Ethnicity-Related Sources of Stress and Their Effects on Well-Being

Early research on ethnicity focused on the stereotyped thinking, prejudiced attitudes, and discriminatory actions of Euro-Americans. Minority-group members were viewed largely as passive targets of these negative reactions, with low self-esteem studied as the main psychological outcome. By contrast, recent research has increasingly made explicit use of stress theory in emphasizing the perspectives and experiences of minority-group members. Several ethnicity-related stressors have been identified, and it has been found that individuals cope with these threats in an active, purposeful manner. In this article, we focus on ethnicity-related stress stemming from discrimination, from stereotypes, and from conformity pressure arising from one's own ethnic group. We discuss theory and review research in which examination of ethnicity-related outcomes has extended beyond self-esteem to include psychological and physical well-being.     

Simple discrimination in stingless bees (Melipona quadrifasciata): Probing for select‐ and reject‐stimulus control

Simple and conditional discrimination training may produce various types of controlling relations. Responses may be controlled primarily by the positive stimulus (select–control relation) or by the negative stimulus (reject–control relation; the subject excludes the negative stimulus and chooses the positive). Bees learn to respond in simple and conditional discriminations. However, no study has searched for reject–control responding in Melipona bees. We trained Melipona quadrifasciata on a simple discrimination task (S+ vs. S‐; e.g., blue vs. yellow) and then probed for stimulus control with two types of probe trials, S+ versus a new stimulus (Select–control probes) and S‐ versus a new stimulus (Reject–control probes). For Group Different, a new‐stimulus color (e.g., white) was used in one type of probe and another color (e.g., black) was used in the other type. For Group Same, a single new‐stimulus color was used in both types of probes. On Select probes, the bees always preferred S+ to the new stimulus. On Reject probes, results were mixed. Depending on the colors used in training and probing, bees responded to both stimuli, and even preferred the S‐. The data suggest no control by the negative function of the S‐ and support the select‐stimulus control hypothesis of responding.     

Are the Religiously Observant Discriminated Against in the Rental Housing Market? Experimental Evidence from Israel

In this article, I test for discrimination against the religiously observant in the Israeli rental housing market. I perform a correspondence study where half of the requests have a religious signal (“basad” written at the top of the request), while the other half do not. Because the requests are identical otherwise, differences in call‐back rates represent the causal effect of writing “basad” at the top of the request. I find that requests with a religious signal receive 12 percent fewer positive responses than requests with no such signal, with this differential being greater with female landlords and in cities with more left‐leaning voters, higher mean incomes, and higher education levels.     

Rowing together: Interpersonal coordination dynamics with and without mechanical coupling

Although most research on interpersonal coordination focuses on perceptual forms of interaction, many interpersonal actions also involve interactions of mechanical nature. We examined the effect of mechanical coupling in a rowing task from a coupled oscillator perspective: 16 pairs of rowers rowed on ergometers that were physically connected through slides (mechanical coupling condition) or on separate ergometers (no mechanical coupling condition). They rowed in two patterns (in- and antiphase) and at two movement frequencies (20 and 30 strokes per minute). Seven out of sixteen pairs showed one or more coordinative breakdowns, which only occurred in the antiphase condition. The occurrence of these breakdowns was not affected by mechanical coupling, nor by movement frequency. For the other nine pairs, variability of steady state coordination was substantially lower in the mechanical coupling condition. Together, these results show that the increase in coupling strength through mechanical coupling stabilizes coordination, even more so for antiphase coordination.     

The Janus of Diversity: May the Ideology of Individual Diversity Rationalize Social Inequalities?

Some popular ideas about diversity today emphasize the uniqueness and potential in each individual and posit that all differences across individuals count the same as long as they are “true to themselves.” These ideas saturate current antidiscrimination discourses, but their impact on what might be perceived as discrimination has hardly been tested empirically. This article argues that the direction of that impact may not be taken for granted and advances two hypotheses. First, individual diversity (ID) ideology may direct attention to the alleged psychological attributes of minority group members, rather than to social inequalities and discrimination. Secondly, ID ideology may direct attention towards discrimination only if the target is seen as “authentically unique” (the prototype of ID). Both hypotheses were tested and supported in two studies addressing Greek participants’ perceptions of immigrant children’s difficulties. Study 2 further controlled for possible mediation effects. The discussion suggests that ID ideology might paradoxically rationalize inequalities and discrimination, as well as implicitly raise elitist expectations from minority group members.     

The Politics of Biometric Standards: The Case of Israel Biometric Project

In 2017, after years of public debate, Israel ratified a national biometric project consisting of two initiatives: issuing of biometric ID cards and passports to all Israeli citizens and establishment of a centralized database for storing their bodily information. Design and implementation of a preceding four-year pilot study were accompanied by extensive standardization. Discourse and standard analyses of 33 official state documents – from legal records to performance reports – published by Israeli authorities during the pilot study, unravel the politics of biometric standards employed as part of this project. Biometric standards were used to establish hierarchies between individuals and groups by defining particular bodies as ‘biometrically ineligible.’ These individuals are mostly members of underprivileged and marginalized social groups. Biometric standards were also constructed discursively as scientific and objective to legitimize such discriminatory treatment. Israeli authorities used standards strategically, both as infrastructural elements and as a discursive means. As infrastructural elements, biometric standards were employed, inter alia, to achieve predetermined results and confirm the project’s success. As a discursive means, Israeli authorities actively adopted a ‘discourse of standardization’ to construct an objective and fair image to the project. Standardization of people – namely, quantification of lives, bodies and experiences – is inherently discriminatory because it necessarily results in the creation of categories and hierarchies between biometrically in/eligible bodies.     

High test-retest reliability of a neural index of rapid automatic discrimination of unfamiliar individual faces

An important aspect of human individual face recognition is the ability to discriminate unfamiliar individual. Since many general processes contribute to explicit behavioural performance in individual face discrimination tasks, isolating a measure of unfamiliar individual face discrimination ability in humans is challenging. In recent years, a fast periodic visual stimulation approach (FPVS) has provided objective (frequency-locked) implicit electrophysiological indices of individual face discrimination that are highly sensitive at the individual level within a few minutes of testing. Here we evaluate the test-retest reliability of this response across scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) recording sessions separated by more than two months, in the same 30 individuals. We found no test-retest difference overall across sessions in terms of amplitude and spatial distribution of the EEG individual face discrimination response. Moreover, with only 4 stimulation sequences corresponding to 4 min of recordings per session, the individual face discrimination response was highly reliable in terms of amplitude, spatial distribution, and shape. Together with previous observations, these results strengthen the diagnostic value of FPVS-EEG as an objective and rapid flag for specific difficulties at individual face recognition in the human population.     

Embracing mental illness: do education and contact make any difference in help-seeking intention among Pakistani students?

Those suffering from mental illness usually fall victim to stigmatization and the resulting discrimination. This study aims at finding out whether students differ in their attitudes based on the courses studied and previous contact with mentally ill. Using purposive sampling technique, 236 students from seven departments of University of Karachi were selected for this study. They were divided into three groups based on their educational background i.e. “psychology group”, “allied group” and “other group”. Community Attitude towards Mental Illness (CAMI) Scale along with a demographics sheet were administered to the participants. Using SPSS version 23, one-way ANOVA was carried out between educational groups and responses of CAMI sub-scales. Results indicated that in comparison to the other two groups, attitudes of psychology students were lower on authoritarianism, social restrictiveness subscales and higher on community mental health ideology subscale. Results are discussed in detail.     

Age slowing down in detection and visual discrimination under varying presentation times

The reaction time has been described as a measure of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. The aim of this work is to examine age‐related changes in executive functions in terms of demand load under varying presentation times. Two tasks were employed where a signal detection and a discrimination task were performed by young and older university students. Furthermore, a characterization of the response time distribution by an ex‐Gaussian fit was carried out. The results indicated that the older participants were slower than the younger ones in signal detection and discrimination. Moreover, the differences between both processes for the older participants were higher, and they also showed a higher distribution average except for the lower and higher presentation time. The results suggest a general slowdown in both tasks for age under different presentation times, except for the cases where presentation times were lower and higher. Moreover, if these parameters are understood to be a reflection of executive functions, these findings are consistent with the common view that age‐related cognitive deficits show a decline in this function.     

Mentoring as a Mediator or Moderator of the Association between Racial Discrimination and Coping Efficacy in Urban,Low‐Income Latina/o Youth

The aim of this study was to examine the associations among mentoring relationship quality (i.e., relational and instrumental quality), racial discrimination and coping efficacy with racial discrimination. Three social support models were tested, including the stress buffering, support mobilization, and support deterioration models. Participants were 257 urban, low‐income Latina/o high school students, who completed surveys in both 9th and 10th grades. While controlling for gender and coping efficacy with discrimination in 9th grade, results supported the social support deterioration model. Specifically, there was a significant indirect effect of racial discrimination in 9th grade on coping efficacy in 10th grade through instrumental mentoring quality. As racial discrimination increased, mentoring quality decreased and then coping efficacy decreased. We also found that more racial discrimination in 9th grade was significantly associated with lower coping efficacy in 10th grade, and higher instrumental mentoring quality in 9th grade was significantly associated with higher coping efficacy in 10th grade, while controlling for gender and coping efficacy in 9th grade. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.