Talking Politics? Educational Category Salience Reinforces Differences in People’s Willingness to Participate in Deliberative Initiatives

Against the background of an ever-growing body of literature that documents educational differentials in different forms of political participation, scholars have started to study whether education itself becomes the object of intergroup behavior. Informed by social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we examine whether making educational categories and the associated status differences salient affects people’s prospective political participation. Two large survey experiments carried out in samples from Flanders (Belgium; N = 1,097) and the United States (N = 629) were used to assess categorization effects of education on people’s willingness to participate in deliberative political-participation initiatives. In general, our results indicated that rendering educational categories salient increased educational differentials in prospective political participation in a way that is disadvantageous to the less educated. We elaborate on the implications of our findings.     

How to support learning from multiple hypertext sources

In the present study, we investigated three factors that were assumed to have a significant influence on the success of learning from multiple hypertexts, and on the construction of a documents model in particular. These factors were task (argumentative vs. narrative), available text material (with vs. without primary sources), and presentation format (active vs. static). The study was conducted with the help of the combination of three tools (DEWEX, Chemnitz LogAnalyzer, and SummTool) developed for Web-based experimenting. The results show that the task is the most important factor for successful learning from multiple hypertexts. Depending on the task, the participants were either able or unable to apply adequate strategies, such as considering the source information. It was also observed that argumentative tasks were supported by an active hypertext presentation format, whereas performance on narrative tasks increased with a passive presentation format. No effect was shown for the type of texts available.     

DEWEX: A system for designing and conducting Web-based experiments

DEWEX is a server-based environment for developing Web-based experiments. It provides many features for creating and running complex experimental designs on a local server. It is freeware and allows for both using default features, for which only text input is necessary, and easy configurations that can be set up by the experimenter. The tool also provides log files on the local server that can be interpreted and analyzed very easily. As an illustration of how DEWEX can be used, a recent study is presented that demonstrates the system’s most important features. This study investigated learning from multiple hypertext sources and shows the influences of task, source of information, and hypertext presentation format on the construction of mental representations of a hypertext about a historical event.     

A time–cost optimization of the national postal distribution network

The postal distribution network in the Czech Republic consists actually of 69 local transit centres (according to the administrative division of the Czech Republic). Each of them operates the post offices in the given region. Some of the important local transit centres can be selected as sorting centres—transhipment points for postal consignments. The aim of this paper is to present a bicriterial optimization model for the selection of the subset of transhipment points from the set of transit centres and choosing their appropriate equipment, such as sorting machines. Another important output of the model is the assignment of the transit centres to the sorting centres. There are two basic optimization criteria defined in this model: minimization of the sum of investment and operational costs connected with building and operating of the sorting centres and the maximization of the percentage of postal consignments delivered to the appropriate post office in the desired time (next day). The proposed model contains several thousands of zero‐one variables and constraints. The model has been verified, and the results accepted. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social representations of organ donors and non‐donors

This paper illustrates the empirical investigation of social representations by means of photographs as stimulus material and the technique of correspondence analysis to study the resulting data. The research was part of a campaign carried out to promote organ donation in Malta. The study tries to find out whether a public communication campaign could change perceptions. Five focus groups were held before the campaign and another five, two months after the campaign. Part of the data collected through these focus groups was analysed using correspondence analysis. The results showed that before the campaign, donors were generally perceived to be either young or important people or public personalities. After the campaign, donors were perceived more to be ordinary family people, educated, generous and religious. On the other hand, before the campaign, non‐donors were seen as conservative, uncouth and uncaring, whereas after the campaign non‐donors were generally perceived to be older, uninformed and uneducated people. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Detection costs and contingent attentional capture

Peripheral cues reduce reaction times (RTs) to targets at the cued location with short cue-target SOAs (cueing benefits) but increase RTs at long SOAs (cueing costs or inhibition of return). In detection tasks, cueing costs occur at shorter SOAs and are larger compared with identification tasks. To account for effects of task, detection cost theory claims that the integration of cue and target into an object file makes it more difficult to detect the target as a new event, which is the principal task-requirement in detection tasks. The integration of cue and target is expected to increase when cue and target are similar. We provided evidence for detection cost theory in the modified spatial cueing paradigm. Two types of cues (onset, color) were paired with two types of targets (onset, color) in separate blocks of trials. In the identification task, we found cueing benefits with matching (i.e., similar) cue-target pairs (onset-onset, color-color) and no cueing effects with nonmatching cue-target pairs (onset-color, color-onset), which replicates previous work. In the detection task, cueing effects with matching cues were reduced and even turned into cueing costs for onset cues with onset targets, suggesting that cue-target integration made it more difficult to detect targets at the cued location as new events. In contrast, the results for nonmatching cue-target pairs were not affected by task. Furthermore, the pattern of false alarms in the detection task provides a measure of similarity that may explain the size of cueing benefits and costs.     

Reappraising faces: effects on accountability appraisals,self-reported valence,and pupil diameter

Many of our emotions arise in social contexts, as we interact with and learn about others. What is not yet clear, however, is how such emotions unfold when we either react to others or attempt to regulate our emotions. To address this issue, 30 healthy volunteers reacted to or reappraised positive or negative information that was paired with neutral faces. While they were doing this task, we assessed pupillary responses. We also asked participants to provide ratings of accountability and experienced emotion. Findings indicated that appraised accountability increased in response to emotional information, and changes in accountability were associated with commensurate changes in valence reports and increased pupil diameter. During reappraisal, accountability and emotion decreased, but pupil diameter increased. The findings highlight the importance of accountability appraisals during the generation and regulation of emotional reactions to others, while also documenting pupillary increases during emotional reactivity and regulation.     

“To serve and protect” when expecting to be seen negatively: The relation between police officers' contact with citizens,meta‐stereotyping,and work‐related well‐being

We examined the relationship between contact of police officers with citizens, their (meta‐)stereotypes about citizens, and their work‐related well‐being. Ninety‐three police officers from 4 police stations in low‐ and high‐crime regions in France completed the questionnaire. As expected, negative well‐being of police officers is predicted by negative contact with citizens and their belief that police officers are stereotyped negatively by citizens. Moreover, the relationship between negative contact and negative well‐being was mediated by police officers' beliefs that police officers are perceived negatively by citizens, whereas their perceptions of citizens did not mediate this relationship. Interestingly, level of crime did not influence these relationships. Together, this research shows the important role of beliefs about how one's group is stereotyped when in contact with another group as it may have consequences for people's well‐being.