Assessing the Impact of a Media‐based Intervention to Prevent Intergroup Violence and Promote Positive Intergroup Relations in Burundi

The present study (N = 1074) examined the impact of a theory‐driven media intervention aimed at violence prevention and intergroup reconciliation in Burundi. We used a novel methodology utilizing audio‐based surveys to assess attitudes related to intergroup conflict and reconciliation among community members. We conducted a propensity score analysis to estimate the causal effects of the intervention by examining differences between listeners and non‐listeners of the radio dramas. The results indicated a positive effect of the intervention on several social psychological outcomes (tolerance, in‐group superiority, social distance, intergroup trust, responsibility attributions, trauma disclosure and competitive victimhood). However, listeners and non‐listeners did not differ in obedience toward leaders or historical perspective taking; and the results for active bystandership, one of the main foci of the intervention, were mixed. Furthermore, the results show that the impact of the intervention sometimes depends on listeners' personal experiences of victimization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Not Just “Study Drugs” for the Rich: Stimulants as Moral Tools for Creating Opportunities for Socially Disadvantaged Students

An argument in the cognitive enhancement literature is that using stimulants in populations of healthy but socially disadvantaged individuals mistakenly attributes pathology to nonpathological individuals who experience social inequalities. As the argument goes, using stimulants as cognitive-enhancing drugs to solve the social problem of poorly educated students in inadequate schools misattributes the problem as an individual medical problem, when it is really a collective sociopolitical problem. I challenge this argument on the grounds that not all types of enhancement have to be explained in medical terms, but rather at least one conception of enhancement can be explained in social terms—opportunity maintenance. Therefore, I propose that as a moral requirement we ought to explore whether stimulants could be a means of remedying underprivileged children's experiences of social inequalities that are borne from inadequate schools for the sake of increasing their chances for opportunities and well-being.     

Stimulus–response correspondence effect as a function of temporal overlap between relevant and irrelevant information processing

The stimulus–response correspondence (SRC) effect refers to advantages in performance when stimulus and response correspond in dimensions or features, even if the common features are irrelevant to the task. Previous research indicated that the SRC effect depends on the temporal course of stimulus information processing. The current study investigated how the temporal overlap between relevant and irrelevant stimulus processing influences the SRC effect. In this experiment, the irrelevant stimulus (a previously associated tone) preceded the relevant stimulus (a coloured rectangle). The irrelevant and relevant stimuli onset asynchrony was varied to manipulate the temporal overlap between the irrelevant and relevant stimuli processing. Results indicated that the SRC effect size varied as a quadratic function of the temporal overlap between the relevant stimulus and irrelevant stimulus. This finding extends previous experimental observations that the SRC effect size varies in an increasing or decreasing function with reaction time. The current study demonstrated a quadratic function between effect size and the temporal overlap.     

The Relationship Between Parenting Style and Children's Adjustment: The Parents' Perspective

We examined the relationship between authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles and socio-emotional adjustment in elementary school children as reported from the parents' perspective. Mothers of first through fifth graders provided information about parenting style as well as children's competencies and problem behaviors. Teachers provided ratings of children's adjustment for a subset of the participants. Results indicated that authoritative parenting was associated negatively with parent- and teacher-rated maladaptive behavior, and positively with indicators of healthy adjustment. Correlations between authoritarian parenting and adjustment were either small or non-significant. Regression analyses indicated that authoritative parenting was more predictive of children's competence than maladaptation (22% versus 10% of variance). The effects of parenting style on adjustment were not moderated by demographic variables, such as the child's gender, grade level, ethnicity, and family income.     

Adjusting the Religious Autobiography Course for the Postmodern Classroom

Religious autobiography as an introductory course is popular yet problematic. Often, it lacks methodological breadth and functions to ensconce Western notions of subjectivity which elide difference, locatedness, and the reality of multiple or shifting identifications. These problems can be addressed by incorporating into the course a community‐based learning exercise in which each student is paired with a local senior citizen, conducts a series of interviews with the elder, and then writes an (auto‐)biography based on the interviews. Students are thus given a real‐life situation in which to test the applicability of theories and definitions of religion, as well as a relationship to a subject whose locatedness and relatively unprivileged “I” allow for the problematization of autobiography as a genre as well as an appreciation for the contextual nature of religiosity. This exercise transforms the religious autobiography course into a pedagogically fruitful, intellectually defensible, and institutionally savvy introductory course.