Motivation to support a desired conclusion versus motivation to avoid an undesirable conclusion: The case of infra‐humanization

Social motivation has been shown to influence various cognitive processes. In the present paper, it is verified that people are motivated to view out‐groups as possessing a lesser degree of humanity than the in‐group (Leyens et al., 2000 ) and that this motivation influences logical processing in the Wason selection task. So far, studies on infra‐humanization have been shown to influence attribution of uniquely human characteristics to groups. Most of these studies focused on the attribution of secondary emotions. Results have shown that secondary emotions are preferentially attributed to in‐group members (Leyens et al., 2001 ). Also, people tend to react differently to in‐group and out‐group members displaying secondary emotions (Gaunt, Leyens, & Sindic, 2004 ; Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003 ). In the present paper, it is argued that infra‐humanization is a two‐direction bias and that it does influence logical processing among perceivers. Specifically, infra‐humanization motivation impacts logical processing in two different directions. First, most motivation is spent to reach the desirable conclusion that the in‐group is uniquely human. Second, least motivation occurs to support the undesirable conclusion that the out‐group is uniquely human. These hypotheses are tested in four cross‐cultural studies that varied the status and the conflicting relations between groups. Results were in line with the predictions and further confirmed that infra‐humanization biases can be obtained independently of status and conflict (but see Cortes, Demoulin, Leyens, & de Renesse, 2005 ). The discussion relates these findings with in‐group favouritism and out‐group derogation (Brewer, 1999 ) and underlines the importance of infra‐humanization in counteracting system justification biases (Jost & Banaji, 1994 ).     

The lay distinction between primary and secondary emotions: A spontaneous categorization?

In line with the psychological essentialism perspective, Leyens et al. ( 13 2000) have hypothesized that people attribute different essences to groups and that they attribute more uniquely human characteristics to their own group than to out‐groups. Leyens et al. have focused on two types of emotions, which in Roman languages have specific labels, such as sentimientos and emociones in Spanish. A cross‐cultural study showed that sentimientos (or secondary emotions) are considered uniquely human emotions whereas emociones (or primary emotions) are perceived as nonuniquely human emotions. The present study focuses on whether this categorization into primary and secondary emotions is a spontaneous distinction that people use in their everyday lives, or whether, on the contrary, it is the result of experimental demands. The paradigm “Who says what to whom” was used to test this question. Geometrical shapes of different colours were systematically associated with different stimuli that varied in meaningfulness. In a first condition, shapes were associated with small or large items of furniture (meaningful categories) and with primary and secondary emotions. In a second condition, the items of furniture were replaced by words ending with a vowel or a consonant (meaningless categories). Subsequently, participants had to recognize which shape was associated with each stimulus. Intra‐category errors were significantly more numerous than inter‐category errors, except for the words ending with a vowel or a consonant. Stated otherwise, types of emotions were recognized like the meaningful difference between items of furniture. These results show that the distinction between primary and secondary emotions is an implicit one that people use spontaneously, and not as a result of task demands. The findings are discussed from the perspective of psychological essentialism and inter‐group relations.     

荣誉学位：这也太有趣了

本文节选自《剑桥评论》第113期上的一篇访谈,是德里达对史密斯等人信件的直接回应部分.他批评了分析哲学家对权力的滥用,并简要表达了自己的哲学观.     

La performance des élèves des communautés noires aux examens ministériels du secondaire Québécois: Cohortes 1994, 1995, 1996

This article discusses the results of various sub-groups of Quebec students from the Black community (originating from the West Indies or Africa and having French, English or Creole as their maternal language) who started high-school in the French or English sector in 1994, 1995 or 1996, on various departmental exams: history, physical sciences, written French and written English, language of instruction or second language, depending on the sector. The authors begin by presenting the socio-demographic, educational, and socio-economic profile of the population under study. The performance of the various sub-groups within each sector is then discussed and certain elements are put forward to explain the differences encountered. Finally, the authors add some concluding remarks about the potential contribution of the research, especially as it regards the identification of factors influencing schooling outcomes of visible minorities, both in Quebec and in other Canadian provinces.     

Priming uniquely human emotions and the in‐group (but not the out‐group) activates humanity concepts

Documenting the behavioural consequences of infra‐humanization, Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, and Giovanazzi ( 2003 ) found that, in comparison to in‐group members, out‐group members are discriminated against when they express uniquely human emotions. It was assumed that expressing a uniquely human emotion makes an in‐group member, at least tacitly, more human than an out‐group member. Two studies tested this assumption and found, as predicted, that the human concept was more activated in an in‐group compared to an out‐group context when group members were associated with uniquely human emotions. The possible impact of valence was controlled for, showing that both positive and negative emotions endorsed the same effects (Study 1) and that the activation of the human concept was not a side effect of increased positivity (Study 2). The discussion focuses on the implications of the present studies and suggests new avenues of research. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting physically violent misconduct in prison: A comparison of four risk assessment instruments

Violence in correctional facilities is an important issue for both prisoners and prison staff. Risk assessment instruments have demonstrated their accuracy in predicting the risk of (re) offending and institutional violence in psychiatric settings, but less is known about their ability to predict violent misconduct in prison. The present study applied four risk assessment instruments (Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk, Historical Clinical Risk Management‐20, Psychopathy checklist – Revised, and Violent Risk Appraisal Guide) to 52 violent offenders in a Swiss prison in order to evaluate the instruments' predictive validities. Outcomes were instances of physically violent, other and any misconduct as recorded in prison files during the 12 months following the prisoners' assessments. Approximately 15% of offenders committed physically violent misconduct and approximately 42% committed any misconduct. The results show that mainly dynamic assessment tools are as good predictors of physically violent misconduct as mainly static assessment tools. Targeting dynamic factors could increase the effectiveness of interventions to reduce the risk of physical violence in prison.     

Finding words and rules in a speech stream: functional differences between vowels and consonants

We have proposed that consonants give cues primarily about the lexicon, whereas vowels carry cues about syntax. In a study supporting this hypothesis, we showed that when segmenting words from an artificial continuous stream, participants compute statistical relations over consonants, but not over vowels. In the study reported here, we tested the symmetrical hypothesis that when participants listen to words in a speech stream, they tend to exploit relations among vowels to extract generalizations, but tend to disregard the same relations among consonants. In our streams, participants could segment words on the basis of transitional probabilities in one tier and could extract a structural regularity in the other tier. Participants used consonants to extract words, but vowels to extract a structural generalization. They were unable to extract the same generalization using consonants, even when word segmentation was facilitated and the generalization made simpler. Our results suggest that different signal-driven computations prime lexical and grammatical processing.     

The line copy task for kinesthesia and internal movement representation: application in children

In the present study a new test is proposed and tested, which requires ability to use information both from kinesthesia and from mental rotation of previously produced cyclic movements over a distinct trajectory. This Line Copy Test (LICT) was performed by 58 children aged 7-11 years. For the S-part, the participants first had to make movements till they reached a barrier and then they were required to reproduce the same (S) movements without the barrier. For the O-part of the test the participants had to rely on an internal representation of a felt trajectory length, and reproduce the movement orthogonal (O) to the ones felt. Trajectory Length Error (TLE) and variable error (VE) were measured. Furthermore, results of the LICT were correlated to the Kinesthetic Acuity Test and a pegboard task. The general finding was that the TLE, capturing the spatial calibration of the movement, and the VE, used as a measure of noise or inconsistency in the 10 reproductions, was largest for the youngest children, but this developmental effect was not significant in the O-part of the test. Although participants of all age groups made much larger TLE in the rotated task (O-part) than in the LICT_S-part, the VE was much smaller. This can be explained by assuming that different underlying control mechanisms underlie each task. Also differences in correlations of the two parts of the test with the other measures infer that they measure dissimilar underlying entities. It is likely that at least some portion of the increased movement variability in the S-part seen during development in young children can be attributed to partly unstable kinesthetic representations for hand movements. The finding that no significant development was found on the O-part indicates that changes in the use of internal models must occur outside the age window studied.     

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.