The effects of perceived phenotypic racial stereotypicality and social identity threat on racial minorities’ attitudes about police

This study examines the role of perceived phenotypic racial stereotypicality and race-based social identity threat on racial minorities’ trust and cooperation with police. We hypothesize that in police interactions, racial minorities’ phenotypic racial stereotypicality may increase race-based social identity threat, which will lead to distrust and decreased participation with police. Racial minorities (Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and multi-racials) and Whites from a representative random sample of city residents were surveyed about policing attitudes. A serial multiple mediation model confirmed that racial minorities’ self-rated phenotypic racial stereotypicality indirectly affected future cooperation through social identity threat and trust. Due to the lack of negative group stereotypes in policing, the model did not hold for Whites. This study provides evidence that phenotypic stereotypicality influences racial minorities’ psychological experiences interacting with police.     

Explaining the Inexplicable: Differences in Attributions for the Holocaust in Germany,Israel, and Poland

Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust, but this cataclysmic event continues to reverberate in the present. In this research, we examine attributions about the causes of the Holocaust and the influence of such attributions on intergroup relations. Three representative surveys were conducted among Germans, Poles, and Israeli Jews to examine inter‐ and intragroup variations in attributions for the Holocaust and how these attributions influence intergroup attitudes. Results indicated that Germans made more external than internal attributions and were especially low in attributing an evil essence to their ancestors. Israelis and Poles mainly endorsed the obedient essence attribution and were lowest on attribution to coercion. These attributions, however, were related to attitudes towards contemporary Germany primarily among Israeli Jews. The more they endorsed situationist explanations, and the less they endorsed the evil essence explanation, the more positive their attitude to Germany. Among Germans, attributions were related to a higher motivation for historical closure, except for the obedience attribution that was related to low desire for closure. Israelis exhibited a low desire for historical closure especially when attribution for evil essence was high. These findings suggest that lay perceptions of history are essential to understanding contemporary intergroup processes.     

A Validation of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Community Sample of Young Adult Males

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits have been shown to delineate a subgroup of individuals at high risk for exhibiting severe and persistent criminal behavior. The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU; Frick 2004) was recently developed as a comprehensive rating scale designed to measure multiple facets of CU traits. However, validation of this measure has been limited to youth in adolescence and emerging adulthood (age range?=12–20), leaving questions about the utility of this measure in early adulthood unanswered. The current study evaluated the factor structure of the ICU within a racially diverse and well characterized community sample of adult males (n?=?425) using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). While results found the best fitting model to be the three-bifactor structure that has been previously reported in adolescent samples, the fit indices were only marginally acceptable and suggest the need for scale refinement. Total and subscales scores demonstrated significant and distinct associations with relevant external criteria (e.g., delinquency, psychopathy, psychopathology, psychosocial functioning). Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Dialogical Masculinities: Diverse Youth Resisting Dominant Masculinity

The meaning of the construct “masculinity” differs culturally and changes over time. Although cultural constructions of the phenomenon change, at any given time hegemonic pressures promote participants’ compliance to masculinity norms. This hegemonic process often results in the underlying assumptions that masculinity is an essentialized unitary phenomenon and that conforming to cultural requisites is adaptive and healthy. In the field of psychology, past research investigating resistance to this hegemony and diverse constructions of masculinities categorized resistance as pathological and problematic. More recently, researchers have turned their attention to ways in which conforming to dominant hegemonic masculinity norms can be problematic and maladaptive, allowing for an understanding of the adaptive qualities that come with resisting and negotiating with hegemony. Specifically, there has been an interest in understanding diverse discourse constructions as sources of resistance to hegemonic masculinity. This project was focused on understanding the ways in which hegemonic-resistant masculinities were constructed with a group of young men who work on a youth team to prevent domestic violence. Using the constructivist framework of the dialogical self, we gleaned four distinct I-positions of masculinity that help to support a fluid and diverse process of negotiating a hegemonic-resistant and adaptive form of masculinity.     

Multilevel modeling: overview and applications to research in counseling psychology

Multilevel modeling (MLM) is rapidly becoming the standard method of analyzing nested data, for example, data from students within multiple schools, data on multiple clients seen by a smaller number of therapists, and even longitudinal data. Although MLM analyses are likely to increase in frequency in counseling psychology research, many readers of counseling psychology journals have had only limited exposure to MLM concepts. This paper provides an overview of MLM that blends mathematical concepts with examples drawn from counseling psychology. This tutorial is intended to be a first step in learning about MLM; readers are referred to other sources for more advanced explorations of MLM. In addition to being a tutorial for understanding and perhaps even conducting MLM analyses, this paper reviews recent research in counseling psychology that has adopted a multilevel framework, and it provides ideas for MLM approaches to future research in counseling psychology.     

Visual comparison of rotated and reflected random-dot patterns as a function of their positional symmetry and separation in the field

Subjects viewed pairs of random-dot patterns which were presented in a number of arrangements varying in the transformations applied to the patterns, in the distance between the patterns, and in the symmetry of the pattern positions with respect to the point of fixation. The task was to judge whether the patterns were “the same” taking into account possible rotations or reflections, or “different”. It was found that correct judgements for identical patterns were most affected by the distance between the two patterns, whereas correct judgements for patterns where one had been rotated through 180° or reflected were most affected by the symmetry of the pattern positions. A scheme modelling the visual recognition of transformed patterns, sufficient to explain the results, is presented.