What do the young (old) people think of me? Content and accuracy of age-based metastereotypes

Increasing age diversity in the workforce points to the need to understand the dynamics of interpersonal relations across age groups. An important element of these interactions involves interpersonal perceptions, including both what an individual believes about members of other age groups (stereotypes) and what individuals believe other age groups think of their own group (metastereotypes). We explore the content and accuracy of the stereotypes and metastereotypes in a sample of 247 younger, middle-aged, and older workers. We compare the stereotypes and metastereotypes of and by different groups in terms of their affective valence (positive/negative) and compare the results produced by open-ended and closed-ended methods. We map out the usefulness of these data for future work towards enhancing cross-aged interactions in the workplace.     

Cultural and Religious Values: A Cross-Cultural Study In Austria,South Africa and Egypt

This article compares religious values found on the basis of the lexical approach in three cultures. Lists of human values in Austria (German), South Africa (Northern Sotho) and Egypt (Arabic) were compiled. These terms were rated by 456, 400 and 773 participants respectively as personal guiding motives in life. Factor analyses yielded orthogonal dimensions reflecting the specific values of each culture. In all three cases, a dimension pertaining to religious issues emerged. For Austria, a distinct dimension was found, which only comprised religious terms. In South Africa religious values were interrelated with mutual support, while in Egypt, religiosity was highly correlated with political concerns and Arabic nationalism. While only about 25% of the Austrian sample gave positive evaluations to religious values, most of the South African and Egyptian participants rated religiosity positively. Results suggest that religious values are ubiquitous and religious convictions are influenced by the ethical concepts in each culture.     

Experiences of stereotyping among individuals employed in selected South African organisations

This study investigated the effects of stereotypes among individuals working in selected South African organisations. The participants were 336 employees within the following sectors: banking (n?=?40), higher education institutions (n?=?72), mining (n?=?63), municipalities (n?=?24), nursing (n?=?4), police services (n?=?20), schools (n?=?85), and the restaurant industry (n?=?28). Data were collected using open ended interviews, and thematically analysed. The findings indicated that stereotypes influence individuals on three different levels: cognitive, behavioural, and emotional levels. Predominantly, participants reported that they mostly react in a cognitive manner when confronted with stereotypes.     

The cultural mediation hypothesis: A critical examination

A fascinating hypothesis has been proposed by Woodley (2010, Intelligence, 38: 471–480) to explain why intelligence, in contemporary Western countries, appears to be positively associated with left wing political attitudes. According to the hypothesis, the current Western ‘norm’ is relatively left-wing values, the intelligent are better at norm-mapping and better at perceiving the benefits of conforming to the dominant set of values and this explains why they are more likely, in this context, to be relatively left wing. This article will critically examine this hypothesis. It will argue that the evidence for it is questionable and open to different interpretations, there is evidence that contradicts it, and it leaves key questions unanswered. The article will propose that a simpler explanation for the association is that intelligence is positively associated with openness-intellect, low time preference and agreeableness.     

Older is wiser? It depends who you ask… and how you ask

Interacting with older adults can trigger a number of stereotypes. Negative stereotypes tend to dominate, but a persistent positive perception of aging in the popular psyche is that age brings wisdom. Despite this common belief, previous research suggests that the relationship between age and wisdom is weak and inconsistent. We propose that this is due to opposing perceptions of aging – gains in life experience and socioemotional skills, counteracted by declines in cognitive skill – that also vary with characteristics of the perceiver and the context. We investigated these paradoxical perceptions of aging by asking younger (aged 20–40) and older (aged 60–80) adult judges to rate adult speakers (aged 30–89) on the basis of their responses to three narrative prompts. Several aspects of wisdom were judged, including those related to cognitive skills, and those related to socioemotional aspects of wisdom. We examined the impact on ratings of speaker and rater characteristics, as well as the interaction of these characteristics with the dimension being rated. Findings showed that the wisdom ratings were higher for speakers with better verbal fluency, and that the relationship between age and perceived wisdom was moderated by the speaker’s gender. Consistent with prior work, speaker age (relative to rater’s age) had a negative effect on cognitive aspects of wisdom, but a positive effect on socio-affective aspects of wisdom. Implications for understanding age-related stereotypes and conceptions of wisdom are discussed.     

How we think and act together

In this paper, I examine the challenges socially extended minds pose for mainstream, individualistic accounts of social cognition. I argue that individualistic accounts of social cognition neglect phenomena important to social cognition that are properly emphasized by socially extended mind accounts. Although I do not think the evidence or arguments warrant replacing individualistic explanations of social cognition with socially extended explanations, I argue that we have good reason to supplement our individualistic accounts so as to include the ways in which situational context affects social interactions. The result, I hope, is a more sophisticated individualism that offers a more comprehensive account of how we think and act together.     

Contextualizing rape: Reviewing sequelae and proposing a culturally inclusive ecological model of sexual assault recovery

Consistent evidence demonstrates that many women who encounter the trauma of rape experience a range of both acute reactions and chronic psychological sequelae. This article reviews both the short- and long-term psychological adjustment issues associated with rape. In addition, we propose a culturally inclusive ecological model of sexual assault recovery (CIEMSAR), which integrates and extends existing models to better examine the complex factors leading to differential postrape adjustment. Important components of the CIEMSAR are placing rape in the broader sociocultural context of the United States and explicated socioracial and ethnic factors influencing the recovery process. The five primary factors of CIEMSAR are outlined, including (a) macrosystem or sociocultural context factors; microsystem/individual factors such as (b) assault characteristics, (c) person variables, (d) coping responses; and mesosystems factors such as (e) social-support systems. Suggestions for future research are also provided.     

An intermediary enhances out‐group trust and in‐group profit expectation of Chinese but not Australians

In this research, we made a theoretical distinction between direct and intermediary‐mediated trust situations, and conducted a cross‐cultural (Chinese vs. Australians) investment trust game to test the overlooked effects of an intermediary on investors' trust decisions, with respect to how much to invest in and expect from trustees. Compared to situations of direct trust, a nominal intermediary increased the number of Chinese investors expecting in‐group trustees to repay a profit on their investments (Hypothesis 1) and raised their level of investment in out‐group trustees (Hypothesis 2). These results applied to Chinese, but not Australians in support of the proposal that a nominal intermediary would serve as a cue to activate different cultural stereotypes of the functions and meanings of an intermediary with respect to trust and expectation of reciprocity. Coexisting with these culture‐specific effects of an intermediary, the minimal categorisation of people into in‐group and out‐group on trivial grounds leads to a highly significant in‐group favouritism in investment levels of both Chinese and Australians (Hypothesis 3).     

Anti‐Immigrant Prejudice in Rising East Asia: A Stereotype Content and Integrated Threat Analysis

Immigration is a global phenomenon, yet comparatively few psychological investigations of anti‐immigrant prejudice have been conducted in East Asia, a region of high economic growth that is set to become a leading destination for international migrants. Over two studies, we examined Singaporean attitudes towards four prominent immigrant groups: Chinese, Filipino, South Asian, and Western immigrants. Each immigrant group was found to be associated with a unique attitudinal profile. Chinese immigrants, who are culturally the most closely related to most Singaporeans, were viewed the most negatively in terms of prejudice, stereotyped warmth, and realistic and symbolic threat. Westerners were viewed the most positively despite higher ratings of perceived competence, possibly due to Western cultural influence, whereas South Asians and Filipinos were viewed as being relatively unthreatening, possibly due to their occupation of undesirable social roles. Perceived threat—both realistic and symbolic—proved to be stronger predictors of anti‐immigrant prejudice than stereotypes. Implications for immigration policy in the region are discussed.     

Do Americans Have a Preference for Rule‐Based Classification?

Six experiments investigated variables predicted to influence subjects’ tendency to classify items by a single property (rule‐based responding) instead of overall similarity, following the paradigm of Norenzayan et al. ( 2002 , Cognitive Science), who found that European Americans tended to give more “logical” rule‐based responses. However, in five experiments with Mechanical Turk subjects and undergraduates at an American university, we found a consistent preference for similarity‐based responding. A sixth experiment with Korean undergraduates revealed an effect of instructions, also reported by Norenzayan et al., in which classification instructions led to majority rule‐based responding but similarity instructions led to overall similarity grouping. Our American subjects showed no such difference and used similarity more overall. We conclude that Americans do not have a preference for rule responding in classification and discuss the differences between tasks that reliably show strong rule or unidimensional preferences (category construction and category learning) in contrast to this classification paradigm.