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.     

Even statisticians are not immune to misinterpretations of Null Hypothesis Significance Tests

We investigated the way experienced users interpret Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) outcomes. An empirical study was designed to compare the reactions of two populations of NHST users, psychological researchers and professional applied statisticians, when faced with contradictory situations. The subjects were presented with the results of an experiment designed to test the efficacy of a drug by comparing two groups (treatment/placebo). Four situations were constructed by combining the outcome of the t test (significant vs. nonsignificant) and the observed difference between the two means D (large vs. small). Two of these situations appeared as conflicting (t significant/D small and t nonsignificant/D large). Three fundamental aspects of statistical inference were investigated by means of open questions: drawing inductive conclusions about the magnitude of the true difference from the data in hand, making predictions for future data, and making decisions about stopping the experiment. The subjects were 25 statisticians from pharmaceutical companies in France, subjects well versed in statistics, and 20 psychological researchers from various laboratories in France, all with experience in processing and analyzing experimental data. On the whole, statisticians and psychologists reacted in a similar way and were very impressed by significant results. It must be outlined that professional applied statisticians were not immune to misinterpretations, especially in the case of nonsignificance. However, the interpretations that accustomed users attach to the outcome of NHST can vary from one individual to another, and it is hard to conceive that there could be a consensus in the face of seemingly conflicting situations. In fact, beyond the superficial report of “erroneous” interpretations, it can be seen in the misuses of NHST intuitive judgmental “adjustments” that try to overcome its inherent shortcomings. These findings encourage the many recent attempts to improve the habitual ways of analyzing and reporting experimental data.     

When prototypicality makes ‘maybes’ look more certain: Another look at targets' vigilance towards prejudice cues

In previous research, targets' sensitivity to prejudice cues has been assessed on the basis of two types of information. Prototypical information renders the situation representative of discrimination encountered by the ingroup. Diagnostic information is a direct indication that prejudice possibly is operating in a given situation. We hypothesize that, when available and processed at the onset of an evaluation situation, prototypical information shapes targets' understanding of subsequent diagnostic information. In three experiments, participants were informed that they were to be evaluated by relevant outgroup members either before or after having performed a task. Diagnostic information was always provided at the same moment, i.e. after the task was completed, and was either uncertain (prejudice may bias the evaluation) or certain (prejudice certainly biases the evaluation). In the before condition, attributions to prejudice were as elevated whatever participants were told that prejudice might, or certainly did, bias the evaluation. Furthermore, in the case of uncertain diagnostic information, those who were readily informed of the evaluator(s)' identity attributed their failure to prejudice to a greater extent than those who received this information later. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Christians,Muslims, Jews,and their religions

Depending on the context, Christians, Muslims and Jews have constructed their own religion, perceived the religions of others, and articulated relations between religions in different ways. This paper examines the rise in history of the three communities, which came to identify themselves through their religions and have been highly sensitive to differences. It indicates common features and parallels of which adherents may have been more or less conscious. The central question in such research is what persons and groups mean in particular situations when they call themselves Christian, Muslim or Jewish. The variety of personal and group identities in the three religious communities has been concealed partly by religious leaderships concerned with the survival of their flocks, and partly by the use of the general concepts of Christianity, Islam and Judaism with which believers have been called to identify. These concepts have shut people into separate religious pigeonholes and could thus be used to support ethnic, social and other rivalries. This pigeonholing has also confronted more spiritually‐oriented people with problems of social identity, religious belonging and spiritual authenticity.