Compensating for an Inattentive Audience

The common ground that conversational partners share is thought to form the basic context for language use. According to the classic view, inferences about common ground, or mutual knowledge, are guided by beliefs about the physical, cognitive, and attentional states of one's communicative partners. Here, we provide a first test of the attention assumption for common ground, the proposal that common ground for a co‐present entity—such as an object or an utterance—can only be formed if a person has evidence that his or her partner has also attended to it. In three experiments, a participant speaker and two partners learned names for novel monster pictures as a group. The speaker was then asked to describe the monsters to each partner separately in a referential communication task. The critical manipulation was the (in)attentiveness of one partner at different points in the study. Analysis of the speaker's referring expressions revealed that speakers assumed their partner shared common ground for the monster names only when that partner exhibited engaged attention as the names were learned. These findings provide key and novel support for the classic proposal that formation of common ground critically depends on assumptions about the attentional state of one's conversational partner.     

Producing Pronouns and Definite Noun Phrases: Do Speakers Use the Addressee’s Discourse Model?

We report two experiments that investigated the widely held assumption that speakers use the addressee's discourse model when choosing referring expressions (e.g., Ariel, 1990; Chafe, 1994; Givón, 1983; Prince, 1985), by manipulating whether the addressee could hear the immediately preceding linguistic context. Experiment 1 showed that speakers increased pronoun use (and decreased noun phrase use) when the referent was mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence compared to when it was not, even though the addressee did not hear the preceding sentence, indicating that speakers used their own, privileged discourse model when choosing referring expressions. The same pattern of results was found in Experiment 2. Speakers produced more pronouns when the immediately preceding sentence mentioned the referent than when it mentioned a referential competitor, regardless of whether the sentence was shared with their addressee. Thus, we conclude that choice of referring expression is determined by the referent's accessibility in the speaker's own discourse model rather than the addressee's.     

The more, the merrier? Numerical strength versus subgroup distinctiveness in minority groups

Evidence attests to the efforts made by minority groups to defend and promote ‘distinctive’ attributes that potentially define the ingroup. However, these attributes are often only available to a prototypical minority within the minority category. In two studies we tested the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, large projected increases in the numerical strength of a ‘distinctive’ attribute (emotional intelligence in Study 1; ingroup language in Study 2) within a minority category can paradoxically evoke less-than-positive reactions from those who already have the attribute. Findings confirmed that while a large projected increase in the numerical strength of a ‘distinctive’ attribute was viewed positively when the comparative context focused on the inter-category relation with a majority outgroup, this increase was viewed less positively, and as undermining their own identity, in a narrower intra-category context. Implications for identity management strategies in minority groups are discussed.     

Recognizing discrimination explicitly while denying it implicitly: Implicit social identity protection

Past research suggests that members of devalued groups recognize their groups are discriminated against. Do the implicit responses of members of these groups demonstrate the same pattern? We argue that they do not and that this is due to a motivated protection of members of devalued groups' social identity. Study 1 demonstrates that, at an explicit level African-Canadians recognize that their group is discriminated against, but at an implicit level African-Canadians think that most people like their group to a greater extent than do European-Canadians. Study 2 replicates this implicit finding with Muslim participants while demonstrating that, when affirmed, this group difference disappears. Study 3 demonstrates that implicit normative regard can predict collective action over and above implicit attitudes and explicit normative regard. The implications for changing the status quo are discussed.     

Shared space: Different age groups’ perspectives

BackgroundShared spaces, in the context of road transport, often refer to areas shared by unprotected and protected road users and intended to facilitate a living city space for every-one. A basic idea behind shared spaces is to create traffic safety by inducing some uncertainty. This study investigates how young, middle-aged, and elderly pedestrians experience shared space, as well as whether and, if so, how two shared space designs (without and with large flowerpots) affect this experience.MethodThirty-seven participants, divided into three age groups, participated in the study, conducted in Fisherman’s Square, Västervik, Sweden. An adjacent non-signal-regulated pedestrian crossing was used as a control. Two studies – visual scanning and Q studies – were combined. In the visual scanning study, eye-tracking examined how the two designs affected the participants’ visual scanning behaviour (i.e., what participants looked at) as pedestrians. In the Q-study, Q-methodology was used to examine how the two designs affected the participants’ experiences as pedestrians.ResultsThe visual scanning study showed that different age groups were affected in different ways by designs without and with large flowerpots in the shared space. While the middle-aged participants always glanced more often at traffic-relevant objects, and young participants always glanced equally often at traffic-relevant and non-traffic-relevant objects, the elderly participants changed their visual scanning behaviour depending on the design. Without large flowerpots deployed, the elderly participants glanced more often at traffic-relevant than non-traffic-relevant objects. No such difference was obtained when large flowerpots were deployed. The Q-study showed that participants, regardless of age, experienced no great uncertainty in this shared space. The perceived uncertainty, which nevertheless existed, was reduced with large flowerpots deployed to recreate the traditional division with clear zones where pedestrians could stay in relatively car-free areas while motor vehicles had clear paths to travel along.ConclusionThe results suggest that shared space, without large flowerpots, succeeded in inducing some uncertainty, especially among middle-aged and elderly pedestrians. However, deploying large flowerpots seemed to decrease this uncertainty, especially among elderly pedestrians. The major concern prompted by these results is how this decreased uncertainty affects traffic safety. Shared space also needs to be studied from the car driver’s perspective to understand the interaction between different road user groups.     

Searching for certainty: Religious beliefs and intolerance toward value-violating groups

Religiosity has been consistently linked to prejudice toward a variety of outgroups. This article proposes that this is the case only when religiosity reflects a specific aspect of seeking guidance and security in daily practices and complex sociocultural norms. Outgroups that challenge the epistemic certainty that belief in God provides are rejected in an effort to protect this certainty. The results from two studies found that uncertainty avoidance was related to belief in God and this belief mediated the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and intolerance within the context of general human rights (Study 1), and the derogation of value-violating groups (e.g., homosexuals or followers of other religions) but not of groups that pose no threat to religious values (old or poor people) (Study 2). The interpretative dimension of religiosity (i.e., the way in which people process religious content) is not connected to security seeking, as reflected in the lack of a correlation with uncertainty avoidance and with different prejudice measures. The results are discussed in relation to past research on religiosity and prejudice, and suggest that for people who avoid uncertainty, only those types of religious beliefs that provide a sense of certainty are linked with intolerance toward value-violating groups.     

Unfamiliar face matching: Pairs out‐perform individuals and provide a route to training

Matching unfamiliar faces is known to be difficult. Here, we ask whether performance can be improved by asking viewers to work in pairs, a manipulation known to increase accuracy for low‐level visual discrimination tasks. Across four experiments we consistently find that face matching accuracy is higher for pairs of viewers than for individuals. This ‘pairs advantage’ is generally driven by adopting the response of the higher scoring partner. However, when the task becomes difficult, both partners' performance is improved by working in a pair. In two experiments, we find evidence that working in a pair can lead to subsequent improvements in individual performance, specifically for viewers whose accuracy is initially low. The pairs' technique therefore offers the opportunity for substantial improvements in face matching performance, along with an added training benefit.     

Male Emotional Intimacy: How Therapeutic Men's Groups Can Enhance Couples Therapy

Men's difficulty with emotional intimacy is a problem that therapists regularly encounter in working with heterosexual couples in therapy. The first part of this article describes historical and cultural factors that contribute to this dilemma in men's marriages and same-sex friendships. Therapeutic men's groups can provide a corrective experience for men, helping them to develop emotional intimacy skills while augmenting their work in couples therapy. A model for such groups is presented, including guidelines for referral, screening, and collaboration with other therapists. Our therapeutic approach encourages relationship-based learning through direct emotional expression and supportive feedback. We emphasize the development of friendship skills , core attributes of friendship ( connection, communication, commitment, and cooperation ) that contribute to emotional intimacy in men's relationships. Case examples are included to illustrate how this model works in clinical practice, as well as specific suggestions for further study that could lead to a more evidence-based practice.     

From Mecca with tolerance: religion,social recategorisation and social capital

Does participation in mass religious rituals promote intergroup conflict or does it promote intergroup tolerance? We assess these claims by examining the effects of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) on sociopolitical views of Muslims in Russia’s North Caucasus. Participant observation during the hajj and a quasi-experimental focus group study of pilgrims and non-pilgrims produced paradoxical findings. While the hajj strengthened their ingroup pride as Muslims, the pilgrims came through as more outgroup-tolerant and prosocial than the non-pilgrims. We develop a synthetic theoretical solution: in high-identity-value, high-diversity common group settings social recategorisation and social capital become transitive – that is, inclusive views and social capital effects within an ingroup extend to outgroups. This means that intergroup conflict could be reduced by not only maximising contact across conflicting groups, but also by bringing together as many subgroups as possible within each conflicting group in settings where their common identity is positively affirmed in a non-discriminatory fashion.     

Common future and personal responsibilities: A comparison between Italian and Burundian students

The political, social, and cultural history of a nation modulates the representations of rights and duties. The aim of this research is to compare students from two countries (Italy and Burundi) in terms of how they define their rights and duties. In the two countries, there are differences both in the legal protection of fundamental rights and in regard to material conditions, which in turn ensure the effectiveness of rights. Focus groups structured around nine questions were conducted in Burundi and in Italy. The discussions with Italian and Burundian students showed some clear differences. Although both groups speak of rights as something to be safeguarded and something that everyone is born with, Italian students do not recognize the complementarity of rights and duties and consider the latter simply as a limit and an obstacle to individual enhancement. On the contrary, Burundian adolescents seem more aware of their personal responsibilities and their role in protecting human rights.