Attending to threat: Race-based patterns of selective attention

The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are threatening and dangerous has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that Black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, White participants revealed biased attention toward Black faces relative to White faces (Study 1). Because the faces were presented only briefly (30-ms), the bias is thought to reflect the early engagement of attention. The attentional bias was eliminated, however, when the faces displayed averted eye-gaze (Study 2). That is, when the threat communicated by the Black faces was attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue—in this case, averted eye-gaze—they no longer captured perceivers’ attention. Broader implications for social cognition, as well as public policies that reify these prevailing perceptions of young Black men are discussed.     

Looking through the eyes of the powerful

Across four experiments, we test the idea that power decreases metastereotyping, and that this effect is mediated by reduced perspective taking. Metastereotypes refer to the beliefs that members of group A share about the stereotypes that members of specific outgroup B typically have about ingroup A. We propose that the dominant psychological orientation of the powerless is aimed at seeing how others see them. In an intergroup situation they are therefore inclined to activate and apply metastereotypes. In the first three experiments we consistently find that low power leads to more metastereotyping than high power and control (in Experiment 3). Specifically, we show this effect with three different manipulations of power, namely a role manipulation (Experiment 1), experiential priming (Experiment 2), and parafoveal priming (Experiment 3). In the fourth experiment we uncover the mediating role of perspective taking. Together these findings provide strong evidence that powerlessness leads to metastereotyping.     

Unprejudiced and self-focused: When intergroup contact is experienced as being about the ingroup rather than the outgroup

Many problematic responses that occur in intergroup interaction, such as inhibited behavior, restricted disclosure of valuable information, and miscommunication, do not arise from negative attitudes and sometimes are more frequently exhibited by lower-prejudice individuals. Thus it is important to consider how lower-prejudice individuals respond to methods for improving intergroup relations that have been investigated with the prejudiced person in mind. Two studies tested the hypothesis that for lower-prejudice individuals intergroup contact is experienced as being about the ingroup rather than the outgroup, and thus fails to exert its usual effect of paving the way for more positive subsequent intergroup exchanges. As predicted, for individuals seeking to be unbiased an initial exchange with one outgroup member affected feelings about ingroup worthiness, but not reactions to a subsequently encountered outgroup member. The opposite pattern was evident for higher-prejudice individuals, who readily generalized from their experience with one outgroup member to the next.     

Inherent biases in decision support systems: the influence of optimistic and pessimistic DSS on choice,affect, and attitudes

This study investigates the influence of a decision aid on decision makers' model‐based choices, emotions during the use of the model, and attitudes towards the model. A time allocation decision model was biased to purposefully provide optimistic or pessimistic criterion levels, on which subjects based their allocations. The results of our experiment indicate that the degree of “optimism” and “pessimism” inherent in the decision model had a significant impact on the decision maker's choices of criterion values, with optimism leading to higher criterion level choices and pessimism to lower levels. Furthermore, compared to pessimistic models, optimistic models significantly improved the decision makers' emotional states and, to some degree, their attitudes towards the decision aid. The implications of these conscious and sub‐conscious influences on decision makers' choices, emotions, and attitudes are discussed and the need for model‐builders and users to be aware of them is highlighted. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practical Reasons, Practical Rationality, Practical Wisdom

There are a number of proposals as to exactly how reasons, ends and rationality are related. It is often thought that practical reasons can be analyzed in terms of practical rationality, which, in turn, has something to do with the pursuit of ends. I want to argue against the conceptual priority of rationality and the pursuit of ends, and in favor of the conceptual priority of reasons. This case comes in two parts. I first argue for a new conception of ends by which all ends are had under the guise of reasons. I then articulate a sense of rationality, procedural rationality, that is connected with the pursuit of ends so conceived, where one is rational to the extent that one is motivated to act in accordance with reasons as they appear to be. Unfortunately, these conceptions of ends and procedural rationality are inadequate for building an account of practical reasons, though I try to explain why it is that the rational pursuit of ends generates intuitive but misleading accounts of genuine normative reasons. The crux of the problem is an insensitivity to an is-seems distinction, where procedural rationality concerns reasons as they appear, and what we are after is a substantive sense of rationality that concerns reasons as they are. Based on these distinct senses of rationality, and some disambiguation of what it is to have a reason, I offer a critique of internalist analyses of one’s reasons in terms of the motivational states of one’s ideal, procedurally rational self, and I offer an alternative analysis of one’s practical reasons in terms of practical wisdom that overcomes objections to related reasons externalist views. The resulting theory is roughly Humean about procedural rationality and roughly Aristotelian about reasons, capturing the core truths of both camps.

Translation and Standardization of the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale (SRES-B) on a German Sample

This study presents a German-language version of the sex-role egalitarianism scale (SRES-B) L. A. King, & D. W. King, 1993]. The SRES measures a person’s attitude toward egalitarianism between women and men. It has been normed on different populations, but there was no German version of the scale. The purpose of the present study was to translate and assess the psychometric properties of the SRES-B on a German population (n=379). As expected, sex, age, and educational level affected the scores of individuals on the scale. The results of factor analyses of the domain scores and correlations of subscales demonstrate a unidimensionality of the construct. The quality of the psychometric properties of items and scale was satisfactory. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.The research was conducted as part of the author’s master thesis, while at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany.     

Bias at school: Perceptions of racial/ethnic discrimination among Latino and European American children

Latino and White/European American children (N = 99; 5–11 years of age) participated in a study designed to examine their perceptions of racial/ethnic discrimination in educational settings. Children heard scenarios involving two children of different races/ethnicities, one who received a more positive outcome from a teacher than the other. Children were then asked about the reasons for the differential outcomes. The role of (a) situational information (i.e., the race/ethnicity of the children and teacher in the story, and information about the teacher's past choices); (b) social-cognitive abilities (i.e., theory of mind); and (c) child characteristics (i.e., child's race/ethnicity and racial/ethnic attitudes) in facilitating children's attributions to discrimination was assessed. Results indicated that children most frequently attributed differential outcomes to the quality of work or the ability of students. Children were most likely to make an attribution to discrimination when the teacher rewarded a same-race/ethnicity child and had a history of similar behavior. Children's attention to situational information was moderated, however, by their social-cognitive abilities. Children's own race/ethnicity and ethnic attitudes also affected their perceptions of discrimination.     

Organizational socialization tactics and newcomer proactive behaviors: An integrative study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organizational socialization tactics, newcomers’ self-efficacy, proactive behaviors, and socialization outcomes. Based on a sample of 140 co-op university students who completed surveys at the end of their work term, the results indicated that newcomers’ self-efficacy and institutionalized socialization tactics were positively related to newcomer proactive behaviors. The results also indicated that newcomer proactive behaviors partially mediated the relationship between their self-efficacy and organizational socialization tactics with a number of proximal and distal socialization outcomes. Furthermore, feedback-seeking and information-seeking moderated the relationship between socialization tactics and several socialization outcomes. Institutionalized socialization tactics were more strongly related to socialization outcomes for newcomers who engaged in less feedback-seeking and information-seeking behavior. These results support an interactionist approach to organizational socialization in which newcomers’ self-efficacy, proactive behavior, and organizational socialization tactics all contribute to newcomers’ adjustment and socialization.     

Are members of low status groups perceived as bad, or badly off? Egalitarian negative associations and automatic prejudice

Three studies explored the hypothesis that implicit measures of prejudice can tap negative, yet egalitarian associations. In Study 1, automatically associating African Americans with oppression predicted greater automatic prejudice. In Studies 2 and 3, classically conditioning associations between the novel group Noffians and words like oppressed, maltreated, and victimized led to greater automatic prejudice against Noffians. Results suggest that White Americans’ negative automatic associations with African Americans may partly result from associating members of low status groups with unfair circumstances. Because automatic associations predict prejudiced behaviors, the burden of proof is on those wishing to argue that egalitarian negative associations complicate the assessment of automatic attitudes rather than contribute to prejudiced responses. Discussion focuses on the implications of egalitarian negative associations for the theory and measurement of automatic prejudice.     

The influence of experimentally created extrapersonal associations on the Implicit Association Test

We examined the influence of extrapersonal associations (Olson & Fazio, 2004)—associations that neither form the basis of the attitude nor become activated automatically in response to the object—on the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) by experimentally creating both attitudes and extrapersonal associations. The results revealed that participants who were given extrapersonal information that was inconsistent with their own attitudes were affected by this information when they later performed an IAT. They exhibited significantly reduced IAT scores compared to participants who were provided attitude-consistent extrapersonal information. This attenuation of the IAT effect occurred despite the fact that participants rated the source of the attitude-inconsistent extrapersonal information as irrational and foolish. On the other hand, the extrapersonal associations did not influence a subliminal priming measure in Experiment 1, nor a personalized version of the IAT (Olson & Fazio, 2004) in Experiment 2. These measures proved sensitive to the attitude, regardless of the congruency of the extrapersonal information.