed that women (vs. men) and individuals low (vs. high) on social dominance orientation differentiated more between a token and an egalitarian decision in the context of gender‐related practices. Similar findings were observed in Study 2, which involved gender and feminist identification as independent variables. Additional support, particularly for the role of social dominance orientation, was found in Study 3, which involved an ethnic token. Together, results demonstrate the role of individuals' chronic sensitivity to inequality in shaping their reactions to token practices. Theoretical and practical implications regarding the effect of tokenism on individuals' evaluations and responses to inequality are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Death awareness and body–self dualism: A why and how of afterlife belief

Belief in life after death offers potential comfort in the face of inevitable death. However, afterlife belief likely requires not only an awareness of death but also body–self dualism—the perception that the self (e.g., the mind) is distinct from the physical, undeniably mortal, body. In turn, we hypothesized that mortality salience (MS) should heighten afterlife belief only when dualism is facilitated. Study 1 found that MS increased belief for people high, relative to low, in trait mind–body dualism. In Study 2, MS only increased belief when people first wrote about their thoughts and personality, which a pilot study confirmed facilitated dualistic belief, relative to thinking about the physical self. Study 3 used the brain–computer interface technology to induce a dualistic experience: MS increased belief when participants accurately “typed” without the use of their external body (i.e., no hands). Together, these findings support the position that mortality awareness and body–self dualism constitute a “why” and “how” of afterlife belief. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moving to Learn: How Guiding the Hands Can Set the Stage for Learning

Previous work has found that guiding problem‐solvers' movements can have an immediate effect on their ability to solve a problem. Here we explore these processes in a learning paradigm. We ask whether guiding a learner's movements can have a delayed effect on learning, setting the stage for change that comes about only after instruction. Children were taught movements that were either relevant or irrelevant to solving mathematical equivalence problems and were told to produce the movements on a series of problems before they received instruction in mathematical equivalence. Children in the relevant movement condition improved after instruction significantly more than children in the irrelevant movement condition, despite the fact that the children showed no improvement in their understanding of mathematical equivalence on a ratings task or on a paper‐and‐pencil test taken immediately after the movements but before instruction. Movements of the body can thus be used to sow the seeds of conceptual change. But those seeds do not necessarily come to fruition until after the learner has received explicit instruction in the concept, suggesting a “sleeper effect” of gesture on learning.     

Information Integration Theory,Juror Bias,and Sentence Recommendations Captured Over Time in a Capital Trial

Initial juror verdicts have been shown to predict final verdicts, leading researchers to conclude that jurors seek confirmatory information during trial (confirmation bias) or distort information to fit pre‐existing biases (pre‐decisional distortion). However, Information Integration Theory suggests that individuals are not distorting/ignoring this information, and instead, information influences judgments in the direction of the message. The current study sought to test these competing theories in a juror setting. Mock jurors were presented with the sentencing phase of a capital trial and were asked to give sentence recommendations at eight different time points. Additionally, they were grouped by their pretrial bias as being pro‐defense, neutral, or pro‐prosecution. Results showed support for Information Integration Theory; although jurors' pretrial bias predicted final sentence, sentence recommendations were affected in the direction of the testimony presented throughout the trial (e.g., pro‐defense testimony lowered death penalty decisions across all groups). Implications and future directions are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transforming Discipleship

The nature of oikoumene has constantly challenged a Christendom‐oriented lineal understanding of mission. The environment of doing theology of mission has changed from the denominational to the ecumenical era, from the Eurocentric to the global context, and from the mechanistic domination of the world to the age of ecological worldwide community; and the paradigm of mission has changed from evangelization to shalom, from missio ecclesiae to missio Dei, and from monologue to dialogue. Critically thinking of the dominant milieu of the people which challenges the church to transform her way of participation in the world, the church must discern the socio‐political and religio‐cultural biographies of the people as the most important language of people‐ and life‐centric missio Dei. The primary missiological question should be, then, not what God is doing with the church, but rather what God is doing with the people and creation. In the course of answering this question, the church may discern where the Spirit is at work and how to respond to it. The following article is an attempt to seek a Korean way of imitatio missionis Christi in terms of finding a contextualized spirituality and a strategy of a transforming discipleship.     

False memories for a robbery in young and older adults

The aim of the present study was to analyse memory performance in young and older adults based on a robbery scenario. The study examined free recall and the recognition of actions, people and details, as well as the Remember/Know/Guess judgements that accompanied recognition. Recognition was evaluated both immediately and 1 week later, although performance was not affected by the retention interval. In the free recall task, the older adults remembered less information than the younger adults but we found no differences between the two with regard to errors. Participants accepted more false actions, thus achieving higher recognition accuracy for people and details. They also categorized false alarms for actions more often as remember than as know or guess judgements. This pattern of results was more pronounced in the older adults, suggesting that aging is an important factor in false memories for events. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.