Reaction in action: intergroup contrast in automatic behavior

Whereas previous research has shown automatic behavior conforming to outgroup stereotypes, the authors demonstrate automatic behavioral contrast away from a stereotype/trait associated with an outgroup (Study 1 and 2) and point to the importance of an "us-them" intergroup comparison in this process. In Study 1, participants colored pictures more messily when neatness was associated with an outgroup rather than the ingroup. In Study 2, using a different behavior, participants primed with busy business people reacted faster than controls (assimilation) but became slower when their student ingroup identity was activated (contrast). Subliminally priming an "us-them" intergroup comparison set undermined the accessibility of outgroup stereotypic words (Study 3), especially for those higher in prejudice (Study 4). This suggests that people automatically distance themselves from outgroup attributes when intergroup antagonism is cued or chronic. Implications for the role of self and comparison processes in automatic behavior are discussed.     

Supporting the Need for an Integrated System of Care for Youth with Co-occurring Traumatic Stress and Substance Abuse Problems

Adolescents are at high risk for violence exposure and initiation of drug use. Co-occurring substance use and trauma exposure are associated with increased risk of mental health disorders, school underachievement, and involvement with multiple systems of care. Coordination and integration of systems of care are of utmost importance for these vulnerable youth. This study delineates the negative sequelae and increased service utilization patterns of adolescents with a history of trauma, substance abuse, and co-occurring trauma and substance abuse to support the need for integrated mental health and substance abuse services for youth. Data from two national sources, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment demonstrate the increased clinical severity (measured by reports of emotional and behavioral problems), dysfunction, and service utilization patterns for youth with co-occurring trauma exposure and substance abuse. We conclude with recommendations for an integrated system of care that includes trauma-informed mental health treatment and substance abuse services aimed at reducing the morbidity and relapse probability of this high-risk group.     

Was It One of Us? How People Cope with Misconduct by Fellow Ingroup Members

How do group members cope with misconduct by members of their own group? Strong evidence for a positive bias in people's evaluations of their own group and its members suggests that an ingroup perpetrator is likely to be treated more leniently than an outgroup perpetrator. However, research has also demonstrated a “Black Sheep‐Effect”, such that ingroup members who deviate negatively from relevant ingroup norms are evaluated and punished even more harshly than outgroup deviants. Both reactions – positive ingroup bias and the Black Sheep Effect – may serve the same goal, namely maintaining positive regard for the ingroup. In this paper, we present several moderators that have been shown to affect responses to negative ingroup deviance. We propose a model that incorporates and organizes these moderators in order to predict whether negatively deviant ingroup members will receive especially lenient or rather harsh and negative evaluations from their fellow ingroup members.     

Parents' and teachers' concordance with children's self-ratings of suicidality: findings from a high-risk sample

This study examined concordance between adult and child reports of child suicidality using a sample of 1,046 8-year-old children at risk for, or having experienced, maltreatment. Concordance was low with both caregivers and teachers. For children reporting no suicidality, caregiver-child agreement was associated with few transitions in caregiver and low social withdrawal and aggression, and teacher-child agreement was associated with non-White ethnicity, good academic performance, and low thought problems. For children reporting suicidality, care-giver-child agreement was associated with perceptions of child mental health needs, aggression, and somatic complaints, and teacher-child agreement was associated with thought problems.     

Looking through the eyes of the powerful

Across four experiments, we test the idea that power decreases metastereotyping, and that this effect is mediated by reduced perspective taking. Metastereotypes refer to the beliefs that members of group A share about the stereotypes that members of specific outgroup B typically have about ingroup A. We propose that the dominant psychological orientation of the powerless is aimed at seeing how others see them. In an intergroup situation they are therefore inclined to activate and apply metastereotypes. In the first three experiments we consistently find that low power leads to more metastereotyping than high power and control (in Experiment 3). Specifically, we show this effect with three different manipulations of power, namely a role manipulation (Experiment 1), experiential priming (Experiment 2), and parafoveal priming (Experiment 3). In the fourth experiment we uncover the mediating role of perspective taking. Together these findings provide strong evidence that powerlessness leads to metastereotyping.     

Iron ladies,men of steel: The effects of gender stereotyping on the perception of male and female candidates are moderated by prototypicality

Women remain a minority in politics. In nearly all countries, including parliamentary democracies, women are still underrepresented in national parliament and other representative institutions. Research has argued that there is a bias against women in elections. Here we study the process behind this phenomenon by investigating the effect of a candidate's gender and gender prototypicality on judgment of the suitability of this candidate in elections. The first experiment shows that when voters think topics that stereotypically demand male characteristics (e.g., competitiveness) are important, they prefer male candidates, while they prefer female candidates when topics that stereotypically demand female characteristics (e.g., pro‐sociability) are important. Experiment 2 replicates this and shows that this effect is fully reversed for counterprototypical (i.e., in physical appearance) candidates. This supports a stereotyping as prediction account, and has important theoretical and practical implications. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Different and similar at the same time: when the activation of dissimilarity makes people look more similar

Whether two people are presented as similar or different may have a strong impact on the outcome of their comparison. In the present research, we examined the counterintuitive hypothesis that activating dissimilarity increases the perception of similarities between people, in other words increases perceived feature overlap, during the comparison process. We investigated this prediction by asking people to judge the perceived similarity between two faces with a suboptimally related or unrelated morph inserted in between (to influence joint categorization), and with similar or different facial expressions (to vary the salience of similar or different features). The results confirmed our expectations: In the similarity (joint categorization) condition, two faces that differed in expression were perceived as more dissimilar than faces with the same expression. More important for our prediction, in the dissimilarity condition two faces with different expressions were no longer perceived as more dissimilar than two faces with the same expression. We discuss implications of these findings for the mechanisms underlying comparisons between people. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.