Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces

We investigated when young children first dehumanize outgroups. Across two studies, 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds were asked to rate how human they thought a set of ambiguous doll‐human face morphs were. We manipulated whether these faces belonged to their gender in‐ or gender outgroup (Study 1) and to a geographically based in‐ or outgroup (Study 2). In both studies, the tendency to perceive outgroup faces as less human relative to ingroup faces increased with age. Explicit ingroup preference, in contrast, was present even in the youngest children and remained stable across age. These results demonstrate that children dehumanize outgroup members from relatively early in development and suggest that the tendency to do so may be partially distinguishable from intergroup preference. This research has important implications for our understanding of children's perception of humanness and the origins of intergroup bias.     

Multiple identities and travel mode choice for regular journeys

Growing evidence supports a range of non-instrumental factors influencing travel mode. Amongst these, identity has been proposed. However, to date, the relationship has not been systematically investigated and few investigations have harnessed a theoretical framework for identity. Drawing on role theory (Stryker, 1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. CA: Benjamin Cummings, we hypothesised that multiple identities, of varying importance, are related to travel mode choice. The study of 248 UK urban/suburban, working, car-owning parents used survey-based data to test the influence of seven identities on travel mode choice in regular travel. Multiple and logistic regression analyses found multiple identities to be significantly related to travel mode to work, on escort education and on other regular journeys. The study demonstrated different patterns of relationship between identity on different types of journey and found evidence for travel mode choice as embedded within social identities. In addition to the study’s contribution of new empirical findings, its application of a theoretical focus on identity offers additional strategies in attempting to change travel behaviours towards sustainability.     

Knowing What You Cannot Recognise: Further Evidence for Intact Metacognition in Alzheimer's Disease

Previous research has examined whether Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients can proficiently monitor their memory processing. In the present study we extended the scope of this research to consider confidence in recognition in an episodic memory task, using a forced-choice recognition paradigm to avoid floor effects. AD patients and age-matched controls studied 32 words, followed immediately by a recognition test requiring participants to select the target from pairs of items. Participants rated confidence in their choice on a 3-point scale. Despite significantly poorer memory performance and less confidence overall, gamma correlations indicated that the AD group accurately assigned confidence judgements to their responses. This adds support to the claim that metacognitive monitoring remains intact in AD.     

Transition,transformation and the art of losing: Some uses of poetry in hospice care for the terminally ill

What lessons for psychotherapy can be drawn from the enjoyment and sustenance we find in the use of literature? This paper looks back on a recent creative writing project undertaken with patients in a hospice day centre, and suggested reasons why the patients found this activity not only enjoyable but also therapeutic. Both the hospice as an institution and the poetic form are defined in terms of a transitional space. The article shows how the act of reading and writing poetry places a value for patients on not knowing at a time when the plain hard facts of terminal illness loom large. The author describes a practical way of engaging with poetry in this context, and uses clinical material to describe how the literary arts can provide a transformational object, and a point of inspiration, that may help patients to negotiate the changes brought about by their illness.     

Unwittingly Recapitulating Freud: Searle's Concept of a Vocabulary of the Unconscious

This paper aims to show that the pivotal notion in John Searle's account of the unconscious, despite his representation of Freud's position, is found in Freud's work as part of a very similar view of the issues surrounding the concept of the unconscious. The pivotal notion in question consists in treating the concept of the unconscious as a vocabulary without ontological commitment which Searle claims we must do for the following reason: to reconcile what he considers to be the dualistic concept of the unconscious with an ontology of the mental which recognises no states but conscious states and states of the neurophysiology with the capacity to cause them. The role of the concept in Searle's account is explained. Then his representation of Freud is challenged: firstly, by explicating how Freud accepted that the concept of the unconscious entailed no ontological commitment and, secondly, by showing how this fitted into his wider thinking on how the concept of the unconscious could be understood in terms of a vocabulary, leading ultimately to a justification of the concept of the unconscious in terms of explanatory power. On the basis of this exposition, Searle's charge of dualism against Freud is disputed     

Right-hemisphere linguistic functioning

This review examined the linguistic processing abilities and potential of adults' nondominant hemisphere. Relevant literature was reviewed for experimental evidence of qualitative and quantitative differences in language functioning between the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Selected studies representing typical methodologies and subjects were included.     

Children's Ideas About What Can Really Happen: The Impact of Age and Religious Background

Five- to 11-year-old U.S. children, from either a religious or secular background, judged whether story events could really happen. There were four different types of stories: magical stories violating ordinary causal regularities; religious stories also violating ordinary causal regularities but via a divine agent; unusual stories not violating ordinary causal regularities but with an improbable event; and realistic stories not violating ordinary causal regularities and with no improbable event. Overall, children were less likely to judge that religious and magical stories could really happen than unusual and realistic stories although religious children were more likely than secular children to judge that religious stories could really happen. Irrespective of background, children frequently invoked causal regularities in justifying their judgments. Thus, in justifying their conclusion that a story could really happen, children often invoked a causal regularity, whereas in justifying their conclusion that a story could not really happen, they often pointed to the violation of causal regularity. Overall, the findings show that children appraise the likelihood of story events actually happening in light of their beliefs about causal regularities. A religious upbringing does not impact the frequency with which children invoke causal regularities in judging what can happen, even if it does impact the type of causal factors that children endorse.     

‘Sometimes,it's not just about the food': The social identity dynamics of foodbank helping transactions

Food insecurity in developed countries has increased rapidly. Research has suggested that stigma may inhibit food-aid help-seeking, but has failed to determine how such barriers might be overcome. Adopting a social identity perspective, this study explored the processes involved in food-aid helping transactions and sought to identify conditions that facilitate positive helping outcomes. Interviews were conducted with 18 clients and 12 volunteers at two English foodbanks, and a theoretically guided thematic analysis was conducted. Two primary themes were identified: ‘Here to Help’ and ‘The Legitimate Recipient’. This article offers a distinct and novel contribution by applying a social identity perspective to foodbank helping transactions, thereby demonstrating how group dynamics and behaviours are integral to these interactions, and by moving beyond the typical ‘Social Curse’ focus on barriers to help-seeking to explore how such obstacles may be overcome. Suggestions for addressing stigma-laden helping transactions and promoting successful delivery of aid are provided.     

Understanding and coping with immigration detention: Social identity as cure and curse

Over 29,000 foreign nationals are detained yearly in British Immigration Removal Centres for undefined periods. This study investigated the role played by social identities in the way detainees are affected by, make sense of, and deal with detention. An opportunity sample of 40 detainees was interviewed on topics including support, identity, and well-being, and data were analysed using theoretical thematic analysis. Participants struggled with loss of social networks, loss of rights, loss of agency, and joining a stigmatised group. Social identities guided exchange of support, aided meaning-making, and mitigated distrust, serving as ‘Social Cures’. However, shared identities could also be sources of burden, ostracism, and distress, serving as ‘Social Curses’. Inability to maintain existing identities or create new ones fuelled feelings of isolation. Participants also reported rejection/avoidance of social identities to maximise their benefits. This study is the first to apply the Social Identity Approach to the experience of immigration detention.     

Self-reported physical aggression among young men

This article describes two studies involving a questionnaire asking about the circumstances, antecedents, and consequences of the most recent fight among samples of young men (100 students in Study I; 88 students and 87 unemployed men in Study II). In Study I, the students alos completed a standard aggression questionnaire and one concerning masculine values to assess whether measures of physical aggressiveness were associated with traditional masculine role norms. There was a weak association with physical aggressiveness but not with reported fights. Students with traditionally masculine interests did report more fights. In Study II, both subsamples showed significant correlations between a masculine role subscale involving toughness from this study were primarily assessed in relation to hyphotheses derived from Darwinian sexual selection theory: that fights between young men are likely to arise from threats to personal integrity and status, women, and resoureces; that fights will be more related to social status and be more damageing among the unemployed men than the students. In line with these predictions, insults were a potent cause of fights in both samples, but public humiliation was a more common reason among the unemployed men, Money or property was more often a reason for fighting among the unemployed men also showed higher levels of anger and physical aggression (but not verbal aggression) on a standard aggression questionnaire. Other differences included the location of the fight, but there were no significant differences between the two samples in whether or not a fight had occured in the last 5 years. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.