Reducing stereotype threat by blurring intergroup boundaries

The authors aimed to establish whether interventions designed to reduce intergroup bias could be applied to the stereotype threat domain. In three experiments, the hypothesis was tested that blurring intergroup boundaries would reduce stereotype threat. In the first study, it was found that female participants who thought about characteristics shared between the genders tended to show less preference for stereotypical female careers than did participants in the baseline condition. In Experiment 2, participants who thought about overlapping characteristics answered more math questions correctly compared to a baseline group and participants who thought about differences between the genders. In Experiment 3, a specific threat manipulation was included. Participants who completed the overlapping characteristics task before receiving the threat completed significantly more math questions correctly than did participants in the baseline and threat conditions. The findings support the idea that interventions designed to reduce intergroup bias can be applied successfully in the reduction of stereotype threat.     

A Third Method of Ethics?

In recent decades, the idea has become common that so‐called virtue ethics constitutes a third option in ethics in addition to consequentialism and deontology. This paper argues that, if we understand ethical theories as accounts of right and wrong action, this is not so. Virtue ethics turns out to be a form of deontology (that is, non‐consequentialism). The paper then moves to consider the Aristotelian distinction between right or virtuous action on the one hand, and acting rightly or virtuously on the other. It is claimed that virtue might play an important role in an explanation of acting virtuously (as it does in Aristotle’s ethics), but that such explanations can be charged with ‘double‐counting’ the moral value of the virtues. The paper concludes that, if we focus on the question of the value of virtue, rather than on the notion of right action, there is room for a self‐standing and important view which could be described as virtue ethics.     

Examination of a Regressive Prompt-Delay Procedure for Improving Sight-Word Reading

The current two-experiment study examined the effects of a regressive prompt-delay procedure on sight-word reading of four elementary school students. In contrast to traditional progressive prompt-delay procedures in which the latency of prompts is increased, the regressive prompt-delay latency is decreased over time. Data indicate that participants learned sight words quickly and maintained responding at high levels when instruction was withdrawn across both regressive and progressive prompt-delay conditions. Results are discussed in context of empirically supported prompting strategies and possible motivating operations that might be introduced when the learner is instructed to respond more quickly than the experimenter in regressive prompt delay (e.g., a game-like activity that potentially makes the activity educational, engaging, and enjoyable for students).     

High Hopes? Educational,Socioeconomic, and Ethnic Differences in Parents’ Aspirations for their Unborn Children

Parents’ aspirations shape children’s development. In this study, over 6700 pregnant women and over 4300 of their partners from the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort responded to a question about their hopes, dreams, and expectations for their unborn children. Responses were coded according to a Maslowian hierarchy of needs. Mothers and their partners predominantly mentioned self-actualization and physiological aspirations for their unborn children, but their responses varied as a function of parental ethnicity and level of educational achievement and less so as a function of socioeconomic status. Mothers of European ethnicity, and parents with higher levels of educational achievement, mentioned more aspirations for their children—especially for self-actualization and belonging—than mothers of non-European ethnicity and parents with lower levels of educational achievement. These findings are discussed with respect to Maslowian theory and cultural developmental theories, and in terms of understanding the aspirations of parents from diverse backgrounds.     

Understanding culture across species

Recent claims of culture in great apes have provoked fervent argument about the 'true' definition of culture, most of which has been unhelpful. Instead, a range of definitions should be used to explore different aspects of the cognitive processes that together result in human culture, many of which can be productively studied in non-humans. A richer cognitive account of the contents of culture needs to be developed and used to compare animal and human cultures, instead of sterile searching for a cognitive Rubicon between them. Exploring six views of culture, this article highlights the fundamental contrast of whether culture evolves as a by-product of cumulative change in cognitive mechanisms, or whether it is actively selected for its advantages.     

Gorillas we have missed: sustained inattentional deafness for dynamic events

It is now well-known that the absence of attention can leave us 'blind' to visual stimuli that are very obvious under normal viewing conditions (e.g. a person dressed as a gorilla; Simons & Chabris, 1999). However, the question of whether hearing can ever be susceptible to such effects remains open. Here, we present evidence that the absence of attention can leave people 'deaf' to the presence of an 'auditory gorilla' which is audible for 19s and clearly noticeable under full attention. These findings provide the first ever demonstration of sustained inattentional deafness. The effect is all the more surprising because it occurs within a lifelike, three-dimensional auditory scene in which the unnoticed stimulus moves through the middle of several other dynamic auditory stimuli.