Teaching foundational perspective‐taking skills to children with autism using the PEAK‐T curriculum: single‐reversal “I–You” deictic frames

We taught basic perspective‐taking tasks to 3 children with autism and evaluated their ability to derive mutually entailed single‐reversal deictic relations of those newly established perspective‐taking skills. Furthermore, we examined the possibility of transfers of perspective‐taking function to novel untrained stimuli. The methods were taken from the PEAK‐T training curriculum, and results yielded positive gains for all 3 children to learn basic perspective taking as well as for 2 of the 3 to derive untrained single‐reversal I relations following direct training of single‐reversal You relations. All participants demonstrated a transfer of stimulus function to untrained stimuli after the single‐reversal deictic relations had been mastered.     

The Relationship Between Racial Identity and Perceived Significance of the Election of President Barack Obama Among African American Mothers

African American women’s racial identity is a major determinant for how they interpret the world around them, yet there is little research examining how specific aspects of racial identity are linked with attitudes about an event that has been highly significant for African Americans: the election of President Barack Obama. The present study examines the relationship between African American mothers’ racial identity and their perceived significance of the election of President Barack Obama as an indicator of reduced systemic and actual racism for African Americans, using a sample of 110 African American mothers residing in a Northeastern metropolitan area. Results revealed that racial centrality and assimilation positively predicted perceived significance of President Obama’s election for diminishing racism. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

The archetype of the apocalypse. Analysing the pandemics of racism,COVID-19 and climate change

What we are witnessing in the present time in human history, in the 2020’s, is a vortex of intersecting pandemics – jolting revelations that are unfolding with a terrific energy and force – so much so that we cannot ignore them or escape them. These include the world-wide pandemics of racism, COVID-19 and climate change. This paper argues that all of these swirling pandemics are manifestations of the archetype of the apocalypse, which is constellating now in a very powerful way. Any one of these phenomena could swallow humanity whole as a species. Together they represent a seemingly overwhelming challenge for us to meet over the next century of life on earth. If humanity cannot meet the challenge of these combined negative forces, it could simply perish. A multi-layered intersecting set of challenges such as this has never yet occurred in human history. We must therefore be very alert to what is going on, and as to how we can consciously mediate these threats, both individually and collectively. It also presents an unprecedented opportunity for humanity to evolve and grow psychologically both individually and collectively, nationally and globally.     

Disavowing White Identity: How Social Disgust can Change Social Identities

Recent work finds that the sense of solidarity some whites feel with their racial group is strongly associated with their political attitudes, particularly since the election of Barack Obama. Prior work has also noted that levels of this identity have been stable across time and data sources. We, however, document a notable decline in levels of white identity in both panel and cross-sectional national survey data immediately after the 2016 presidential election. Using a two-wave panel design, we examine the factors associated with this decline. We examine whether particular emotional reactions, especially disgust toward Donald Trump, pushed some whites away from their racial identity. We also consider the possibility that some whites may have felt that Trump's election reduced perceptions of racial or political threat, therefore lowering levels of white identity. We find the strongest support for the former hypothesis; the decline in white identity was driven mostly by whites expressing disgust toward Trump. Our results highlight the effect that the political environment can have on group identities and point in particular to the significant role that disgust may play in attenuating the strength of group solidarity.     

The Racialization of International Trade

Despite their less vulnerable economic status, white individuals' attitudes toward overseas trade in the United States may have become more protectionist than those of economically disadvantaged minorities. We present results from five different studies examining two different ways in which trade may have become racialized. First, we examine the extent to which a person's racial identity is associated with levels of trade support. Second, we examine whether the predominant racial identity of a potential trading-partner country influences people's willingness to trade with that country. Using various surveys and multiple survey experiments conducted over the past 12 years, we find that white individuals have become less supportive of trade than minorities and that whites are more likely than minorities to favor trade with highly similar countries. We suggest that minority support for trade is due to four well-documented differences in the psychological predispositions of whites and minorities in the United States. Minorities have lower levels of racial prejudice, are lower in social dominance, and express less nationalism than whites. At the same time, there is evidence of rising ingroup racial consciousness among whites. Each of these characteristics has been independently linked to trade support in a direction encouraging greater support for trade among minorities. As the United States grows ever closer to becoming a “majority minority” nation, the racialization of trade attitudes may stimulate shifts in the likely future of America's trade relationships.     

自我构念启动对空间参照框架的影响

采用圈代词启动法及空间参照框架判断任务,探究自我构念启动能否改变被试对空间参照框架判断的认知加工过程。结果发现:(1)客体中心参照框架判断的整体正确率大于自我中心参照框架判断;(2)仅在独立型自我构念启动的一致条件下,被试的自我中心参照框架判断正确率高于客体中心参照框架的判断正确率;(3)独立型自我构念使男性更少受到自我中心干扰。结果表明,独立型自我构念启动可能对自我中心参照框架判断具有促进效应,但互倚型自我构念启动不能促进客体中心参照框架判断。     

Minority status stress,racial centrality,and racial socialization as predictors of Black Americans’ preference for counselor race in a United States sample

In the United States, Black Americans’ counseling experiences are associated with concerns that are unique to their racialized status. Understanding the range of cultural factors that influence Black Americans’ preferences in the context of counseling remains an important topic in marketing and providing high-quality counseling services to this population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of racial centrality, affirming socialization around race, and minority status stress on counselor racial preference among Black college students (N = 139) in the United States. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression revealed that racial centrality and minority stress independently predicted preference for a racially similar counselor in this sample of respondents. A significant interaction between minority stress and affirming racial socialization revealed that the effect of minority status stress on counselor racial preference was attenuated at high levels of affirming racial socialization. Findings are discussed in the context of racial identity and racial socialization theories, with emphasis on implications for counseling practice and clinical training.     

Assessing Psychological Inflexibility Pertaining to Self in Patients With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Using an Indirect Measure of (Nonassociative) Propositions

Relational frame theory (RFT) is a modern behavioral account of human language and cognition, which focuses on relations or propositions, rather than associations, as core explanatory constructs. In an attempt to measure such propositions, RFT researchers have developed the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP). It has been argued that the size of an IRAP effect may provide a metric for psychological inflexibility. The current study aimed to determine whether psychological inflexibility, as measured by the self-focused Natural Language-IRAP (NL-IRAP), would be higher in a clinical sample of individuals with a diagnosis of PTSD (N = 29) when compared to a nonclinical sample. Subsequently, the study investigated whether the self-focused NL-IRAP could be used to predict the presence of a clinical diagnosis, using a ROC analysis. As predicted, higher levels of psychological inflexibility were observed for the clinical group. The self-focused NL-IRAP also correctly classified the presence of PTSD (AUC = 76%) with a sensitivity level of 79.3% and a specificity level of 59.2%. Overall, the use of the IRAP as a nonassociative clinical measure appears promising.     

The Effect of Cognitive Complexity and Nature of the Outcome on Causal Attribution

Because even subtle forms of racial discrimination can damage well-being, identifying individual differences that shape this stress process is important. Dispositional forgiveness has been shown to influence how people perceive and react to interpersonal transgressions, yet its role in the context of racial discrimination has not received much research attention. In the current study, participants completed an initial measure of dispositional forgiveness and then considered a scenario that could be deemed racially discriminatory. Next, participants' perceptions of the scenario, negative affect, and cognitive performance were assessed. Dispositional forgiveness predicted all three outcomes such that more forgiving individuals were less likely to view the event as racially discriminatory and showed lower negative affect and greater cognitive performance after reading the scenario. Moreover, race moderated these relationships such that forgiveness played a more beneficial role for ethnic minorities than for whites.     

Modern Racism Attitudes Among White Students: The Role of Dominance and Authoritarianism and the Mediating Effects of Racial Color-Blindness

ABSTRACT

Among 342 white college students, we examined the effects of social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and racial color-blindness on modern racism attitudes. Structural equation modeling was used to test the indirect effects of SDO and RWA on modern racism attitudes through color-blind racial attitudes. We found strong indirect effects of SDO and RWA on modern racism through racial color-blindness. We did not find support for an alternative model, in which we tested racial color-blindness as a moderator of the effects of SDO and RWA on modern racism. Findings suggest that highly dominant and authoritarian white students endorse color-blind racial attitudes, although likely for different reasons. In turn, this predicts their modern racism attitudes. These findings indicate racial color-blindness is important to address as part of anti-racism education.