Can cross-group friendships influence minority students' well-being at historically white universities?

Past research has demonstrated the negative impact of race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional belonging and satisfaction among minority-group students in predominantly White universities. Given research documenting the benefits of cross-group friendship for intergroup attitudes, we tested whether friendships with majority-group peers would attenuate the effects of RS-race within these contexts. In a longitudinal study of African American students (Study 1), cross-group friendships with majority-group peers buffered students high in RS-race from lack of belonging and dissatisfaction at their university. An experimental intervention (Study 2) that induced cross-group friendship replicated the findings and established their specificity for minority-group students. We discuss implications for efforts toward diversifying educational settings.     

Can fixed views of ability boost performance in the context of favorable stereotypes?

Prior research has demonstrated that stereotypes affect negatively stereotyped groups in part through the implied immutability of group members’ abilities. Accordingly, a belief that ability is malleable through effort and hard work has been shown to boost the performance of negatively stereotyped groups. We predicted, however, that among favorably stereotyped groups, a belief that ability is fixed would reinforce the immutability of the group differences upon which stereotype-induced social comparisons are made [Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2003). Stereotype lift. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 456–467] and result in enhanced performance. We found experimental support for these predictions in two favorably stereotyped groups in math: Asians (Study 1) and men (Study 2). Perceived difficulty of the math test helped explain the performance effects in Study 2. Implications of schooling emphasizing innate ability for exacerbating achievement gaps are discussed.     

Empathy is Associated with Meaning of Life and Mental Health Treatment but not Religiosity Among Brazilian Medical Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of spirituality, religiosity, personal beliefs, and previous contact with health issues on the level of empathy in medical students. Jefferson Scale of Empathy—Student Version, WHOQOL-Spirituality, Religiousness and Personal Beliefs, and Duke University Religion Index were applied to 285 Brazilian medical students. The findings suggest that meaning of life and previous mental health treatment but not Religiosity were positively related to empathy. We suggest that more attention should be given for prevention and treatment of mental health issues, and further studies are needed to understand and replicate these findings.     

On Some Compatible Operations on Heyting Algebras

We study some operations that may be defined using the minimum operator in the context of a Heyting algebra. Our motivation comes from the fact that 1) already known compatible operations, such as the successor by Kuznetsov, the minimum dense by Smetanich and the operation G by Gabbay may be defined in this way, though almost never explicitly noted in the literature; 2) defining operations in this way is equivalent, from a logical point of view, to two clauses, one corresponding to an introduction rule and the other to an elimination rule, thus providing a manageable way to deal with these operations. Our main result is negative: all operations that arise turn out to be Heyting terms or the mentioned already known operations or operations interdefinable with them. However, it should be noted that some of the operations that arise may exist even if the known operations do not. We also study the extension of Priestley duality to Heyting algebras enriched with the new operations.     

Situation-Behavior Profiles as a Locus of Consistency in Personality

Traditional approaches have long considered situations as "noise" or "error" that obscures the consistency of personality and its invariance. Therefore, it has been customary to average the individual's behavior on any given dimension (e.g., conscientiousness) across different situations. Contradicting this assumption and practice, recent studies have demonstrated that by incorporating the situation into the search for consistency, a new locus of stability is found. Namely, people are characterized not only by stable individual differences in their overall levels of behavior, but also by distinctive and stable patterns of situation-behavior relations (e.g., she does X when A but Y when B ). These if . . . then . . . profiles constitute behavioral "signatures" that provide potential windows into the individual's underlying dynamics. Processing models that can account for such signatures provide a new route for studying personality types in terms of their shared dynamics and characteristic defining profiles.     

Comparing the adaptabilities of Brazilian adolescent students and adult workers

Many studies have verified the validity of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale in diverse samples, both adolescents and adults. However, which abilities are more typical of each group remains unknown. This study investigated the CAAS factorial structure with Brazilian adolescents, to verify differences between adolescents and adults and to explore the occurrence of differential item functioning analysis (DIF), by considering these two groups as independent variables. The two Brazilian samples were composed by adolescents (n = 272) and by adult workers (n = 404). Results confirmed the expected factorial structure in the adolescents sample and that adults scored higher on all CAAS factors. DIF analysis identified more items favored adults, as expected, but there was coherence in item content which favored each group. Nevertheless, there is no psychometric evidence supporting the need for different forms of CAAS for each group. Results are discussed by taking into account the practical implications of the findings.     

Effects of different training histories upon manufacturing a tool to solve a problem: insight in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.)

Animal Cognition - The emergence of novel behavior is a multilayered phenomenon that comprehends distinct processes. One such process is known as insightful problem solving. “Insight”...     

Why egalitarianism might be good for your health: physiological thriving during stressful intergroup encounters

We compared how evaluations by out-group members and evaluations by in-group members affected participants' stress responses--their neuroendocrine reactivity, cognitive appraisals, and observed anxiety--and how participants' implicit racial bias moderated these responses. Specifically, White participants completed measures of racial bias prior to the experiment. During the experiment, participants performed speech and serial subtraction tasks in front of White or Black interviewers. Several saliva samples were obtained, and they were assayed for catabolic ("breaking down") and anabolic ("building up") hormones. Interviewers' race and participants' racial bias interacted in predicting stress responses. When interviewers were Black, lower racial bias was linked with more salutary stress responses: lower threat appraisals, less anxiety, and increased levels of anabolic hormones. When interviewers were White, no effect was found for threat appraisals or anabolic hormones, and the reverse effect was observed for anxiety. Egalitarianism may have physical and psychological benefits for people living in a diverse society.     

Toward an Integrative CAPS Approach to Racial/Ethnic Relations

ABSTRACT The original CAPS formulation focused on the role of the individual's CAPS system in relation to situations, formalizing a person–situation framework. Subsequent research and theorizing on the culturally embedded CAPS system (C-CAPS) began to spell out how culture, context, and group-level processes intersect with both persons and situations. The contributions in this special section provide insights into the enormous complexity and the multiple layers through which context and persons "make each other up" in racial/ethnic relations. The challenge for personality psychologists is to examine and illuminate this interpenetration of context and person concretely and with increasing depth and precision. The CAPS framework provides a meta-level guide for this mission, and the present contributions illustrate the framework's heuristic value.     

Ironic effects of explicit gender prejudice on women’s test performance

As prejudice becomes more subtle in its manifestations, members of stigmatized groups must often contend with the ambiguity of not knowing whether others are biased against them. In this study, we tested whether explicitly communicated gender prejudice would facilitate women’s performance on a difficult task compared to contexts where such discrimination might be possible but is not explicitly communicated. The findings revealed that the task performance of women who are chronically concerned about gender discrimination suffered when a male interviewer’s gender attitudes were ambiguous, relative to when his attitudes were either explicitly chauvinistic or explicitly egalitarian. As expected, the performance of women low in discrimination concerns was not affected by the experimental manipulation. The findings are discussed in light of growing evidence for the ironic effects of prejudice for the targets of stigma.