Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour

The present study is one of a series exploring the role of social categorization in intergroup behaviour. It has been found in our previous studies that in ?minimal' situations, in which the subjects were categorized into groups on the basis of visual judgments they had made or of their esthetic preferences, they clearly discriminated against members of an outgroup although this gave them no personal advantage. However, in these previous studies division into groups was still made on the basis of certain criteria of ?real' similarity between subjects who were assigned to the same category. Therefore, the present study established social categories on an explicitly random basis without any reference to any such real similarity. It was found that, as soon as the notion of ?group' was introduced into the situation, the subjects still discriminated against those assigned to another random category. This discrimination was considerably more marked than the one based on a division of subjects in terms of interindividual similarities in which the notion of ?group' was never explicitly introduced. In addition, it was found that fairness was also a determinant of the subjects' decisions. The results are discussed from the point of view of their relevance to a social-cognitive theory of intergroup behaviour.     

Social categorization and intergroup behaviour

The aim of the studies was to assess the effefcs of social categorization on intergroup behaviour when, in the intergroup situation, neither calculations of individual interest nor previously existing attitudes of hostility could have been said to have determined discriminative behaviour against an outgroup. These conditions were satisfied in the experimental design. In the first series of experiments, it was found that the subjects favoured their own group in the distribution of real rewards and penalities in a situation in which nothing but the variable of fairly irrelevant classification distinguished between the ingroup and the outgroup. In the second series of experiments it was found that: 1) maximum joint profit independent of group membership did not affect significantly the manner in which the subjects divided real pecuniary rewards; 2) maximum profit for own group did affect the distribution of rewards; 3) the clearest effect on the distribution of rewards was due to the subjects' attempt to achieve a maximum difference between the ingroup and the outgroup even at the price of sacrificing other ‘objective’ advantages. The design and the results of the study are theoretically discussed within the framework of social norms and expectations and particularly in relation to a ‘generic’ norm of outgroup behaviour prevalent in some societies.     

Le plus ancien testament romain

Sans résumé     

Training for the campus ministry

Conclusion We will finish as we started. The minister preparing himself for work on the campus is like an army chaplain entering the battlefield for the first time. Anticipatory anxiety is to be expected. This anxiety can paralyze efficient work and endanger the integration of the personality, but by careful training this same anxiety can become constructive instead of destructive and a source of great pastoral creativity instead of distress. A minister who is prepared for his task can enter a university community even when it is in great turmoil, without fear. He is free. With a realistic confidence in his abilities, with a sense of inner harmony and, most of all, with trust in the value of his service, he can be a free witness for God, strengthening hope, fulfilling love, and making joy complete.This article will be a chapter inIntimacy: Pastoral Psychological Essays by the Rev. Henry J. M. Nouwen, to be published in the spring, 1969, by Fides Publishers, Inc., Notre Dame, Indiana. (The author wishes to give special thanks to Jim Burtchaell, C.S.C., David B. Burrell, C.S.C., Ralph F. Dunn, C.S.C., and John Gerber, C.S.C., of the University of Notre Dame for their constructive criticism on the first draft of this article.)     

Prehension movements in a patient (AC) with posterior parietal cortex damage and posterior callosal section

Prehension movements of the right hand were recorded in a right-handed man (AC), with an injury to the left posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and with a section of the left half of the splenium. The kinematic analysis of AC's grasping movements in direct and perturbed conditions was compared to that of five control subjects. A novel effect in prehension was revealed--a hemispace effect--in healthy controls only. Movements to the left hemispace were faster, longer, and with a smaller grasp aperture; perturbation of both object position and distance resulted in the attenuation of the direction effect on movement time and the time to velocity peak, with a reverse pattern in the time to maximum grip aperture. Nevertheless, the correlation between transport velocity amplitude and grasp aperture remained stable in both perturbed and non-perturbed movements, reflecting the coordination between reaching and grasping in control subjects. In contrast, transport and grasp, as well as their coordination in both direct and perturbed conditions, were negatively affected by the PPC and splenium lesion in AC, suggesting that transport and grasp rely on two functionally identifiable subsystems.     

Picture-naming norms for Canadian French: Name agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, and age of acquisition

The present study provides Canadian French normative data for 388 line drawings from the European Picture Pool for Oral Naming (Protocole européen de dénomination orale d’images; PEDOI; Kremin et al., 2003). One hundred eighty subjects were equally distributed for age group (18–39, 40–59, 60–85), educational level (low, high), and sex. They rated pictures of objects on age of acquisition, name agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Syllable length and word frequency were also taken into account. The present study suggests that age of acquisition and name agreement show significant age-related differences. These results show that unequivocal interpretation of age-related differences can be made when age-appropriate norms are used.     

How to Regulate a Practice: The Case of Cosmetic Surgery

How should a practice, subservient to a public good, be regulated in order to guarantee fair access without encouraging improper claims? In the first place, a clear understanding of the goal of the practice is indispensable for knowing what criteria the regulation must contain. As to the purely formal aspect, the regulation of any practice must include both general rules and particular instances. Finally, to resolve conflicts, committees in which different kinds of expertise are represented should be installed. These three theses are illustrated by the Dutch regulation for cosmetic surgery.     

Oral language deficits in dyslexic children: weaknesses in working memory and verbal planning

This paper focuses on the relationships among language processing (word- and sentence-level), working memory, and verbal/nonverbal linguistic output. The study examined oral language abilities in a group of 26 French-speaking dyslexic children, compared to two control groups (26 normally developing age-matched children and 26 normally developing younger children). The experimental procedure consisted of tasks involving auditory memory skills (digit span, unfamiliar word repetition, sentence repetition), word retrieval (with semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria), and sentence processing (with verbal and act-out production). The major findings reveal that (a) compared with their age-mates, the dyslexic children exhibited a significant deficit affecting all tasks; and (b) the dyslexic children and the younger controls performed similarly on several tasks. The results are consistent with the processing limitation hypothesis and suggest that the core deficit is the formulation of cognitive plans from auditory input to verbal output.