Hiring you makes me look bad: Social-identity based reversals of the ingroup favoritism effect

The current research attempts to explain reversals of ingroup favoritism in terms of one of the prevalent mechanisms generally used to account for positive ingroup bias: Tajfel’s social identity theory. We propose that individuals strategically evaluate ingroup targets in order to maximize their own self-esteem and to avoid costly errors. This strategic evaluation typically results in ingroup favoritism toward an ingroup target member. However, if a positive evaluation of the target poses a significant self-esteem threat, denigration of the target will result. Two studies examined how ingroup and outgroup targets were evaluated when applicants were qualified versus unqualified (Study 1), or when the ingroup target might confirm a negative ingroup stereotype (Study 2). Study 1 results indicated that participants showed ingroup favoritism only toward qualified applicants. Study 2 demonstrated that, when a marginally qualified ingroup applicant has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype, bias against the ingroup is observed. Results of both studies both confirm and provide explanations for ingroup denigration.     

The Word's Eternal Silence: A Commentary on Schneider-Harpprecht's Essay

Once the post-modern account of individual and cultural identityas creative openness to change is re-construed in terms of aconstructivist rendering of the semiotic theory of culture,and once interdenominational and inter-faith hospital chaplaincyis interpreted on a model of cross-cultural communication whichagrees with this theory, chaplains can conceive of their abilityto fulfill their mission in offering understanding and helpto the client from other faith communities only by explicitlyinvoking the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The commentaryargues that Schneider-Harpprecht's all too generalized accountof that intervention leaves chaplains with no spiritual substancefor distinguishing between truely and only apparent pastoralhelpfulness.     

呈现时间与词的属性对记得和知道判断的影响

本研究探讨记得与知道反应的特点及机制。两个实验分别以具体或抽象名词、情绪色彩不同的形容词作为测验材料,呈现不同时间。结果发现呈现时间与词的属性都引起记得和知道判断上的实验性分离,表明对信息源不同意识水平的监控受信息呈现时间和信息属性的影响。研究支持解释记得与知道机制的双加工理论,本文也讨论了两种机制可能共同起作用的看法。     

抑制能力与工作记忆能量的相关研究

采用汉字材料的负启动范式,考察了大学生和老年人被试的特性和空间位置抑制能力,及其与工作记忆能量的相关。结果发现：位置抑制能力与工作记忆能量无显著相关,而特性抑制能力与工作记忆能量存在正相关。说明个体的分心抑制能力是影响其工作记忆能量的重要因素。但工作记忆的年龄差异可能还受分心抑制之外其它认知因素的影响。     

Dissidence from within: Examining the effects of intergroup context on group members’ reactions to attitudinal opposition

The successful achievement of a group’s goals often requires a broad base of support among members. Because group and individual interests can diverge, however, dissension is likely. We argued that reactions to such dissension on an issue that is relevant to the group’s status can vary as a function of contextual goals. Whereas dissension from an ingroup member would be rejected in an intergroup context, it might be tolerated in an intragroup context. Regression analyses of women’s (N=96) responses to dissension on an attitudinal issue (abortion on demand) indicated that in an intergroup context, women derogated a dissenting woman more if they had a strong gender identity and viewed the issue as gender relevant. Dissent in an intragroup context was evaluated more positively. The results provided insight into the factors involved in defining a collective identity.     

Derogating black sheep: Individual or group protection?

What motivates people to derogate unfavorable ingroup members more harshly than comparably unfavorable outgroup members? Researchers investigating the black sheep effect maintain that this differential derogation is a means of group protection. In contrast, we argue that derogating unfavorable ingroup members may be an individual protection strategy whereby target devaluation distances an unfavorable other from the self as a means of limiting the threat of being associatively miscast. Participants read an article describing an unfavorable ingroup or outgroup target, and then received two means of responding to the target: target devaluation and group disidentification. Importantly, group disidentification was considered to be a uniquely individualistic distancing strategy. We found that both response options substituted for one another, depending on the order of presentation. Substitutability, we argue, suggests that the primary motive behind ingroup derogation in our study was distance augmentation, an individual protection strategy.     

Some Weakened Gödelian Ontological Systems

We describe a KB Gödelian ontological system, and some other weak systems, in a fully formal way using theory of types and natural deduction, and present a completeness proof in its main and specific parts. We technically and philosophically analyze and comment on the systems (mainly with respect to the relativism of values) and include a sketch of some connected aspects of Gödel's relation to Kant.     

Coping with a threatened group identity: Psychosocial and neuroendocrine responses

Given the stress associated with belonging to a socially devalued group, members' reactions to a threat were evaluated within a stress and coping framework. Participants (N=72) were presented with an explicit or nonexplicit (positive vs. neutral cues) threat to a devalued identity. Regressions indicated that problem-focused coping was related to appraising the identity threat as controllable, and with a greater sense of optimism. Together these variables were associated with lower salivary cortisol levels. The role of emotion-focused coping was most evident under explicit threat conditions, such that it was associated with sustained cortisol elevations and a diminution of identity importance. The findings suggest that intergroup responses involve a complex interplay among stressor appraisals and coping propensities.     

On the Compositional Extension Problem

A semantics may be compositional and yet partial, in the sense that not all well-formed expressions are assigned meanings by it. Examples come from both natural and formal languages. When can such a semantics be extended to a total one, preserving compositionality? This sort of extension problem was formulated by Hodges, and solved there in a particular case, in which the total extension respects a precise version of the fregean dictum that the meaning of an expression is the contribution it makes to the meanings of complex phrases of which it is a part. Hodges' result presupposes the so-called Husserl property, which says roughly that synonymous expressions must have the same category. Here I solve a different version of the compositional extension problem, corresponding to another type of linguistic situation in which we only have a partial semantics, and without assuming the Husserl property. I also briefly compare Hodges' framework for grammars in terms of partial algebras with more familiar ones, going back to Montague, which use many-sorted algebras instead.

     

Accessing the multitude within: A psychoanalytic perspective on the transformation of masculinity at mid‐life1

This paper reflects upon the essential components of male identity that commonly are reworked in middle age. The author argues that healthy masculine gender identity involves an ongoing, plastic process of destabilization and reconstruction at various pivotal developmental stages, particularly during middle adulthood. In essence, a man's mature transformation of his sense of masculinity results when finite concepts of gender identity are superseded by an awareness of the complexity of one's multiple, early and diverse gender identifications. A clinical case provides insight into how psychoanalytic treatment can contribute to a new experience of masculinity. The case illustrates how a maturing man, meeting an altered sense of identity in mid‐life, relies less on gender splitting and more on reuniting previously antithetical intrapsychic elements. Why this more pluralistic, polythreaded masculinity frequently must wait until mid‐life is further clarified. Specific importance is attached to the early development of male gender identity as it is founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The foundation for male gender identity formation is reconsidered as the author questions the ‘dis‐identification’ model while explicating how the boy's striving for narcissistic completion shapes the gendered masculine ego ideal. Classically termed ‘phallicism’ is understood both to facilitate and obstruct a man's adult development, while the concept of ‘genitality’ is augmented by the postclassical notion of ‘interiority’. At mid‐life, ‘phallic’ ego ideals (resting on omnipotence, desires for narcissistic completion and gender splitting) are transformed into more realistic, ‘genital’ ego ideals (synthesizing autonomy and connection). The achievement of a mature, less sharply gendered ‘masculine’ ego ideal (revitalizing the foreclosed dimensions of both the early maternal and paternal imagos) occurs as the balance of forces shifts in the direction of true genitality rather than defensive phallicism.