Prejudice matters: understanding the reactions of Whites to affirmative action programs targeted to benefit Blacks.

The authors examined, in 2 studies, the effects of equal employment opportunity/affirmative action (EEO/AA) policies on Whites' job-related attitudes. First, in an experiment, White prospective job recruits, as expected, rated a potential employer whose EEO/AA policies were framed as targeted to benefit Blacks as less attractive than a potential employer whose EEO/AA policies were framed more generally. Second. the results of a field study showed that prejudice against Blacks moderated the relationship between Whites' perceptions that their organization's EEO/AA policies were targeted to benefit Blacks and their satisfaction with promotion opportunities. Specifically, among prejudiced Whites, this relationship was negative and considerable in size (r = -.39. p < .01); whereas, among nonprejudiced Whites, it was negligible (r = -.04, ns). The implications of our findings for the study of prejudice in organizations are discussed.     

Causal Information-Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal interventions changes across development. Ninety participants between the ages of 7 and 25 completed 40 different puzzles in which they had to intervene on various causal systems to determine their underlying structures. Each puzzle comprised a three- or four-node computer chip with hidden wires. On each trial, participants viewed two possible arrangements of the chip's hidden wires and had to select a single node to activate. After observing the outcome of their intervention, participants selected a wire configuration and rated their confidence in their selection. We characterized participant choices with a Bayesian measurement model that indexed the extent to which participants selected nodes that would best disambiguate the two possible causal structures versus those that had high causal centrality in one of the two causal hypotheses but did not necessarily discriminate between them. Our model estimates revealed that the use of a discriminatory strategy increased through early adolescence. Further, developmental improvements in intervention strategy were related to changes in the ability to accurately judge the strength of evidence that interventions revealed, as indexed by participants' confidence in their selections. Our results suggest that improvements in causal information-seeking extend into adolescence and may be driven by metacognitive sensitivity to the efficacy of previous interventions in discriminating competing ideas.     

The Distinction between Sage and Exilarch in Sassanian Babylonia: The Case of (Rav) Huna bar Natan

Jewish History - (Rav) Huna bar Natan is one of the Talmudic sages that has been the subject of significant research in the modern historical study of the Babylonian Talmud. It has been commonly...     

Recognition deficits resulting from focussed attention in aphasia

Summary Two nonverbal short-term memory tasks, a Picture Recognition and a Paired Association Task, were performed by matched groups of aphasics and brain-damaged controls (N=52 each). For both tasks the alternatives on the answer forms differed systematically on three dimensions, one of which had been highlighted experimentally for each item before the target picture was indicated. In both tasks aphasics made more errors than braindamaged controls only with respect to those features that had been stressed beforehand; they were less able than controls to take advantage of focussed attention. The number of these errors was correlated with performance in the Token Test, a picture naming and a word comprehension task.There were no differences between the groups in response to variations in the semantic saliency of the discriminating features or in the semantic and phonetic relationship between words denoting the reference stimuli. The lack of interactions might have been due to a strong ceiling effect in both tasks.     

The Effect of Mindfulness-based Programs on Cognitive Function in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This...     

When communications collide with recipients' actions: effects of post-message behavior on intentions to follow the message recommendation

Two experiments investigated the processes through which post-message behavior (e.g., noncompliance) influences resistance to the message. Participants in Experiment 1 read preventive, consumer-education messages that either opposed the consumption of an alcohol-like product or recommended moderation. Half of the participants then tried the product, whereas the remaining participants performed a filler task. In the absence of trial, the two messages had the same effect. However, recipients of the abstinence-promoting preventive message who tried the product had stronger intentions to use the product in the future than recipients of the moderation message. This finding suggests that assessments of message impact may be inadequate unless an opportunity for trial is also provided. Results are interpreted in terms of self-perception and cognitive dissonance and contrasted from psychological reactance.     

Role of the Leader in Therapy Groups Conducted With Illicit Drug Abusers: How Directive Does the Leader Have to Be?

A 17-hour marathon group was conducted in a residential treatment center established for inmates in a correctional setting in the southeastern United States. The Hill Interaction Matrix (HIM-G; Hill, 1965) was used to measure the types of leader activity and the types of member activity during portions of each hour of the group activity. It was found that when the group was most therapeutic, there was a relationship between the therapists' actions and behaviors and the types of issues that were discussed in the group. The results that were found do not agree with some of the established drug and alcohol abuse literature.