Identifying “types” of ideologies and intergroup biases: Advancing a person-centred approach to social psychology

Whether it be those who are “high” on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), or a mixture of “low” on explicit, but “high” on implicit, bias, many social psychological theories predict the existence of distinct “types” of people. These assumptions are, however, untestable using variable-centred analyses. Accordingly, we argue that the time has come to utilise person-centred analyses that enable us to test these key assumptions. We open by demonstrating how to implement – and interpret – latent profile analysis (a type of person-centred analysis), using RWA and SDO as an example. We then discuss the debate over the dimensionality of political ideology to highlight the need for person-centred analyses. Next, we review person-centred approaches to political ideology and highlight recent work using person-centred analyses to assess key assumptions of ambivalent sexism and relative deprivation. We conclude by discussing limitations to person-centred approaches and by providing suggestions for future research.     

I Dig Therefore We Are: Community Archaeology,Place‐based Social Identity,and Intergroup Relations Within Local Communities

Community involvement in archaeological digs aims to reconnect people with the history and heritage of where they live. This paper applies social psychological theories to understand how community archaeological projects create opportunities for place‐based social identity and positive intergroup relations. Focus groups were conducted across five areas of Greater Manchester (UK) with 24 participants who volunteered for Dig Greater Manchester, a community archaeology initiative. The focus groups aimed to understand how experiences of participating in digs and exploring local heritage modified, strengthened or initiated identification with place and community, thus moving from individual levels to social levels of identity. The findings offer insight as to the ways in which people make sense of their own—and others'—place‐based social identities as a result of participating in community archaeological digs . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A healing relationship: Clients’ experiences of the long-term relational significance of the horse in horse assisted psychotherapy

Horse assisted psychotherapy is a type of treatment for mental ill-health in which the client forms a relationship with a horse. Research suggests that the relationship to a horse is very helpful to clients, but how the horse is experienced many years after the end of treatment has not been investigated. The aim of the present study was thus to investigate how former clients from horse assisted psychotherapy experienced the horse several years after treatment was completed. Former clients (n = 5; all females) from one and the same treatment center were interviewed and the data was analyzed with an inductive thematic approach. The analysis showed that many years after completion of treatment, the horses were still remembered as the most important individuals in the informants’ lives during the time of treatment. This was captured by the core category ‘A healing relationship’. These findings are in line with previous research that found that patients in horse assisted psychotherapy and their family members attributed improvements from treatment to the patients’ relationship to the horses, but adds that the clients also keep these views at follow-up several years after termination of treatment.     

The oedipal wound in two stories by Kafka: The Metamorphosis and A Country Doctor

Kafka read Freud and was interested in psychoanalysis but believed there was no ‘cure’ for what was essentially the problem of living. As always with creative artists, the writer is his own psychoanalyst, and the actual process of writing is his means of self-revelation. The aim of this paper is to consider, in relation to two stories (The Metamorphosis and A Country Doctor), Kafka’s use of this background oedipal conflict with his father or received values (the ‘law’) as a springboard for the type of wound that results in creative writing. The wound for him became a kind of personal myth, and was also associated with other painful stimuli, including his tuberculosis and his troubled love affairs, but above all with his identity as a writer. The writing process and the ‘faith-value’ it demands is an underlying metaphor behind these narratives of Kafka’s ‘dream-like inner life’. There are parallels here with Bion’s psychoanalytic philosophy of ‘suffering’ and ‘psyche-lodgement’.     

When is a compliment not a compliment? Evaluating expressions of positive stereotypes

Unlike negative stereotypes, positive stereotypes are often perceived as admirable qualities, and expressions of such beliefs may be intended as compliments toward group members. Two experiments were conducted to examine how the targets of positive stereotypes evaluate others who express such stereotypic “compliments.” In Study 1, Black participants evaluated a White student who praised the athletic ability of African Americans more negatively than a control condition. In Study 2, Black and White participants watched an interracial interaction that involved the White actor expressing positive stereotypes or a control interaction with no stereotypes. In the positive stereotype condition, Black participants evaluated the White actor and the interaction as a whole more negatively than did White participants, but there were no differences in the control condition. The implications for the perpetuation of interracial distrust and avoidance are discussed.     

Common control by compound samples in conditional discriminations

We tested whether teaching control by single stimulus samples in conditional discriminations would result in common control of two-stimuli compound samples, and vice versa. In Experiment 1, 5 participants were first taught four single-sample conditional discriminations. The first conditional discrimination was as follows: given sample stimulus P1, select comparison stimulus A1 and not A2; given sample P2 select comparison A2 and not A1. The second conditional discrimination was as follows: given sample P1 select comparison B1 and not B2; given sample P2 select B2 and not B1. Different sample stimuli (Q1 and Q2) were used in the third and fourth conditional discriminations. Moreover, A1 and B1 were presented together as comparisons, such that, if Q1 was presented as the sample, A1 was correct and B1 was incorrect; and if Q2 was presented as the sample, B1 was correct and A1 was incorrect. A2 and B2 were also presented as comparisons. When Q1 was presented, A2 was correct and when Q2 was presented B2 was correct. After training with these four single stimulus sample discriminations, participants were tested with compound PQ samples presented with A1, A2, B1, and B2 as comparisons. If common control were established by the PQ stimuli, a participant would select A1 when P1Q1 was presented, A2 when P2Q1 was presented, B1 when P1Q2 was presented, and B2 when P2Q2 was presented. Such common control by PQ samples occurred in 4 of 5 participants. In Experiment 2, 4 participants were given reverse training. They were first taught to select the A1, A2, B1, and B2 stimuli in response to the appropriate PQ combinations and then probed on the single stimulus sample discriminations. All 4 participants were successful on this probe. Experiments 3 and 4 investigated the effects of teaching additional conditional discriminations with novel stimuli on subsequent transfer from the single-sample discriminations to performance on the compound-sample conditional discrimination.     

MODELING RELATIONS

In the ordinary way of representing relations, the order of the relata plays a structural role, but in the states themselves such an order often does not seem to be intrinsically present. An alternative way to represent relations makes use of positions for the arguments. This is no problem for the love relation, but for relations like the adjacency relation and cyclic relations, different assignments of objects to the positions can give exactly the same states. This is a puzzling situation. The question is what is the internal structure of relations? Is the use of positions still justified, and if so, what is their ontological status? In this paper mathematical models for relations are developed that provide more insight into the structure of relations “out there” in the real world.     

ASSOCIATIVE SYMMETRY,ANTISYMMETRY, AND A THEORY OF PIGEONS' EQUIVALENCE‐CLASS FORMATION

Five experiments assessed associative symmetry in pigeons. In Experiments 1A, 1B and 2, pigeons learned two‐alternative symbolic matching with identical sample‐ and comparison‐response requirements and with matching stimuli appearing in all possible locations. Despite controlling for the nature of the functional stimuli and insuring all requisite discriminations, there was little or no evidence for symmetry. By contrast, Experiment 3 demonstrated symmetry in successive (go/no‐go) matching, replicating the findings of Frank and Wasserman (2005). In view of these results, I propose that in successive matching, (1) the functional stimuli are stimulus‐temporal location compounds, (2) continual nonreinforcement of some sample‐comparison combinations juxtaposed with reinforcement of other combinations throughout training facilitates stimulus class formation, (3) classes consist of the elements of the reinforced combinations, and (4) common elements produce class merger. The theory predicts that particular sets of training relations should yield “antisymmetry”: Pigeons should respond more to a reversal of the nonreinforced symbolic baseline relations than to a reversal of the reinforced relations. Experiment 4 confirmed this counterintuitive prediction. These results and other theoretical implications support the idea that equivalence relations are a natural consequence of reinforcement contingencies.     

The small improvement argument

It is commonly assumed that moral deliberation requires that the alternatives available in a choice situation are evaluatively comparable. This comparability assumption is threatened by claims of incomparability, which is often established by means of the small improvement argument (SIA). In this paper I argue that SIA does not establish incomparability in a stricter sense. The reason is that it fails to distinguish incomparability from a kind of evaluative indeterminacy which may arise due to the vagueness of the evaluative comparatives ‘better than,’ ‘worse than,’ and ‘equally as good as.’     

Moderators of the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity

This study, which involved two waves of measurement over a period of 12 months, examined first whether the positive association between relational aggression and two types of high status was moderated by social self-efficacy, leadership, cooperation, and peer sociability. It was expected that relational aggressors are most likely to gain high peer group status when they are also self-efficacious or prosocial. Second, this study examined the reciprocal association between relational aggression and high peer status. It was anticipated that relational aggression would contribute to higher perceived popularity and vice versa. Third, we also examined and hypothesized reciprocal effects between social self-efficacy, leadership, cooperation, and peer sociability and perceived popularity. Youth were 540 13-15 year olds participating in Grade 7 (Time 1) and again 1 year later in Grade 8 (Time 2). Data were collected from peers, teachers, and the adolescents themselves. Consistent with expectations, relationally aggressive adolescents high in social self-efficacy, leadership, cooperation, and peer sociability were higher in status than relationally aggressive individuals with low levels of these characteristics. In addition, relational aggression and perceived popularity reciprocally influenced each other. Finally, social self-efficacy, leadership, cooperation, and peer sociability reciprocally influenced and were influenced by perceived popularity.