Experimental measures of cognitive privilege/deprivation and some of their correlates

An operational definition of intellectual privilege and deprivation was used to develop measures of that construct in each sex from information furnished by 10th-grade students in Project Talent about their family and health background. Information such as reports of high school grades that directly reflected the ability of the students was excluded. The correlation between the experimental measure and the Talent intelligence composite is about .65 in contrast to the usual value of about .40 for a traditional measure of socioeconomic status. Sex differences in the items keyed are minimal. Using a similar definition, measures were also developed for Vernon's mechanical-spatial major group factor (1960), but the level of validity achieved is lower. The measures of privilege/deprivation developed for the two criteria show some degree of differential validity, but there is more generality in the two kinds of privilege than in tested abilities. The measures of intellectual privilege are almost congeneric measures of general intelligence, but there are significant departures from parallel profiles of relationships with other cognitive tests in Talent. The measures of intellectual privilege for both sexes add to the accuracy of prediction obtained from the intelligence criterion of scores on verbal academic and aesthetic information, but add nothing in predicting scores on measures of spatial visualization and rote memory. The possibility of constructing a test of general intelligence using item types that would minimize the correlation with privilige/deprivation is discussed.     

Commitment in relationships: An updated meta‐analysis of the Investment Model

This article provides a systematic review and updated meta‐analysis of the extant literature on Rusbult's Investment Model of Commitment. This meta‐analysis aimed to determine the strength of the associations between commitment and its antecedents and to investigate potential moderators of these associations. This meta‐analysis included 50,427 participants from 202 independent samples (collected between 1980 and early 2016) that had examined the intercorrelations between satisfaction, investment size, quality of alternatives, and commitment. Across all studies, satisfaction had the largest aggregate association with commitment (r = 0.65), followed by investments (r = 0.53) and quality of alternatives (r = ?0.43). Several significant moderators of the relationships between the antecedents and commitment were also identified. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The temporal dimension of national identification: An empirical investigation in South Korea and Australia

We argue that national identification can be framed temporally, such that people may differently identify with their nation's past or present. Further, we argue that temporal national identification has important consequences for attitudes towards social changes. Within this new theoretical framing, we tested the empirical separability and predictive utility of past national identification and present national identification in South Korea and Australia. Results showed that, in both countries, past and present national identifications are correlated but empirically distinct constructs, which independently contribute to general national identification. Past and present national identifications were also shown to be grounded in distinct notions of national continuity. Most importantly, in both countries, present national identification positively predicted favourable attitudes towards social changes and globalization, whereas past national identification negatively predicted these attitudes. These findings suggest that temporally framed national identification is an important construct in the domain of social identification and in research on social changes and globalization.     

The “Saying Is Repeating” Effect: Dyadic Communication Can Generate Cultural Stereotypes

It has been long established that interpersonal communication underpins the existence of cultural stereotypes. However, research has either examined the formation of new or the maintenance of existing stereotypes. In a series of three studies, the present research bridges the gap between these phases by showing that newly formed stereotypes can spread through repeated dyadic communication with others. The stereotypic representation arose due to the audience tuning in to communication to a first audience. Further transmission to two types of subsequent audiences was simulated: a newcomer and an old-timer with an unknown attitude towards the target. A “saying-is-repeating” effect was obtained: the stereotypic representation was invariably transmitted to the newcomer, regardless of whether communicators personally believed in the bias; perceived group-level consensus moderated its transmission to the old-timer. These findings demonstrate that once a stereotypic representation is formed, it is likely to spread in a community and potentially become a cultural stereotype.     

The maintenance of cultural stereotypes in the conversational retelling of narratives

Interpersonal communication plays a significant role in the maintenance of culturally shared stereotypes. This paper reports on two experiments in which two different stories were transmitted conversationally through communication chains. In both experiments, people tended to emphasize more stereotype consistent than stereotype inconsistent (SI) information, thus rendering the stories more confirming, rather than challenging, of the stereotypes. Although SI information sometimes attracted more attention in conversation, this did not translate into a greater likelihood of passing on SI information, thus keeping the story character's impression largely stereotypical even after a second retelling of the story.     

Recovering Bartlett's social psychology of cultural dynamics

Despite the current treatment of Frederic C. Bartlett as a cognitive psychologist, his psychology was fundamentally socio‐cultural. More than half a century after the publication of Psychology and Primitive Culture (1923) and Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932), his theoretical contribution has contemporary implications for a social psychology that takes culture seriously. This paper seeks to recover and appraise Bartlett's social psychology in light of the recent literature on culture and psychology, and discusses his relevance for a social psychology of cultural dynamics. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Greens or space invaders: Prominent utopian themes and effects on social change motivation

One way in which individuals can participate in action to change the society they live in is through the pursuit of an ideal society or “utopia”; however, the content of that utopia is a likely determinant of its motivational impact. Here we examined two predominant prototypes of utopia derived from previous research and theory—the Green and Sci-Fi utopias. When participants were primed with either of these utopias, the Green utopia was perceived to entail a range of other positive characteristics (e.g., warmth, positive emotions) and—provided it was positively evaluated—tended to elicit both motivation and behaviour for social change. In contrast, the Sci-Fi utopia was associated with low motivation, even when it was positively evaluated. Furthermore, the Green utopia was shown to elicit greater perceptions of participative efficacy, which in turn predicted the increase in social change motivation.     

Cultural similarities and differences in social identification in Japan and Australia

A comparison of social identification processes in Australia and Japan found some similarities and differences. In both countries, identification with smaller face-to-face groups was found to be stronger than identification with larger social categories; however, Australians scored higher on the affective dimension of social identification, whereas Japanese scored higher on the cognitive dimension. Moreover, positive situations from Australia and negative situations from Japan were estimated by respondents from both cultures to be more influential in determining how much they identify with their ingroups, showing a cultural situation-bias effect. Situational affordances of social identification across cultures are discussed.