Deservingness and emotions: Testing a structural model that relates discrete emotions to the perceived deservingness of positive or negative outcomes

A study is described that tested a model (Feather in Eur Rev Soc Psychol 17:38–73, 2006) relating emotions to the appraisal of outcome deservingness for self or other person. Outcome deservingness was assumed to depend on the evaluative structure of action/outcome relations (Feather in Values, achievement, and justice: studies in the psychology of deservingness. Kluwer/Plenum Publishers, New York, 1999b). The study tested predictions about relations between this structure and the emotions of pleasure, admiration, pride, resentment, anger, sadness, sympathy, guilt, regret, disappointment, and surprise. The study used a hypothetical scenario involving an applicant for a position in an organization where the applicant could either be other or self. Results that focused on planned comparisons and the action by focus interactions supported the analysis for both the positive outcome and the negative outcome conditions and they were consistent with the hypothesis that the appraisal of outcome deservingness would mediate at least in part the type of emotion that was reported when a positive or negative outcome followed a positive or negative action. Results were discussed in relation to the social psychology of justice and the emotions.     

Self,community and the overcoming of prejudice

Using discussion from Gadamer, Burbules and Rice, and Banks, and practical examples from a multicultural teacher education classroom, this paper examines the effects of community on the construction of identities and on the development and overcoming of prejudice.     

Academic achievement and behavioral health among Asian American and African American adolescents: testing the model minority and inferior minority assumptions

The present study tested the model minority and inferior minority assumptions by examining the relationship between academic performance and measures of behavioral health in a subsample of 3,008 (22 %) participants in a nationally representative, multicultural sample of 13,601 students in the 2001 Youth Risk Behavioral Survey, comparing Asian Americans (N = 408) and African Americans (N = 2,600). Specifically, the study examined associations of students’ self-reported grades with suicide risk, substance abuse, and violent behaviors. The findings revealed that high academic performance is a protective factor against behavioral health problems for both ethnic groups. The results raise questions about the focus on high achievement among Asian Americans versus academic underachievement among African Americans. Implications for theory, research, training and practice in addressing the mental health implications of achievement behavior in Asian American and African American youth are discussed.     

Are There Cross-Cultural Legal Principles? Modal Reasoning Uncovers Procedural Constraints on Law

Despite pervasive variation in the content of laws, legal theorists and anthropologists have argued that laws share certain abstract features and even speculated that law may be a human universal. In the present report, we evaluate this thesis through an experiment administered in 11 different countries. Are there cross-cultural principles of law? In a between-subjects design, participants (N = 3,054) were asked whether there could be laws that violate certain procedural principles (e.g., laws applied retrospectively or unintelligible laws), and also whether there are any such laws. Confirming our preregistered prediction, people reported that such laws cannot exist, but also (paradoxically) that there are such laws. These results document cross-culturally and –linguistically robust beliefs about the concept of law which defy people's grasp of how legal systems function in practice.