Risk Perception: Using Conditional Versus General Base Rates for Risk Communication1

In general, people judge their chance of experiencing a health risk as being less than the general base rate because of their favorable status on risk factors (e.g., history of stroke). Presenting base rates for high and low risk groups (conditional base rates) were hypothesized to lessen people's tendency to adjust downward from the base rate because risk factors are included in conditional base rates (CBRs). Young (M= 19 years) and older women (M= 46 years) were presented with either a general base rate (GBR) or CBRs for high‐ and low‐risk groups for 5 health risks. The CBR groups were significantly less likely to adjust their probability judgments from the base rate for the risk group that they believed applied to them (e.g., smoker vs. nonsmoker). The CBR effect was replicated in a second experiment in which women (M = 19 years) were informed of either a GBR, a CBR for a high‐risk group, or a CBR for a low‐risk group. The findings suggest that people might estimate subjective probabilities by considering both the base rate for a health risk and self‐assessments on risk factors. Biases about one's status on risk factors, however, may limit people's identification with relevant risk groups and warrant further investigation.     

The Effect of African American Skin Color on Hiring Preferences1

The role of African American skin color in hiring decisions was investigated in a 2 × 2 × 2 (Participant Sex × Applicant Sex × Applicant Skin Color) design. College‐age participants (N= 107) were presented with stimuli and asked to make 8 employment‐related decisions. An interaction of applicant skin color and participant sex and a skin‐color main effect were predicted. Fair‐skinned applicants were expected to receive better ratings from men, while dark‐skinned applicants were expected to receive better ratings from women or ratings from women would not differ. Additionally, in general, fair‐skinned individuals were expected to receive better ratings than dark‐skinned individuals. The results were consistent with the hypotheses. Results are discussed in terms of the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype and prior research.     

A Short Index of Mystical Orientation (SIMO): A Study Among Roman Catholic Priests

The internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity of the 9-item Short Index of Mystical Orientation (SIMO) are established in relation with the parent 21-item Mystical Orientation Scale (MOS) among a sample of 1,468 Roman Catholic priests.     

Lessons Learned from the Parents Matter! Program

We present a discussion of some of the lessons the investigators learned during the development and implementation phases of the Parents Matter! Program (PMP). Lessons were learned that are relevant to various groups involved in large scale, multi-site, community-based intervention studies: investigators, community leaders, community members, project staff, and participants. Specific lessons learned include: (1) forge collaboration early: (2) maintain communication; (3) clearly delineate policies and procedures; and (4) develop proactive strategies. We also include a list of important questions to consider when contemplating similar projects.     

Relationships as dialogues

This article discusses five interrelated conceptions of dialogue in the works of Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin that ground relational dialectics theory: (a) dialogue as constitutive process, (b) dialogue as dialectical flux, (c) dialogue as aesthetic moment, (d) dialogue as utterance, and (e) dialogue as critical sensibility. The author's recent research in relational dialectics is discussed, as are directions for future research. Relational dialectics is positioned as a sensitizing theory different from systems theory and other dialectically oriented approaches.     

Psychological type and sex differences among church leaders in the United Kingdom

A sample of 135 female and 164 male church leaders of mixed denominations completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales. The female church leaders demonstrated clear preferences for extraversion over introversion, for sensing over intuition, for feeling over thinking, and for judging over perceiving. The male church leaders demonstrated clear preferences for introversion over extraversion, for sensing over intuition, for thinking over feeling, and for judging over perceiving. The predominant type among the women was ESFJ (22%) and the predominant type among the men was ISTJ (30%). Extravert and feeling types were significantly overrepresented among female church leaders, compared with male church leaders.     

Uses and misuses of habituation and related preference paradigms

Houston‐Price and Nakai raise an important problem researchers face when attempting to interpret infant visual preference data. This problem stems from paradigms in which infants are only partially familiarized to a stimulus, and it is unclear whether they should show a novelty or familiarity preference to that stimulus in a subsequent test. As Hunter and Ames' (1988) noted in their important chapter, infants will sometimes show a familiarity preference rather than a novelty preference, particularly when the infants are relatively young and the stimuli are relatively complex. In this commentary, I shall make three points regarding this issue: first, that the familiarity preference problem is real; second, that in most cases there is a simple solution to the problem; and third that certain popular infant paradigms can exacerbate the problem. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

But Affirmative Action hurts Us! Race-related beliefs shape perceptions of White disadvantage and policy unfairness

Drawing on social identity theory, we examine how Whites’ race-related beliefs drive their reactions to race-based Affirmative Action Policies (AAPs). Across laboratory and field settings, we find that Whites with relatively high modern racism (MR) or collective relative deprivation (CRD) beliefs perceive greater White disadvantage in organizations that have race-based AAPs, than in organizations that do not. Alternatively, race-based AAPs do not lead to perceptions of White disadvantage among Whites with relatively low MR and CRD beliefs. We also find that White disadvantage mediates the relationship between the combined effects of race-based AAPs, MR beliefs, and CRD beliefs and the perceived fairness of the organization’s selection and promotion policies. Our findings suggest that race-based AAPs do not necessarily lead to perceptions of White disadvantage, but are contingent upon the interpretive lens of Whites’ MR and CRD beliefs, and also offer practical insights for preventing negative reactions to race-based AAPs.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in semantic classification of concrete and abstract words

Although concrete nouns are generally agreed to have shared core conceptual representations across languages in bilinguals, it has been proposed that abstract nouns have separate representations or share fewer semantic components. Conceptual repetition priming methodology was used to evaluate whether translation equivalents of abstract nouns have shared conceptual representations and compare the degree of conceptual overlap for concrete and abstract nouns. Here 72 Spanish-English bilinguals made concrete-abstract decisions on English and Spanish nouns. Both concrete and abstract nouns elicited substantial between-language priming and these effects were of equivalent size, indicating that translation equivalents of both concrete and abstract nouns have shared conceptual representations and that abstract words do not share fewer components. The between-language priming effects and their attenuation relative to within-language priming indicate that the within-language effect is based on facilitation of both word comprehension and semantic decision processes.     

Hooking Up and Identity Development of Female College Students

Hooking up generally involves casual sex with noncommittal partners. Hooking up is prevalent on college campuses today and can negatively affect the identity development of female students. The authors examined this phenomenon with a feminist developmental perspective, evaluating hooking up in the context of sexual risk taking with physical and psychosocial consequences.