Consequences of Economic Inequality for the Social and Political Vitality of Society: A Social Identity Analysis

Economic inequality has been found to have pernicious effects, reducing mental and physical health, decreasing societal cohesion, and fueling support for nativist parties and illiberal autocratic leaders. We start this review with an outline of what social identity theorizing offers to the study of inequality. We then articulate four hypotheses that can be derived from the social identity approach: the fit hypothesis, the wealth-categorization hypothesis, the wealth-stereotype hypothesis, and the sociostructural hypothesis. We review the empirical literature that tests these hypotheses by exploring the effect of economic inequality, measured objectively by metrics such as the Gini coefficient as well as subjectively in terms of perceptions of economic inequality, on wealth categorization (of others and the self), the desire for more wealth and status, intergroup hostility, attitudes towards immigrants, prosocial behavior, stereotyping, the wish for a strong leader, the endorsement of conspiracy theories, and collective action intentions. As we will show, this research suggests that economic inequality may have even more far-reaching consequences than commonly believed. Indeed, investigating the effects of economic inequality on citizens' sociopolitical behaviors may be increasingly important in today's turbulent political and social landscape.     

Priming and timing: a test of two perspectives

Supporting a ‘stage’ perspective of assimilation and contrast effects, and in contrast to an ‘extremity’ conceptualization, this study demonstrated that priming moderate person exemplars before the behaviour of an ambiguous target person had been encoded results in assimilation, whereas priming such exemplars after encoding results in a small contrast effect. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Femme Fatale Effect: Attractiveness is a Liability for Businesswomen’s Perceived Truthfulness,Trust, and Deservingness of Termination

Sex Roles - In what we label the “femme fatale” effect, we proposed and found support for the notion that attractive businesswomen are judged as being less truthful than less attractive...     

Using Personal Landmark Events Improves Judgments about Time,but not Contents,in Autobiographical Memory

Landmark events are strong memories that function as reference points for other memories. We examined whether people's accuracy in recalling when an earlier target event occurred was related to whether they spontaneously used personal landmark events or not. Participants completed two questionnaires separated by 2‐31 days. In the first, they described a personal event including what happened, who was there, where it was, and when it occurred. In the second questionnaire, they recalled the personal event and specific details. They also described whether they had used landmark events to assist their recall. Overall, participants' memories for temporal and content information faded over time. Spontaneous use of landmark events was associated with an increase in participants’ recall of temporal information but not content information. Analysis of the landmark events revealed that almost two‐thirds were significant events, such as birthdays, parties, and travel‐related events. Applications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decide like Lionel Messi! The impact of regulatory focus on divergent thinking in sports

According to Higgins, the regulatory focus theory states that in terms of motivational information processing, it makes a difference whether people have a promotion or prevention focus. A focus on aspirations is labeled as promotion focus, whereas a focus on responsibility is called prevention focus. In our study, the theory will be applied to the area of sport decision making. We showed that soccer players make different decisions in a sport‐specific divergent‐thinking task depending on their regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention). Promotion‐framed athletes were able to produce more original, flexible, and adequate solutions than prevention‐framed athletes. Theoretical and practical implications for sport psychology are discussed.     

Literatur in Examensarbeiten

After the Second World War up to the 1980s Harald Schultz-Hencke’s so-called German neopsychoanalysis was an important theoretical reference for psychoanalysts in the German Psychoanalytical Society (DPG). Simultaneously, however, references were increasingly being made to quintessential psychoanalytical sources which of course had an impact on the psychoanalytical training. The references in final papers of a DPG psychoanalytical institute from 1971–2008 were compared to the references in clinical papers of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. It can be shown that the influence of German neopsychoanalysis in the final theses of the psychoanalytical institute in question has diminished since the 1990s and has become irrelevant in the twenty-first century.     

Prototypes of Discrimination: How Status Asymmetry and Stereotype Asymmetry Affect Judgments of Racial Discrimination

This research investigated status asymmetry and stereotype asymmetry features of the racial discrimination prototype. Consistent with status asymmetry predictions, Black observers made greater attributions to discrimination when the victim was Black and the perpetrator was White than when the roles were reversed. In contrast, White observers made similar attributions to discrimination, regardless of status asymmetry. In partial support of the stereotype asymmetry hypothesis, Black and White observers made greater attributions to discrimination for Black victims in a domain where Blacks are negatively stereotyped than positively stereotyped. However, attributions to discrimination for White victims were unaffected by the domain.     

The influence of motivational and mood states on visual attention: A quantification of systematic differences and casual changes in subjects' focus of attention

A great number of studies have shown that different motivational and mood states can influence human attentional processes in a variety of ways. Yet, none of these studies have reliably quantified the exact changes of the attentional focus in order to be able to compare attentional performances based on different motivational and mood influences and, beyond that, to evaluate their effectivity. In two studies, we explored subjects' differences in the breadth and distribution of attention as a function of motivational and mood manipulations. In Study 1, motivational orientation was classified in terms of regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and in Study 2, mood was classified in terms of valence (positive vs. negative). Study 1 found a 10% wider distribution of the visual attention in promotion-oriented subjects compared to prevention-oriented ones. The results in Study 2 reveal a widening of the subjects' visual attentional breadth when listening to happy music by 22% and a narrowing by 36% when listening to melancholic music. In total, the findings show that systematic differences and casual changes in the shape and scope of focused attention may be associated with different motivational and mood states.