Explaining White Opposition to Black Political Leadership: The Role of Fear of Racial Favoritism

Despite the election of America's first Black president, most non‐Hispanic Whites continue to oppose Black political leadership. The conventional explanation for White opposition is sheer racial prejudice, yet the available empirical evidence for this theory is inconsistent. I test an alternative theory that Whites perceive Black political leaders as a threat to their group's interests. Using a new survey measure and nationally representative panel data covering the 2008, 2010, and 2012 U.S. elections, I find that a majority of Whites perceive Black elected officials as likely to favor Blacks over Whites. Moreover, fear of racial favoritism predicts support for Barack Obama in both cross‐sectional models and fixed‐effects models of within‐person change, controlling for negative racial stereotypes. I replicate these findings using a separate cross‐sectional survey fielded after the 2014 election that controls for racial resentment. Collectively, these results suggest that perceptions of conflicting group interests—and not just prejudice—drive White opposition to Black political leadership.     

Impact of employee assistance programs on substance abusers and workplace safety

Businesses have dealt with substance abuse in different ways. Some organizations have established Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to address these problems. One large national company chose to fire employees with positive drug screens, offer them EAP services, and then consider them for rehire after treatment. A study of performance records for 12,167 employees with safety incidents revealed that rehired employees had a significantly higher incident rate than the company's general population. Results indicated no difference in pre‐ and post‐EAP incident rates for rehired workers, and the post‐EAP incident rate fluctuated for 2 years. Implications of hiring/rehiring individuals who abuse drugs and alcohol are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research.     

Only self-generated actions create sensori-motor systems in the developing brain

Previous research shows that sensory and motor systems interact during perception, but how these connections among systems are created during development is unknown. The current work exposes young children to novel 'verbs' and objects through either (a) actively exploring the objects or (b) by seeing an experimenter interact with the objects. Results demonstrate that the motor system is recruited during auditory perception only after learning involved self-generated interactions with objects. Action observation itself led to above-baseline activation in one motor region during visual perception, but was still significantly less active than after self-generated action. Therefore, in the developing brain, associations are built upon real-world interactions of body and environment, leading to sensori-motor representations of both objects and words.     

Risk factors for onset of eating disorders: Evidence of multiple risk pathways from an 8-year prospective study

Objective

Use classification tree analysis with lagged predictors to determine empirically derived cut-points for identifying adolescent girls at risk for future onset of threshold, subthreshold, and partial eating disorders and test for interactions between risk factors that may implicate qualitatively distinct risk pathways.

Method

Data were drawn from a prospective study of 496 adolescent girls who completed diagnostic interviews and surveys annually for 8 years.

Results

Body dissatisfaction emerged as the most potent predictor; adolescent girls in the upper 24% of body dissatisfaction showed a 4.0-fold increased incidence of eating disorder onset (24% vs. 6%). Among participants in the high body dissatisfaction branch, those in the upper 32% of depressive symptoms showed a 2.9-fold increased incidence of onset (43% vs. 15%). Among participants in the low body dissatisfaction branch, those in the upper 12% of dieting showed a 3.6-fold increased incidence onset (18% vs. 5%).

Conclusion

This three-way interaction suggests a body dissatisfaction pathway to eating disorder onset that is amplified by depressive symptoms, as well as a pathway characterized by self-reported dieting among young women who are more satisfied with their bodies. It may be possible to increase the effectiveness of prevention programs by targeting each of these qualitatively distinct risk groups, rather than only individuals with a single risk factor.     

Judgement of confidence in childhood memories

Memory judgement processes, based on the characteristics and associations of retrieved memories such as sensory details and supporting memories, are considered as important as retrieval in several autobiographical memory models. Judgement processes have received less research attention than memory characteristics themselves. The present studies examined memory judgement using qualitative analysis of the reasons participants gave for confidence in retrieved childhood memories. For memories they were confident of, participants cited memory phenomenology, especially sensory and affective details, much more frequently than consistency with other autobiographical knowledge. For memories they were not confident of, participants reported lack of consistency with autobiographical knowledge or with others' memories more often than memory phenomenology as reasons for their uncertainty. Participants' comments also revealed several metacognitive beliefs about the relationship between memory characteristics and accuracy. These data are consistent with two‐process models of memory judgement associated with true versus false memories. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.