Familiarity with and social distance from people with mental illness: Testing the mediating effects of prejudiced attitudes

The purpose of this study was to examine prejudiced attitudes as a factor associated with social distance from people with mental illness. A total of 289 university students from Greece completed written measures assessing social distance from, prejudiced attitudes about, and familiarity with mental illness. A structural equation model with manifest variables was tested. Participants who reported to be more familiar with mental illness held stronger social care and weaker prejudiced beliefs, and consequently expressed a less strong desire for social distance. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are outlined. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiating Islamophobia: Introducing a New Scale to Measure Islamoprejudice and Secular Islam Critique

Since 2001 there has been a steadily increasing awareness of discrimination against Muslims based on their religion. Despite the widespread use of the neologism Islamophobia to refer to this phenomenon, this term has been harshly criticized for confounding prejudiced views of Muslims with a legitimate critique of Muslim practices based on secular grounds. In the current research a scale was developed to differentiate Islamoprejudice (based on the influential Islamophobia definition of the British Runnymede Trust) and Secular Critique of Islam. Across two studies, Islamoprejudice was related to explicit and implicit prejudice, right‐wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation whereas Secular Critique was unrelated to any forms of prejudice but negatively related to religiosity and authoritarianism. The two scales were mostly independent or only moderately related. Importantly, the new Islamoprejudice scale outperformed all other scales in predicting actual opposition versus support for a heatedly debated, newly built mosque. These results demonstrate the necessity to differentiate between Islamoprejudice and Secular Critique in future research on attitudes towards Islam.     

Secondary Transfer Effect of Intergroup Contact: The Role of Intergroup Attitudes,Intergroup Anxiety and Perspective Taking

We conducted a field study to investigate the secondary transfer effect of intergroup contact, consisting in the generalisation of the positive effects of intergroup contact to outgroups uninvolved in the contact situation. Italian secondary school students (N = 175) filled out a questionnaire; the effects of prior contact were statistically controlled. Results showed that contact with immigrants improved attitudes toward them. In turn, these attitudes generalised to attitudes toward two dissimilar outgroups not directly involved in contact: disabled and homosexuals. Notably, we found evidence for a secondary transfer effect of intergroup anxiety and perspective taking, which generalised from immigrants to the disabled and homosexuals. Evidence was found for the mediating role of intergroup attitudes, intergroup anxiety and perspective taking. The theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prejudice Against Muslim Australians: The Role of Values,Gender and Consensus

Data from an Australian community survey (n = 189) examining the predictors of prejudice against Muslim Australians were analysed. Using thematic analysis, we investigated the specific values our participants reported regarding their perceptions of Muslim Australians and Islam. We then investigated the relationship between prejudice against Muslim Australians, the most important value priorities given by our participants, and other prejudice‐related variables. After entry into a regression analysis, the participants high in prejudice were found to be significantly more likely to have lower educational levels and more right‐wing views. They were also significantly more likely to report high levels of national attitudes (i.e. stronger identification with Australian identity), concern about gender equality within the Muslim community, less concern about equality generally and report that Muslims were not conforming to Australian values. High prejudiced participants also scored higher in the reporting of negative media‐related beliefs, were more likely to perceive higher support in the community for their views than was the case and were more negative towards Muslim men than Muslim women. The implications for anti‐prejudice interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Problems of Measuring Character and Personality

The present study examined whether expressed acceptance of a person with AIDS reflects genuine acceptance or a desire to appear to be accepting. Theory and research on the effects of mortality salience on acceptance of stigmatized people provided the framework for investigating this question. After writing about death or another aversive topic, participants indicated their acceptance of a target with AIDS while connected to physiological equipment that they believed could detect lies (bogus pipeline) or was simply measuring physiological responses to participation in the study. As predicted, participants in the mortality salience/bogus pipeline condition indicated significantly less acceptance of the target with AIDS than participants in the other three conditions, suggesting that acceptance of a person with AIDS is at least partially a result of wanting to appear to be accepting, without necessarily genuinely accepting someone with AIDS.     

"That's so gay!" Priming the general negative usage of the word gay increases implicit anti-gay bias

One of the most recent uses of the term gay is to refer to things as negative in general, detached from explicit reference to gay individuals. Research has shown that exposure to explicitly homonegative speech can increase anti-gay bias; however, the effect of more ambivalent homonegative speech on implicit attitudes has not yet been explored. Despite the conscious disassociation between both meanings of the word, given previous studies on priming and automaticity, an association was expected at an automatic level. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of priming the general negative usage of gay on participants' implicit attitudes towards gay individuals, as measured by the Implicit Association Test. Results revealed that exposure to the general negative usage of gay increased implicit anti-gay bias.     

Perpetrators' Freedom of Choice as a Determinant of Responsibility Attribution

Abstract

In the present study, a swindler had high versus low freedom of choice while deciding to commit a crime. He actually swindled Polish university students (involved observers) out of a large versus a small amount of money (high vs. low loss). Other students (noninvolved observers) were informed about the swindler's action. All students suggested the punishment that they believed the swindler deserved (the punishments chosen were used as an index of responsibility attribution). Involved students assigned more severe punishments than noninvolved students did. In the high-loss condition, involved observers were more punitive than they were in the low-loss condition. The judgments of the swindler's victims were determined by the magnitude of their loss; they ignored information about the swindler's freedom of choice. In contrast, the responsibility attributed by the noninvolved observers was influenced by the swindler's freedom of choice, but only in the low-loss condition. Noninvolved observers informed that the swindler had high freedom of choice were insensitive to information about the magnitude of the consequences for the victim.     

The Bibliographic Contour of Social Psychology

ABSTRACT

The stereotype content model (SCM) posits that warmth and competence are the key components underlying judgments about social groups. Because competence can encompass different components (e.g., intelligence, talent) different group members may be perceived to be competent for different reasons. Therefore, we believe it may be important to specify the type of competence being assessed when examining perceptions of groups that are positively stereotyped (i.e., Black athletes and musical Blacks). Consistent with the SCM, these subgroups were perceived as high in competence-talent but not in competence-intelligence and low in warmth. Both the intelligence and talent frame of competence fit in the SCM's social structural hypothesis.     

Student Prejudice Against Gay Male and Lesbian Lecturers

Abstract

The authors examined whether gay men and lesbians are evaluated more negatively than individuals of unspecified sexual orientation when attributional ambiguity surrounds evaluations and whether they are evaluated similarly to unspecified others when no attributional ambiguity is present. One male and one female lecturer delivered either a strong or a weak lecture to students who either (a) believed that the lecturer was a gay man or a lesbian or (b) did not receive sexual orientation information. Contrary to predictions, the quality of the lecture did not influence the ratings of known gay male and lesbian lecturers, although lecture quality strongly influenced ratings of lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After strong lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more negatively than they did lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After weak lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more positively than they did the others. The authors discussed the possibility that students might moderate their ratings to avoid discriminating against gay and lesbian lecturers.