Property and prejudice: How racial attitudes and social‐evaluative concerns shape property appraisals

Property evaluations rarely occur in the absence of social context. However, no research has investigated how intergroup processes related to prejudice extend to concepts of property. In the present research, we propose that factors such as group status, prejudice and pressure to mask prejudiced attitudes affect how people value the property of racial ingroup and outgroup members. In Study 1, White American and Asian American participants were asked to appraise a hand‐painted mug that was ostensibly created by either a White or an Asian person. Asian participants demonstrated an ingroup bias. White participants showed an outgroup bias, but this effect was qualified. Specifically, among White participants, higher racism towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of mugs created by Asian people. Study 2 revealed that White Americans' prejudice towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of the mug created by an Asian person only when participants were highly concerned about conveying a non‐prejudiced personal image. Our results suggest that, ironically, prejudiced majority group members evaluate the property of minority group members whom they dislike more favourably. The current findings provide a foundation for melding intergroup relations research with research on property and ownership.     

Control by reinforcers across time and space: A review of recent choice research

Reinforcers affect behavior. A fundamental assumption has been that reinforcers strengthen the behavior they follow, and that this strengthening may be context‐specific (stimulus control). Less frequently discussed, but just as evident, is the observation that reinforcers have discriminative properties that also guide behavior. We review findings from recent research that approaches choice using nontraditional procedures, with a particular focus on how choice is affected by reinforcers, by time since reinforcers, and by recent sequences of reinforcers. We also discuss how conclusions about these results are impacted by the choice of measurement level and display. Clearly, reinforcers as traditionally considered are conditionally phylogenetically important to animals. However, their effects on behavior may be solely discriminative, and contingent reinforcers may not strengthen behavior. Rather, phylogenetically important stimuli constitute a part of a correlated compound stimulus context consisting of stimuli arising from the organism, from behavior, and from physiologically detected environmental stimuli. Thus, the three‐term contingency may be seen, along with organismic state, as a correlation of stimuli. We suggest that organisms may be seen as natural stimulus‐correlation detectors so that behavioral change affects the overall correlation and directs the organism toward currently appetitive goals and away from potential aversive goals. As a general conclusion, both historical and recent choice research supports the idea that stimulus control, not reinforcer control, may be fundamental.     

On the formation of favourable impressions: Associations between self-presentation motives,task behaviour,and others’ evaluations of the self in a team-sport setting

Individuals adopt self-presentation motives in sport settings to shape others’ perceptions of the self. However, the effectiveness of different types of motives in shaping favourable evaluations has not been explored. We examined pathways from 2 × 2 self-presentation motives to others’ evaluative perceptions via task behaviour. Participants (N = 112) reported their self-presentation motives immediately prior to a basketball game, had their behaviours (i.e., shots, time spent on the sideline) recorded via video during the game, then completed agentic (e.g., competent) and communal (e.g., supportive) ratings of their teammates following the game. Structural equation modeling revealed positive pathways from acquisitive motives to behaviour (i.e., acquisitive agency) and favourable evaluations (i.e., acquisitive-agency and -communion). Negative pathways were observed from protective communion to behaviour and others’ evaluations. The findings indicate that different types of self-presentation motives may differ in their impression management effectiveness and may either promote or suppress task behaviour.     

Sensitive Topics,Missing Data,and Refusal in Social Network Studies: An Ethical Examination

We describe our ethics‐driven process of addressing missing data within a social network study about accountability for racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cis‐sexism, ableism, and other forms of oppression among social justice union organizers. During data collection, some would‐be participants did not return emails and others explicitly refused to engage in the research. All refusals came from women of color. We faced an ethical dilemma: Should we continue to seek participation from those who had not yet responded, with the hopes of recruiting more women of color from within the network so their perspectives would not be tokenized? Or, should we stop asking those who had been contacted multiple times, which would compromise the social network data and analysis? We delineate ways in which current discussions of the ethics of social network studies fell short, given our framework and our community psychology (CP ) values. We outline literature that was helpful in thinking through this challenge; we looked outside of CP to the decolonization literature on refusal. Lessons learned include listening for the possible meanings of refusals and considering the level of engagement and the labor required of participants when designing research studies.     

The influence of item order on intentional response distortion in the assessment of high potentials: Assessing pilot applicants

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of item order and questionnaire content on faking good or intentional response distortion. It was hypothesized that intentional response distortion would either increase towards the end of a long questionnaire, as learning effects might make it easier to adjust responses to a faking good schema, or decrease because applicants' will to distort responses is reduced if the questionnaire lasts long enough. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that certain types of questionnaire content are especially vulnerable to response distortion. Eighty‐four pre‐selected pilot applicants filled out a questionnaire consisting of 516 items including items from the NEO five factor inventory (NEO FFI), NEO personality inventory revised (NEO PI‐R) and business‐focused inventory of personality (BIP). The positions of the items were varied within the applicant sample to test if responses are affected by item order, and applicants' response behaviour was additionally compared to that of volunteers. Applicants reported significantly higher mean scores than volunteers, and results provide some evidence of decreased faking tendencies towards the end of the questionnaire. Furthermore, it could be demonstrated that lower variances or standard deviations in combination with appropriate (often higher) mean scores can serve as an indicator for faking tendencies in group comparisons, even if effects are not significant.     

Chinese children's imaginary companions: Relations with peer relationships and social competence

We investigated relationships between Chinese children's imaginary companions (ICs) and peer relationships and social competence in 160 children, aged 5–6 years old. Children and their mothers participated in the interviews regarding the details of the children's ICs, including the type of the companion and the quality of the child–IC relationship. Peer relationships were assessed using sociometric nomination and perceived popularity nomination. Teachers rated children's social competence. Here, 55 children (34.3%) were deemed to have engaged in imaginary companion play. There was no relationship between imaginary companion types and child–IC relationship qualities. Children with invisible friends received more positive nominations than children with personified objects. Children with egalitarian relationships received more positive nominations and popularity nominations, but fewer negative nominations and unpopularity nominations than children with hierarchical relationships. Compared with children with hierarchical relationships, teachers rated the children with egalitarian relationships higher in social competence. The results suggest that imaginary companion types and relationship qualities may represent different dimensions of imaginary companions, calling attentions to the different mechanisms underlying imaginary companion types and relationship qualities with respect to social functioning.     

Closing the gap between behavior and models in route choice: The role of spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits in choice set formation

A considerable gap exists between the behavioral paradigm of choice set formation in route choice and its representation in route choice modeling. While travelers form their viable choice set by retaining routes that satisfy spatiotemporal constraints, existing route generation techniques do not account for individual-related spatiotemporal constraints. This paper reduces the gap by proposing a route choice model incorporating spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits. The proposed approach combines stochastic route generation with a latent variable semi-compensatory model representing constraint-based choice set formation followed by compensatory choice. The model is applied to data focusing on habitual commuting route choice behavior in morning peak hours. Results show (i) the possibility of inferring spatiotemporal constraints from considered routes, (ii) the importance of incorporating spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits in route choice models, and (iii) the linkage between spatiotemporal constraints and time saving, spatial and mnemonic abilities.     

Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the Full and Short Versions of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale

Abstract

Over the years, researchers have developed various short versions of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960). The authors used confirmatory factor analyses (J. L. Arbuckle, 1997) as well as item and scale analyses to evaluate the adequacy of the full version and various short versions. Overall, the results from 232 Canadian undergraduates showed (a) that all the short versions in the present study are a significant improvement in fit over the 33-item full scale and (b) that W. M. Reynolds's (1982) Forms A and B are the best fitting short versions. No gender differences were found for the full scale or any of the short versions. The results show that the full scale could be improved psychometrically and that the psychometrically sound short versions should be available because they require less administration time than the full scale.     

Israeli Students' Perspectives Concerning Determinants of Intelligence

Abstract

Students' attitudes toward the nature versus nurture controversy pertaining to a variety of critical phenomena in the intelligence domain were assessed. A student inventory was constructed, pretested, and group administered to 269 students in various academic institutions in northern Israel, and comparisons were made between various sex, social, and ethnic groups. The majority of the students maintained that environment is the main factor influencing both personality and intelligence. Environment and an Environment x Heredity interaction were the most popular categories used to explain various generalizations about differences in ability, particularly among lower-class students. Students of Western origin were more inclined to adopt an environmental perspective on differences in IQ than were their Eastern counterparts. No sex differences were observed.     

Concurrent-chains schedules as a method to study choice between alcohol-associated conditioned reinforcers

An extensive body of research using concurrent-chains schedules of reinforcement has shown that choice for one of two differentially valued food-associated stimuli is dependent upon the overall temporal context in which those stimuli are embedded. The present experiments examined whether the concurrent chains procedure was useful for the study of behavior maintained by alcohol and alcohol-associated stimuli. In Experiment 1, rats responded on concurrent-chains schedules with equal variable-interval (VI) 10-s schedules in the initial links. Across conditions, fixed-interval schedules in the terminal links were varied to yield 1∶1, 9∶1, and 1∶9 ratios of alcohol delivery. Initial-link response rates reflected changes in terminal-link schedules, with greater relative responding in the rich terminal link. In Experiment 2, terminal-link schedules remained constant with a 9∶1 ratio of alcohol delivery rates while the length of two equal duration initial-link schedules was varied. Preference for the rich terminal link was less extreme when initial links were longer (i.e., the initial-link effect), as has been previously reported with food reinforcers. This result suggests that the conditioned reinforcing value of an alcohol-associated stimulus depends on the temporal context in which it is embedded. The concurrent-chains procedure and quantitative models of concurrent chains performance may provide a useful framework within which to study how contextual variables modulate preference for drug-associated conditioned reinforcers.