Civil Liberties in the Era of Mass Terrorism

This paper discusses the impact of the so-called war on terrorism on civil liberties. The United States government in Madison’s plan was to be distrusted and hemmed in to protect citizens against it. The terrorist attacks of 2001 have seemingly licensed the US government to violate its Madisonian principles. While the current government asks for citizen trust, its actions justify distrust. The courts, which normally are the chief defenders of civil liberties, typically acquiesce in administration policies during emergencies, and it has been during wartimes that the worst infringements of civil liberties have occurred. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

刻板印象与内隐推理的实验研究

采用间接测量方法,探讨刻板印象与内隐推理效应。实验结果表明：91）刻板印象启动的内隐推理直接影响到不同句式的记忆;（2）内隐推理不受意识水平高低以及具体的记忆任务的影响。     

Gender bias in the evaluation of new age music

Eminent composers in Western European art music continue to be predominantly male and eminence in contemporary pop music is similarly male dominated. One contributing factor may be the continuing under-valuation of women's music. Possible anti-female bias in a contemporary genre was investigated using the Goldberg paradigm to elicit judgments of New Age compositions. Since stronger stereotyping effects occur when information provided about individuals is sparse, fictitious male and female composers were presented either by name only or by name with a brief biography. Evidence for anti-female bias was found in the name-only condition and was stronger when liking for the music was controlled. Other findings were the tendency for females to give higher ratings, and the association of gender differences in liking of the music with ratings of quality in the name-only condition. These results are relevant to the design of formal assessment procedures for musical composition.     

The Obama effect: Decreasing implicit prejudice and stereotyping

This project explores the impact of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the resulting high levels of exposure to a positive, counter-stereotypic Black exemplar, on prejudice and stereotyping among non-Black participants. We found dramatically decreased levels of implicit anti-Black prejudice and stereotyping as compared with bias observed previously at the same institutions and in the literature. Providing some insight why the bias was reduced, Study 1 demonstrated that participants had positive Black exemplars come to mind or anticipated that other people have positive exemplars come to mind when they thought of Black people and this was associated with low levels of racial prejudice. Our second study revealed that participants who had qualities strongly associated with Obama as a political figure (e.g., president) activated when they were primed with “Black” had lower levels of implicit prejudice. These findings indicate that the extensive exposure to Obama resulted in a drop in implicit bias.     

Do they want contact with us? The role of intergroup contact meta‐perceptions on positive contact and attitudes

This research examined the role of contact meta‐perceptions on positive intergroup contact and outgroup attitudes. Specifically, perceptions of the ingroup's and outgroup's desire for intergroup contact were simultaneously tested as predictors of intergroup contact and outgroup attitudes. Three correlational studies were conducted in three distinct contexts, international students' view of British students, general public views of people with schizophrenia, and both Muslims' and non‐Muslims' views of one another. Among these three intergroup relationships, the role of outgroup contact meta‐perceptions was consistently highlighted as predictor of intergroup contact. In stark contrast, ingroup contact meta‐perceptions did not emerge as a significant predictor of contact. Intergroup contact then predicted outgroup attitudes (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and stereotyping (Studies 2 and 3) via reduced anxiety (Studies 2 and 3). The results demonstrate the importance of explicitly highlighting outgroups' openness for intergroup interactions and are discussed in the context of intergroup relations literature.     

Season of Birth and Personality: Another Instance of Noncorrespondence

Abstract

A systematic relation between season of birth and personality variables has been postulated from different theoretical standpoints. The present study was especially aimed at an empirical comparison of the positions of astrology and chronobiology, considering also the possibility of an unspecified, not yet explicable relation between season of birth and personality. The hypotheses were formulated after the data for another, earlier study with completely different aims and hypotheses had been collected. In it, 154 women had been tested with paper-and-pencil self-report inventories (the Guilford-Zimmerman, 1949, Temperament Survey and Budner's, 1962, Scale of Intolerance of Ambiguity) and an experimentally oriented cognitive test battery with 10 different tasks. For the present study, these data were submitted to a further analysis that considered the previously ignored influence of season of birth. These hypothetical influences could not be demonstrated with a significance greater than could have been expected by chance. In comparison to the much larger sample sizes of some other studies, the empirical argument has its definite limits. In addition to the empirical results in the discussion, the different standpoints are compared in respect to their theoretical deductive arguments.     

The Bibliographic Contour of Social Psychology

ABSTRACT

The stereotype content model (SCM) posits that warmth and competence are the key components underlying judgments about social groups. Because competence can encompass different components (e.g., intelligence, talent) different group members may be perceived to be competent for different reasons. Therefore, we believe it may be important to specify the type of competence being assessed when examining perceptions of groups that are positively stereotyped (i.e., Black athletes and musical Blacks). Consistent with the SCM, these subgroups were perceived as high in competence-talent but not in competence-intelligence and low in warmth. Both the intelligence and talent frame of competence fit in the SCM's social structural hypothesis.     

Individual Differences in Race Schematicity as Predictors of African American and White Children's Race-Relevant Memories and Peer Preferences

Race schematicity, memories for racially stereotyped portrayals, and race-based peer preferences of 70 young children (32 African American, 38 White) were assessed. Consistent with schema-based models of stereotyping, race schematicity was positively and significantly associated with memory distortions of racial stereotype-inconsistent drawings into stereotype-consistent ones. Conversely, race schematicity was negatively and significantly associated with accurate memories for racial stereotype-inconsistent content, and with memory distortions of racial stereotype-consistent portrayals into stereotype-inconsistent ones. As predicted, race schematicity was positively and significantly associated with same-race peer preference bias, as was children's age in months. Results support application of the schematicity construct and relevant social psychological research with adults to the study of young African American and White children's racial stereotyping and processing of race-relevant information.