Integrating Covariates into Social Relations Models: A Plausible Values Approach for Handling Measurement Error in Perceiver and Target Effects

The Social Relations Model (SRM) is a conceptual and analytical approach to examining dyadic behaviors and interpersonal perceptions within groups. In an SRM, the perceiver effect describes a person's tendency to perceive other group members in a certain way, whereas the target effect measures the tendency to be perceived by others in certain ways. In SRM research, it is often of interest to relate these individual SRM effects to covariates. However, the estimated individual SRM effects might not provide a very reliable measure of the true, unobserved SRM effects, resulting in distorted estimates of associations with other variables. This article introduces a plausible values approach that allows users to correct for measurement error when assessing the association of individual SRM effects with other individual difference variables. In the plausible values approach, the latent, true individual SRM effects are treated as missing values and are imputed from an imputation model by applying Bayesian estimation techniques. In a simulation study, the statistical properties of the plausible values approach are compared with two approaches that have been used in previous research. A data example from educational psychology is presented to illustrate how the plausible values approach can be implemented with the software WinBUGS.     

Young Children's ability to Discriminate between Antisocial and Prosocial Teases

The present study was designed to (a) examine 5- to 8-year-old children's ability to discriminate between antisocial and prosocial teases and (b) determine whether their age and experiences within the home are associated with their ability to recognize these two types of teases. Results revealed that the 5- to 8-year-old children were able to discriminate between antisocial and prosocial teases. Although the children's parents or legal guardians indicated that the children had more frequent experience with prosocial than antisocial teases in the home, (a) the children were better able to correctly identify the intent of antisocial teasers than prosocial teasers and (b) the parents or legal guardians (correctly) indicated that their child would be better able to recognize an antisocial tease than a prosocial tease. Despite the finding that the children's comprehension of antisocial teasing tended to exceed their comprehension of prosocial teasing, the findings indicate that being relatively young (i.e., 5–6 years old vs. 7–8 years old) and having relatively frequent experience with antisocial teasing in the home may be associated with some children's difficulty in recognizing the intent behind antisocial teases.     

恋人概念威胁启动削弱自我和恋人面孔优势效应:来自眼动研究的证据

采用眼动记录技术和恋人概念威胁启动范式探讨自我和恋人面孔优势效应的产生和维持过程。结果发现:与概念非威胁启动条件下相比,概念威胁启动条件下,被试搜索恋人面孔时的兴趣区个数和搜索自我面孔时的平均眼跳次数与搜索陌生人面孔时比差异变得不显著;恋人面孔与陌生人面孔在兴趣区内总注视时间上的差异变得不显著。结果表明,自我与恋人面孔存在注意的优先捕获和维持优势,恋人概念的威胁启动会减少对恋人的关注,证明了建立恋人的积极概念是恋人面孔优势效应产生和维持的重要原因。     

National identification and attitudes towards Russian immigrants in Finland: Investigating the role of perceived threats and gains

In this cross‐sectional study, we examined the relationship between national identification of majority Finns (nation‐wide probability sample, N = 335) and their attitudes towards Russian immigrants living in Finland. As previous research indicates both possibilities, we tested whether this relationship was moderated or mediated by threats and gains perceived to result from immigration. The results supported the mediation hypothesis; those individuals who identified stronger with their national ingroup perceived more threats than gains related to increased immigration and these perceptions, in turn, were associated with more negative attitudes towards immigrants. The role of realistic as opposed to symbolic threats and gains was particularly pronounced. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of their theoretical relevance and practical means to improve intergroup relations, with a particular focus on the relations between Finns and Russian immigrants in Finland.     

The threat of moral transgression: The impact of group membership and moral opportunity

When other ingroup members behave immorally, people's motivation to maintain a moral group image may cause them to experience increased threat and act defensively in response. In the current research, we investigated people's reactions to others' misconduct and examined the effect of group membership and the possible threat‐reducing function of moral opportunity—the prospect of being able to re‐establish the group's moral image. In Study 1, students who were confronted with fellow students' plagiarism and who received an opportunity to improve their group's morality reported feeling less threatened than students who did not receive such opportunity. In Study 2, students reacted to a recent academic fraud case, which either implicated an ingroup (scholar in their own discipline) or an outgroup member (scholar in another discipline). Results indicated that participants experienced more threat when an ingroup (versus an outgroup) member had committed the moral transgression. However, as hypothesized, this was not the case when moral opportunity was provided. Hence, the threat‐reducing effect of moral opportunity was replicated. Additionally, participants generally were more defensive in response to ingroup (versus outgroup) moral failure and less defensive when moral opportunity was present (versus absent). Together, these findings suggest that the reduction of threat due to moral opportunity may generally help individuals take constructive action when the behavior of fellow group members discredits the group's moral image.     

Making Probabilistic Relational Categories Learnable

Theories of relational concept acquisition (e.g., schema induction) based on structured intersection discovery predict that relational concepts with a probabilistic (i.e., family resemblance) structure ought to be extremely difficult to learn. We report four experiments testing this prediction by investigating conditions hypothesized to facilitate the learning of such categories. Experiment 1 showed that changing the task from a category‐learning task to choosing the “winning” object in each stimulus greatly facilitated participants' ability to learn probabilistic relational categories. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigated the mechanisms underlying this “who's winning” effect. Experiment 4 replicated and generalized the “who's winning” effect with more natural stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that people learn relational concepts by a process of intersection discovery akin to schema induction, and that any task that encourages people to discover a higher order relation that remains invariant over members of a category will facilitate the learning of putatively probabilistic relational concepts.     

An essentialism perspective on intercultural processes

Essentialist theories are the beliefs that there are immutable essences underlying observed differences between social groups (e.g. racial group, cultural group). This paper reviews the intergroup dynamics and intrapersonal processes associated with essentialism. It also explores the interplay between the two. By explicating the intricate relationship between these psychological processes, the current paper aims to advance our understanding of intergroup relations and identify their implications for the study of multiculturalism. We posit that although the commonly observed negative intergroup outcomes, such as prejudices and biases, can be the byproducts of basic cognitive processes associated with essentialist theories, the social power dynamics in a given society also play important roles in shaping the relationships between essentialism and intergroup outcomes. We then discuss the implications of this understanding to our increasingly multicultural world.     

Children's Theory of Mind,Self‐Perceptions,and Peer Relations: A Longitudinal Study

This longitudinal study explored Theory of Mind (ToM), self‐perceptions, and teacher ratings of peer relations of 91 children (52 females, ages 6–8 years) drawn from two schools situated in a mainly Euro‐Canadian, middle socioeconomic status, semi‐rural central Canadian context. ToM, self‐perceptions, and teacher ratings of peer relations were assessed at Time 1 (T1, M = 6 y 2 m) and 2 years later at Time 2 (T2, M = 8 y 5 m). Findings showed that ToM scores and perceptions of global self‐worth and physical appearance significantly increased with time across both genders. Positive longitudinal associations were found between teacher ratings of sociable peer relations at T1 and children's T2 moral self‐perceptions. A positive longitudinal correlation was found between T1 ToM and T2 teacher ratings of anxious/fearful peer relations. Individual variation in ToM at age 6 predicted teacher ratings of anxious and fearful behaviours in 8 year olds. In contrast, teacher ratings at age 6 did not predict ToM ability in 8 year olds. Educational implications for social and emotional competencies are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between employment quality and work-related well-being in the European Labor Force

In this article, data from the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey are used to examine the relationship between contemporary employment arrangements and the work-related well-being of European employees. By means of a Latent Class Cluster Analysis, several features of the employment conditions and relations characterizing jobs are combined in a typology of five employment arrangements: SER-like, instrumental, precarious unsustainable, precarious intensive and portfolio jobs. These job types show clear relationships with separate indicators of job satisfaction, perceived safety climate and the ability to stay in employment, as well as with an overall indicator for work-related well-being. The findings from this multifaceted approach towards employment quality raise questions about the long-term sustainability of highly flexible and de-standardized employment arrangements.     

Including Both Voices: A New Bidirectional Framework for Understanding and Improving Intergroup Relations

Methods: If successful intergroup harmony is to be achieved between two groups, then both groups' voices must be heard. Despite this, 60 years of social psychological “intergroup” prejudice research has tended to adopt a solely majority‐centric perspective, with the majority group portrayed as the active agent of prejudice, and the minority group as passive targets. Objective: This paper critically reviews relevant literature, highlighting this unidirectional imbalance, and proposes a new, two‐stage bidirectional framework, where we encourage researchers and educators to first understand how minority and majority groups' intergroup attitudes and emotions impact intergroup dynamics, before tailoring and implementing contact and recategorisation strategies to improve intergroup relations, nationally and internationally. Conclusion: We argue that the interactive nature of the intergroup dynamic needs to be better understood, and each group's voice heard, before prejudice can be effectively reduced. Lastly, we describe an Australian study, the Dual Identity and Electronic‐contact (DIEC) programme, that has been conducted and has successfully applied this bidirectional framework.