What People Want From Their Professionals: Attitudes Toward Decision‐making Strategies

Attitudes toward four types of decision‐making strategies—clinical/fully rational, clinical/heuristic, actuarial/fully rational, and actuarial/heuristic—were examined across three studies. In Study 1, undergraduate students were split randomly between legal and medical decision‐making scenarios and asked to rate each strategy in terms of the following: (i) preference; (ii) accuracy; (iii) fairness; (iv) ethicalness; and (v) its perceived similarity to the strategies used by actual legal and medical professionals to make decisions. Studies 2 and 3 extended Study 1 by using a more relevant scenario and a community sample, respectively. Across the three studies, the clinical/fully rational strategy tended to be rated the highest across all attitudinal judgments, whereas the actuarial/heuristic strategy tended to receive the lowest ratings. Considering the two strategy‐differentiating factors separately, clinically based strategies tended to be rated higher than actuarially based strategies, and fully rational strategies were always rated higher than heuristic‐based strategies. The potential implications of the results for professionals' and those affected by their decisions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attitudes about psychotherapy: A qualitative study of introductory psychology students who have never been in psychotherapy and the influence of attachment style

Design: Interviews about attitudes about psychotherapy with 12 undergraduate students who had never been in psychotherapy were analysed using consensual qualitative research. Results: Participants believed that the client role is to disclose, be receptive, and be motivated; that the therapist role is to listen, support, and give advice; and that the therapeutic relationship should be close and personal. Participants had ideas about the benefits (a healing therapeutic relationship, personal and interpersonal changes) and the barriers (self‐stigma and public stigma, difficulty revealing, need to solve problems on own, cost) associated with seeking therapy, and they disliked the idea of being diagnosed. In contrast with participants who were securely attached, those who were insecurely attached more often wanted a professional therapeutic relationship, wanted the therapist to ask questions, mentioned fewer benefits to therapy, and thought that they would have difficulty disclosing to a therapist. Discussion: Implications for changing attitudes about psychotherapy and improving training programs for practitioners are discussed.     

Ingroup ambivalence and experienced discomfort: the moderating roles of affective versus cognitive attitudinal basis, group identification, as mediated by negative beliefs about the ingroup

Prior research has found individuals' reactions to vary depending on whether such associations are activated by emotions (an affective basis) or by beliefs (a cognitive basis) about the object's properties. Accordingly, this conceptual distinction should be relevant also for the discomfortive responses to one's ambivalent attitudes regarding fellow group members (or the ingroup). Findings from two studies support the argument that ambivalence-associated discomfort a) is a general tendency when it regards affect-based ambivalence towards fellow group members, while b) only holds for the more identified group members when ambivalence concerns beliefs about the ingroup, and for this latter group members c) this tendency is driven by the strength of their negative beliefs about the ingroup or fellow group members.     

Self-Esteem as a Predictor of Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse Among Muslim Women and Men in Canada

Abstract

This study was designed (a) to assess attitudes toward wife abuse in a sample of Muslim women and men in Canada and (b) to assess whether those attitudes were influenced by self-esteem. Results suggested that, as in general North American samples, the Muslim women and men did not differ from each other on levels of self-esteem. Also consistent with general North American samples, the Muslim women's and men's attitudes toward wife abuse were related to their self-esteem, with higher self-esteem scores predicting stronger attitudes against wife abuse, independent of gender. However, the results also revealed that the Muslim men had significantly more lenient attitudes toward wife abuse compared with the Muslim women and with North American norms.     

Does Complex or Simple Rhetoric Win Elections? An Integrative Complexity Analysis of U.S. Presidential Campaigns

Research suggests that the integrative complexity of political rhetoric tends to drop during election season, but little research to date directly addresses if this drop in complexity serves to increase or decrease electoral success. The two present studies help fill this gap. Study 1 demonstrates that, during the Democratic Party primary debates in 2003–2004, the eventual winners of the party nomination showed a steeper drop in integrative complexity as the election season progressed than nonwinning candidates. Study 2 presents laboratory evidence from the most recent presidential campaign demonstrating that, while the complexity of Obama's rhetoric had little impact on college students' subsequent intentions to vote for him, the complexity of McCain's rhetoric was significantly positively correlated with their likelihood of voting for him. Taken together, this research is inconsistent with an unqualified simple is effective view of the complexity‐success relationship. Rather, it is more consistent with a compensatory view: Effective use of complexity (or simplicity) may compensate for perceived weaknesses. Thus, appropriately timed shifts in complexity levels, and/or violations of negative expectations relevant to complexity, may be an effective means of winning elections. Surprisingly, mere simplicity as such seems largely ineffective.     

Intentions to participate in counselling among front-line,at-risk Irish government employees: an application of the theory of planned behaviour

ABSTRACT

The study set out to examine intentions to engage in counselling among at-risk Irish government employees and the differential utility of two alternative theory of planned behaviour (TPB) models of behaviour to explain intentions to participate in counselling. Individuals (N=259) employed in a front-line, at-risk occupation for the Irish government completed a TPB-based questionnaire. Quantitative analyses revealed that participants held positive to neutral intentions to participate in counselling, irrespective of gender. The original TPB model explained 49.9% of variance in intentions whereas an alternative TPB model, splitting the perceived behavioural control (PBC) construct between its internal and external control components, explained a further 8.9% of variance. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to be the strongest predictor of intentions. This study therefore supports the use of the TPB in understanding counselling-seeking behaviour.     

I know you're me, but who am I? Perspective taking and seeing the other in the self

Research examining the consequences of perspective-taking on cognition suggests that through perceiver–target overlap, perspective-taking can lead to greater valuing of targets, greater helping of targets, and a reduction in stereotyping of targets and the groups to which they belong. Research has also begun to focus more closely on the ways perceivers come to think and act like targets. This research, however evocative, is not conclusive. The current studies set out to provide firmer support. Reported here, two studies found that perspective-taking influences perceiver–target overlap, which mediates changes in self-concept (ratings of the self on researcher-related attributes and beliefs after taking the perspective of a researcher in Study 1 and attitudes toward African Americans after taking the perspective of a racist in Study 2). In the same studies, overlap simultaneously mediated valuing of the targets (target ratings on positive attributes in Study 1 and liking for the target in Study 2).     

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.     

The effect of Obama saliency on individual-level racial bias: Silver bullet or smokescreen?

President Obama's election has been construed as a potentially positive force for intergroup relations, but this issue has not been previously addressed experimentally. In experiment 1, conducted 4-5 months after the election, White participants were primed with either President Obama or nature before completing a variety of race-related measures. Results indicated that priming Obama did not influence implicit racial bias or internal motivation to control prejudice. However, consistent with exemplar and symbolic racism theories, participants primed with President Obama expressed greater agreement with the tenets of symbolic racism and were more reluctant to accept the possibility that they personally harbored subtle racial bias. Experiment 2, conducted 21 months after the election, replicated the Obama effects from experiment 1 and showed that priming another Black exemplar (Oprah) also increased symbolic racism. Results suggest that highly successful Black exemplars currently serve as a smokescreen for symbolic and subtle racial biases.     

Acceptance of sexual aggression myths in a representative sample of German residents

A representative sample of German residents (N = 5397) was surveyed with the aim of studying their acceptance of contemporary rape myths (RMA), using items from the Acceptance of Modern Myths About Sexual Aggression Scale [AMMSA; Gerger et al., 2007] in relation to demographic variables (e.g., gender, age), intolerant belief systems (e.g., sexism, islamophobia), the ideologies of rightwing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as gender identification. Age showed a U-shaped relationship with RMA, whereas gender was unrelated to RMA. For men (women), greater identification with their gender was associated with higher (lower) RMA. Substantial correlations of RMA with intolerant belief systems support the idea of a schema of intolerance. Although RWA and SDO were both related to RMA, only RWA explained unique variance beyond the effects of intolerant belief systems. Results are discussed in comparison to prior studies using mainly student samples.