Thinking about Mutual Influences and Connections across Cultures Relates to More Positive Intergroup Attitudes: An Examination of Polyculturalism

Polyculturalism is an ideology focusing on the many ways that racial and ethnic groups have interacted, exchanged ideas, and influenced each other's cultures throughout history and into the present. In this paper, we first briefly review the introduction of and research on polyculturalism by historians. Then we summarize numerous studies with racially and ethnic diverse college students and adult community members in the United States, which have found that greater endorsement of polyculturalism is significantly associated with more positive racial/ethnic intergroup attitudes (less support for social inequality, greater interest in, appreciation for, and comfort with diversity and differences, greater interest in intergroup contact, and greater support for liberal immigration and affirmative action policies) and lower sexual prejudice (lower affective prejudice toward gay men and lesbians, traditional heterosexism, and denial of discrimination against homosexuals, and more positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbians). We conclude by discussing several future directions of this work.     

Man on a Pendulum by Israel J. Gerber

Group therapy provides the ideal arena for helping individuals cultivate the observing ego—that part of the sensorium that has the power of witnessing oneself in the world. The essence of our method is to employ the group as a temporary observing ego, out of which members may develop their own observing egos. A five-step process is presented to (1) help the members see how they are affecting others when they do not see this themselves, (2) help the members see how they produce this effect, (3) help the members see the self-injurious nature of their behavior, (4) resolve resistances to seeing any of this, and (5) help the members arrive at new modes of behavior.     

When Sociopolitical Events Strike Cultural Beliefs: Divergent Impact of Hurricane Katrina on African Americans' and European Americans' Endorsement of the Protestant Work Ethic

Three experiments address how people react to a sexual abuse victim compared to a nonvictim when a justification for negative evaluation is available or not available. A harm-doing victim was rated lower on expected job performance and higher on desired social distance than a harm-doing nonvictim. When subsequent harm-doing was absent, judgments of a victim and nonvictim did not differ on expected job performance or social distance. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and revealed that the order in which victimization history and harm-doing information were presented had no effect. Experiment 3 showed that participants desired greater social distance from a harm-doing victim compared to a non-harm-doing victim to the extent they thought the target should have derived benefits from the childhood victimization. Implications for judgments of harm-doers—depending on whether their victimization history is known or not—are considered.     

Validation of the Peer Social Maturity Scale for Assessing Children's Social Skills

We evaluated the utility of a brief, seven‐item, teacher‐rated Peer Social Maturity Scale (PSMAT). In Study 1, teachers of 138 Australian children (ranging from 5 to 8 years and 5 months old) in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 rated their pupils' social maturity using the PSMAT and their classroom social skills via the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). The PSMAT showed excellent internal consistency and a significant overall correlation with the SSRS social skills scale. Study 2 involved a new longitudinal sample of children who were rated by different classroom teachers in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 of full‐time primary school. Consistent with Study 1, at all three time points, PSMAT scores were highly correlated with SSRS social skills scores. PSMAT scores also correlated significantly with peer‐rated social preference. These studies confirm that the PSMAT is a reliable and valid assessment of children's social maturity within their classroom peer groups. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Allusive thinking (cognitive looseness) and the propensity to perceive “meaningful” coincidences

This study aimed at evaluating relations between the disposition to make “meaningful” associations between random events and potentially predisposing factors related to a more “loose” cognitive control, that is, loose associative processing (allusive thinking) and poorer inhibition of irrelevant memory content. As the findings of this study suggest, individuals with a higher disposition to perceive coincidences produced a higher rate of unusual associations in the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap test than low scorers, and showed poorer inhibition of no longer relevant memory content in the Recent Probes Task. These relationships were independent from individual differences in paranormal belief. Performance in a random generation task (Mittenecker Pointing Test) yielded no support for an important role of a biased concept of randomness in the perception of coincidences. The findings suggest that common mechanisms may underlie the propensity to perceive meaningful coincidences, cognitive looseness, and positive schizotypy.     

Serotonin transporter polymorphism interacts with childhood adversity to predict aspects of impulsivity

The serotonin transporter polymorphism has been linked--often in interaction with environmental adversity--to a variety of outcomes, including affective disorders. This polymorphism is widely viewed as relating to anxiety traits. A different view is that it relates instead to impulsivity (vs. control) in reacting to emotions. In a test of the latter view, 303 students were genotyped on this polymorphism and completed self-reports bearing on impulsive reactions to emotions (including both negative and positive emotions in separate measures), impulsive tendencies that do not stem from emotions, and childhood adversity. The impulsivity measures reflected three latent variables: pervasive influence of feelings, feelings (including positive feelings) triggering action, and failure to carry through on intentions (with no mention of emotion). Interactions between genotype and adversity emerged for both emotion-related aspects of impulsivity. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Social Dominance Orientation Relates to Believing Men Should Dominate Sexually, Sexual Self-Efficacy, and Taking Free Female Condoms Among Undergraduate Women and Men

Gendered-based power affects heterosexual relationships, with beliefs in the U.S. prescribing that men dominate women sexually. We draw on social dominance theory to examine whether women??s and men??s level of support for group-based hierarchy (i.e., social dominance orientation; SDO) helps explain gender-based power beliefs and dynamics in heterosexual relationships. We conducted a laboratory study at a Northeastern U.S. university among 357 women and 126 men undergraduates who reported being heterosexual and sexually active, testing three sets of hypotheses. First, as hypothesized, women endorsed SDO and the belief that men should dominate sexually less than men did. Second, as hypothesized, among women and men, SDO was positively correlated with the belief that men should dominate sexually, and negatively correlated with sexual self-efficacy (confidence in sexual situations) and number of female condoms (a woman-controlled source of protection) taken. Third, structural equation modeling, controlling for age, family income, number of sexual partners in the past month, and perceived HIV/AIDS risk, supported the hypothesis that among women and men, the belief that men should dominate sexually mediates SDO??s association with sexual self-efficacy. The hypothesis that the belief that men should dominate sexually mediates SDO??s association with number of female condoms taken was supported for women only. The hypothesis that sexual self-efficacy mediates SDO??s association with number of female condoms taken was not supported. Results suggest SDO influences power beliefs and dynamics in heterosexual relationships. Although female condoms are an important woman-controlled source of protection, power-related beliefs may pose a challenge to their use.     

Do People Comprehend Legal Language in Wills?

This study assessed the ability of laypeople to understand a document that most have read and signed: a last will and testament. We focused on concepts that are frequently included in wills, examined whether understanding can be enhanced by psycholinguistic revisions, and assessed comprehension as a function of age. Participants ages 32 to 89 years read will‐related concepts in (i) their traditional format, (ii) a version revised to increase readability, or (iii) a version in which, in addition to those changes, we explained archaic and legal terms. Results showed that increasing the readability and explaining terms enhanced participants' abilities to apply will‐related concepts to novel fact patterns and to explain their reasoning. We found no age‐related effects on comprehension, consistent with well‐documented findings that processing at the situation level of text comprehension is preserved in older adults. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest ideas for further research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.