Self-image,perception of peers' risk acceptance and risky shift

Twelve four-person female groups of subjects displaying the typical underestimation of their peers' (relative to their own) risk acceptance were compared with twelve groups of subjects who (slightly) overestimated their peers' risk acceptance. Risk level was measured by responses to a set of hypothetical decision situations known to elicit risky shift on the basis of previous research. Risky shift following group discussion was not found to be different for the two types of groups, casting doubt on the widely suggested role of peer underestimation in risky shift. Nor was risky shift affected by whether or not group members stated their individual decisions publicly at the close of discussion. Larger group risky shifts were accompanied by higher self-ratings given by group members on a number of polarity scales. In discussing the findings, we outline an explanation of group-induced shifts in risk taking, emphasizing the motivational and informational inducements provided by group discussion whereby group members come to discard their prior positions in favor of more aspired ones.     

Factors limiting the generality of the risky-shift phenomenon

While a considerable amount of research has centered on explaining the risky shift (enhancement of risk acceptance through group discussion; see, for example, Dion, Baron, and Miller, 1970), few studies have investigated the generality of the phenomenon. Three of several ways in which the laboratory context is usually lacking of reality are: (a) The decision consequences are imaginary, as in the ‘Choice-Dilemma’ situations used in most of the risky-shift research; (b) the decision consequences - even if they are real (e.g. money) - are slight; and (c) the decisions are made for oneself (whereas in real life many decisions involve agents acting on behalf of others). The present study was designed to investigate the effects of the above three factors - type of incentive, magnitude of stake and decision target - using a betting task as the decision situation.     

WHO CONSIDERS THEMSELVES VICTIMS OF DISCRIMINATION?

We focus on the general issue of how and why individuals might decide if they have been victims of gender discrimination and how social status differences between women and men may change the significance of experiencing gender discrimination. Because both self-protective and situational factors have been found to influence interpretation of prejudicial events, in the present study we explore several individual-difference factors that might differentially predict perceived gender discrimination in women and men. We found that, for men, low self-esteem and high personal assertiveness were related to higher ratings of personal discrimination. Low self-esteem was also related to men's perceptions of discrimination against men as a group. For women, high need for approval was negatively related to perceptions of personal discrimination whereas depression was positively related. Depression was also related to higher ratings of discrimination against women, as was feminism. We argue that perceptions of discrimination serve different purposes for structurally privileged and disadvantaged groups.     

Input integration and input weighting in decisions on allocations of gains and losses

Although the concept of relevance (or weight) of inputs plays a central role in equity theory, it has not been clearly defined. The present investigation attempts to answer the question of when, and which, inputs are taken into account in allocation decisions. Subjects were given a stimulus story in which two fictitious persons had, through joint work, produced a monetary gain or loss; further, information was provided on the relative effort (amount of time worked intensively) and /or ability (as determined by a test) that each stimulus person had contributed. Subjects were asked how they would allocate the gain or loss. Empirical evidence for the following three codeterminants of allocation decisions was obtained: (1) the type of input—personal and behavioural characteristics are [relevant] for allocation if they are perceived as (a) causallv important for outcome production, (b) variable, and (c) under the person's volitional control; (2) the type of outcome to be allocated—more equal allocations are observed when loss as opposed to gain must be allocated; and (3) the constellation of individual inputs on given dimensions—information is given on several input dimensions, a dimension which should be [irrelevant] according to criteria (a), (b), and (c) does codetermine allocations when recipients have contributed equally with respect to this dimension. The latter finding is discussed from the perspective of [cognitive algebra].     

Future orientation of institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents

The present study is an analysis of the relationship between delinquency, institutionalization and future orientation, based on a social-learning theoretical framework. Two hundred and forty male adolescents (institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents) answered open and structured questions concerning their anticipations and evaluations of the future. The data were analysed by analyses of variance and t-tests and partly confirm the hypotheses: Delinquents structure their future in a less differentiated, less extended, and more internal way than nondelinquents. This was especially true for the institutionalized delinquents. However, delinquents structured their fears concerning their personal development more extensively than nondelinquents. Future orientation varied according to the length of institutionalization in different domains of life. These results do not support the dominant assumption of the literature that delinquents have an unrealistic future orientation. Rather, it is shown here that institutionalized delinquents anticipate rather negative future events which they expect to occur shortly after the time of their release. However, the present results have to be cautiously interpreted on account of the special selection of the sample and the rather short duration of institutionalization. Also, the method of a differentiated measurement of future orientation used here is hardly practiced in the literature though such a conceptualization as a multidimensional construct seems to be theoretically fruitful.     

Person perception when aggressive or nonaggressive sports are primed

Previous research investigating the factors contributing to sports spectator violence has focused primarily on conscious processes such as the disinhibiting effects of aggressive models and physiological arousal. The current research borrows a methodology from social cognition work to examine the role of passive, category accessibility effects on fan hostility. Prior research has indicated that as a schema becomes more accessible in memory, the use of it to encode subsequent information is increased. It was therefore hypothesized that individuals for whom the category of hostility had been unobtrusively primed with aggressive-sports names (e.g., boxing) would rate an ambiguous target person as more hostile and as more likely to prefer hostile activities relative to persons who were primed with sports names which were not associated with violence (e.g., golf). The results supported the hypotheses, with subjects who were primed with aggressive-sports rating an unrelated target person's behavior as significantly more hostile and as more likely to prefer aggressive activities relative to subjects exposed to sentences containing references to nonaggressive-sports. Discussion includes the potential ramifications for spectator aggression at sporting events.     

Perceivers' responses to in-group and out-group members who blame a negative outcome on discrimination

The authors extend recent research concerning the social costs of claiming discrimination by examining men's and women's responses to in-group and out-group targets who either blamed a failing grade on discrimination or answer quality. Although participants generally responded more negatively to targets who blamed discrimination, rather than answer quality, dislike was greatest and gender group identification was lowest when participants evaluated an in-group target. Moreover, an in-group target who claimed discrimination was perceived as avoiding personal responsibility for outcomes to a greater extent than was a similar out-group target. Perceptions that the target avoided outcome responsibility by claiming discrimination were shown to mediate the relationship between attribution type and dislike of the in-group target. The authors discuss their results in terms of intragroup processes and suggest that social costs may especially accrue for in-group members when claiming discrimination has implications for the in-group's social identity.     

The role of emotions for moral judgments depends on the type of emotion and moral scenario

Emotions seem to play a critical role in moral judgment. However, the way in which emotions exert their influence on moral judgments is still poorly understood. This study proposes a novel theoretical approach suggesting that emotions influence moral judgments based on their motivational dimension. We tested the effects of two types of induced emotions with equal valence but with different motivational implications (anger and disgust), and four types of moral scenarios (disgust-related, impersonal, personal, and beliefs) on moral judgments. We hypothesized and found that approach motivation associated with anger would make moral judgments more permissible, while disgust, associated with withdrawal motivation, would make them less permissible. Moreover, these effects varied as a function of the type of scenario: the induced emotions only affected moral judgments concerning impersonal and personal scenarios, while we observed no effects for the other scenarios. These findings suggest that emotions can play an important role in moral judgment, but that their specific effects depend upon the type of emotion induced. Furthermore, induced emotion effects were more prevalent for moral decisions in personal and impersonal scenarios, possibly because these require the performance of an action rather than making an abstract judgment. We conclude that the effects of induced emotions on moral judgments can be predicted by taking their motivational dimension into account. This finding has important implications for moral psychology, as it points toward a previously overlooked mechanism linking emotions to moral judgments.     

Neural activation underlying cognitive control in the context of neutral and affectively charged pictures in children

The neural correlates of cognitive control for typically developing 9-year-old children were examined using dense-array ERPs and estimates of cortical activation (LORETA) during a go/no-go task with two conditions: a neutral picture condition and an affectively charged picture condition. Activation was estimated for the entire cortex after which data were exported for four regions of interests (ROIs): ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (OFC/VMPFC). Results revealed faster reaction times, greater N2 activation, and greater prefrontal activation for the affectively charged picture condition than the neutral picture condition. The findings are discussed in reference to the impact of affective stimuli on recruitment of specific brain regions involved in cognitive control.