How believing in affirmative action quotas protects White men’s self-esteem

We propose that White men derive a psychological benefit from believing that affirmative action is a quota-based policy. Three studies provide evidence that quota beliefs protect White men’s self-esteem by boosting their sense of self-competence. Study 1 found a positive relationship between quota beliefs and self-esteem that was mediated by self-perceived competence. In Studies 2 and 3, the belief in affirmative action quotas—whether measured or experimentally manipulated—protected White men’s self-esteem from self-image threatening feedback. Only participants who did not believe in quotas reported a lower self-esteem after being told they had performed poorly on an intelligence test. As in Study 1, this effect was mediated by self-perceived competence. In all, these studies suggest that the belief that affirmative action is a quota policy may persist, in part, because it benefits White mens’ self-esteem.     

Review of Research on Age Discrimination in the Employment Interview

This paper reviews the research literature on age discrimination in the employment interview and related contexts. Twenty one studies were identified which explored whether age discrimination occurs within the context of the employment interview since the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was put into law. Sixteen studies were conducted in laboratory settings. It was concluded that evidence of age discrimination in the employment interview is commonly observed in laboratory studies which do not assess the influence of other job-relevant characteristics. Laboratory studies may create too much artificiality, where the impact of qualifications is artificially minimized and the impact of irrelevant factors like age are maximized. Only 5 of the 21 studies were conducted in the field, but they found far less consequential age discrimination in the employment interview.     

Is your choice my choice? The owners’ effect on pet dogs’ (Canis lupus familiaris) performance in a food choice task

This study investigates the influence of owners on their dogs’ performance in a food choice task using either different or equal quantities of food. Fifty-four pet dogs were tested in three different conditions. In Condition 1 we evaluated their ability to choose between a large and small amount of food (quantity discrimination task). In Condition 2 dogs were again presented with a choice between the large and small food quantity, but only after having witnessed their owner favouring the small quantity. In Condition 3 dogs were given a choice between two equally small quantities of food having witnessed their owner favouring either one or the other. A strong effect of the owner on the dogs’ performance was observed. In Condition 1 dogs as a group chose significantly more often the large food quantity, thus showing their ability to solve the quantity discrimination task. After observing their owner expressing a preference for the small food quantity they chose the large quantity of food significantly less than in the independent choice situation. The tendency to conform to the owner’s choice was higher when the dogs had to choose between equally small quantities of food (Condition 3) rather than between a large and a small one (Condition 2). These results provide evidence that dogs can be influenced by their owners even when their indications are clearly in contrast with direct perceptual information, thus leading dogs to ultimately make counterproductive choices.     

Impaired, spared, and enhanced ACh efflux across the hippocampus and striatum in diencephalic amnesia is dependent on task demands

Diencephalic amnesia manifests itself through a host of neurological and memory impairments. A commonly employed animal model of diencephalic amnesia, pyrithiamine-induced thiamine deficiency (PTD), results in brain lesions and impairments similar in nature and distribution to those observed in humans with Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (WKS). In the current investigation, 2 separate experiments were conducted in which acetylcholine (ACh) efflux was assessed in the hippocampus and striatum of PTD-treated and pair-fed (PF) control male Sprague–Dawley rats. The goal was to determine under what behavioral conditions and in which brain structures ACh efflux was spared, impaired, or adaptively enhanced. In Experiment 1, rats were assessed on a spontaneous alternation task; in Experiment 2, rats were tested on a T-maze discrimination task that could be learned via a hippocampal- or striatal-based strategy. In Experiment 1, PTD-treated rats were impaired on the spontaneous alternation task and ACh efflux in the hippocampus during testing was significantly reduced, but spared in the striatum. In Experiment 2, PTD- and PF-treated rats did not differ in the number of trials to criterion, but PTD-treated rats demonstrated greater reliance upon egocentric cues to solve the task. Furthermore, ACh efflux in the striatum was greater during maze learning in the PTD-treated animals when compared to the PF animals. These results suggest that there is behavioral and systems level plasticity that can facilitate the use of alternative strategies to solve a task following diencephalic damage and WKS.     

污名现象及其心理效应

污名本质上是一种消极的刻板印象,是社会对某些个体或群体贬低性的、侮辱性的标签,对被污名者有着深刻的影响。文章从三个方面对污名的相关研究做了简要的回顾。首先介绍了几种污名的相关定义;然后介绍了污名的心理效应,包括污名他人的功能,污名对群体和个体的影响,以及社会公众对污名的态度和应对过程;第三介绍了两个污名研究的主要领域：一个是污名群体知觉、应对歧视规律的污名歧视研究,另一个是可隐匿污名的相关研究,如隐匿污名的心理过程,隐匿的情绪反应以及揭示污名的心理意义等。最后,提出了未来研究的几点展望,可隐匿污名的相关研究,内隐社会认知研究和消除污名消极影响的干预研究     

Cerebellar contributions to tactile perception in people with varying sensorimotor experiences: Examining the sensory acquisition hypothesis

The sensory acquisition hypothesis states that the sensory demand of a task is the most crucial factor in determining the level of cerebellar activity. The present study was conducted to examine whether the prediction of sensory demand holds when participants have different sensorimotor training experiences. Archery athletes and non-athletic control participants were asked to perform tactile discrimination tasks during fMRI scanning. In archery athletes, a pattern of reduced cerebellar activation accompanying higher sensory cortical activity was observed, whereas in non-athletic control participants the visual network was found to be in concert with extensive cerebellar activation. These findings are in accordance with the prediction that the cerebellum plays a supportive role for the cerebral cortex in sensory data acquisition.     

What goes up may come down: perceptual process and knowledge access in the organization of complex visual patterns by young infants

The relationship between perceptual categorization and organization processes in 3‐ to 4‐month‐old infants was explored. The question was whether an invariant part abstracted during category learning could interfere with Gestalt organizational processes. Experiment 1 showed that the infants could parse a circle in accord with good continuation from visual patterns consisting of a circle and a complex polygon. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, this parsing was interfered with by a prior category familiarization experience in which infants were presented with visual patterns consisting of a pacman shape and a complex polygon. Part 1 of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the infants recognized the pacman as familiar, and Part 2 demonstrated that the representation of the pacman blocked the subsequent parsing of the circle. The results suggest that a cognitive system of flexible feature creation can override organizational principles with which a perceptual system may come pre‐equipped.     

Bilingual exposure influences infant VOT perception

Linking the discrimination of voice onset time (VOT) in infancy with infant language background, we examine the perceptual changes of two VOT contrasts (/b/-/p/ and /p^h/-/p/) by Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants from 8 to 15 months of age. Results showed that language exposure and language dominance had a strong impact on monolingual and bilingual infant VOT perceptual patterns. In addition, perceptual turbulence was found at 8–9 months for bilingual infants, and stabilized perception was presented for all infants from 11 months onwards. We thus report a general input-driven developmental VOT perception in both monolingual and bilingual infants, with perceptual turbulence for bilinguals in the second half of the first year of life.     

Effects of discriminatory interview questions and gender on applicant reactions

Justice and signalling theory were used to explain the effects of discriminatory interview questions on applicant reactions. Participants were randomly assigned to a hypothetical interview condition with four, two or no discriminatory questions. Discriminatory questions had a significant negative effect on participant’s reactions to the interview and interviewer; perceptions of employee treatment; and intentions to pursue employment, accept a job offer, and recommend the organization to others. Participants also responded less favorably to a female interviewer, and female interviewees reported more negative perceptions. In addition, a sequential model was supported in which discriminatory questions had a negative effect on reactions toward the interview and interviewer; reactions were positively related to organizational attractiveness; and organizational attractiveness was positively related to intentions to pursue employment, accept a job offer, and recommend the organization.     

On the law of Regular Minimality: Reply to Ennis

Ennis's critique touches on issues important for psychophysics, but the points he makes against the hypothesis that Regular Minimality is a basic property of sensory discrimination are not tenable.(1) Stimulus variability means that one and the same apparent stimulus value (as measured by experimenter) is a probabilistic mixture of true stimulus values. The notion of a true stimulus value is a logical necessity: variability and distribution presuppose the values that vary and are distributed (even if these values are represented by processes or sets rather than real numbers). Regular Minimality is formulated for true stimulus values. That a mixture of probabilities satisfying Regular Minimality does not satisfy this principle (unless it also satisfies Constant Self-Similarity) is an immediate consequence of my 2003 analysis. Stimulus variability can be controlled or estimated: the cases when observed violations of Regular Minimality can be accounted for by stimulus variability corroborate rather than falsify this principle. In this respect stimulus variability is no different from fatigue, perceptual learning, and other factors creating mixtures of discrimination probabilities in an experiment.(2) Could it be that well-behaved Thurstonian-type models are true models of discrimination but their parameters are so adjusted that the violations of Regular Minimality they lead to (due to my 2003 theorems) are too small to be detected experimentally? This is possible, but this amounts to admitting that Regular Minimality is a law after all, albeit only approximate: nothing in the logic of the Thurstonian-type representations per se prevents them from violating Regular Minimality grossly rather than slightly. Moreover, even very small violations predicted by a given class of Thurstonian-type models can be tested in specially designed experiments (perhaps under additional, independently testable assumptions). The results of one such experiment, in which observers were asked to alternately adjust to each other the values of stimuli in two observation areas, indicate that violations of Regular Minimality, if any, are far below limits of plausible interpretability.