The dark side of fire: Postmodern critique and the elusiveness of the ideological

As scholars commonly maintain, the coming of modernity raised the stakes regarding the pursuit of objective truth and inaugurated the critique of error, unfounded beliefs, prejudice, and ideological interest. In our times, postmodernism has turned the weapons of critique against modernity itself and promoted the wholesale rejection of reason; in the aftermath, without any appraisal criteria left, ideological opinions keep growing in numbers, get decentralized and multifaceted , and are considered as equivalent voices expressing the different experiences of individuals and local groups. But is this inward and self-destructive turn of critique warranted? Unpacking the relevant arguments one finds many contradictions inside postmodernism, derivative of its peculiar antinomial relations to modernity/modernism. A discussion of the various meanings and forms of the notion of meta-narrative demonstrates the weaknesses of both the absolutist (modernist) and radical relativist (postmodernist) positions and points the way toward a moderate, critico-pragmatic understanding of the relationships between, on the one hand, knowledge and critique and, on the other, ideology.     

The effect of an overheard ethnic slur on evaluations of the target: How to spread a social disease

An experiment was conducted to assess the effects of an ethnic slur on evaluations of a targeted minority group member by those who overheard the slur. White subjects plus four confederates participated in a study ostensibly concerned with debating skills. Two of the confederates, one of whom was black, were always picked to engage in a debate which the others were to evaluate. The black debator either won or lost the debate. After the debate, one confederate-evaluator criticized the black in a manner that either did or did not involve an ethnic slur; in a control condition, no such comment was made. Based on the notion that ethnic slurs activate negative schemata regarding members of the targeted minority group, it was predicted that when the black debator lost the debate, the ethnic slur would lead to lower evaluations of his skill. This hypothesis was supported. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.     

Protestant ethic endorsement and the fairness of equity inputs

Two studies are reported which show how endorsement of the Protestant ethic is related to the perceived fairness of using various equity inputs. In Experiment 1, male undergraduates scoring high and low on the Protestant Ethic (PE) Scale made salary decisions for hypothetical workers who differed with respect to their performance quantity and duration. High PEs paid workers in proportion to their total productivity by taking into account both quantity and duration. However, low PEs ignored differences in quantity by paying workers the same amount, but did pay in proportion to duration. In the follow-up study, high PEs reported that it is fairer to base reward on performance when differences are attributable to internal causes than external causes, while the reverse was found for low PEs.     

Avoiding and seeking self-focused attention

Male and female undergraduates read aloud statements about women which were either attitudinally consistent, discrepant, or neutral relative to their attitudes toward women. Following this, they were given the opportunity to choose to wait in front of a mirror or a nonreflecting wall. Subjects engaging in attitudinally discrepant behavior avoided self-focusing stimuli; those engaging in attitudinally consistent behavior sought contact with self-focusing stimuli. Intermediate tendencies to seek or avoid self-focused stimuli were demonstrated by subjects reading attitudinally neutral material. The theory of objective self-awareness was extended by demonstrating that self-focusing stimuli are not just avoided in response to negative discrepancies, but are sought out in response to attitude-behavior consistencies.     

Equity,equality, and the protestant ethic: Allocating rewards following fair and unfair competition

Female undergraduates scoring high and low on the Mirels-Garrett Protestant Ethic (PE) Scale divided a fixed reward between themselves and a co-worker following competition on a clerical task. Half the subjects were told that they had either won or lost in fair competition. The remaining subjects were told they had either won or lost because of an error that gave a favorable advantage to one of the performers. When the competition was fair, high PEs distributed the rewards available according to an equity norm, keeping more than half when they won and less than half when they lost. When the competition was unfair, high PEs attempted to reestablish fairness by compensating the performer with the unfair disadvantage. However, low PEs kept approximately half the reward regardless of fairness and regardless of whether they won or lost.     

Group vs individual equity judgments: Is there a polarization effect?

Two-hundred male undergraduates, individually and in groups of five, divided a fixed reward between two performers with unequal inputs under conditions in which they either expected or did not expect future interaction with recipients. Individuals who anticipated future interaction with recipients divided the reward equally, while groups divided the reward equitably. When interaction was not expected, individuals divided the reward equitably by discriminating between recipients, while groups made more extreme discriminations (the group polarization effect). Experiencing group discussions made individuals more confident in the fairness of their subsequent allocations. The results are discussed in terms of the social and informational influences of groups on allocation decisions.     

The effects of differential reinforcement on generalized imitation

The present study examines the transfer of imitative learning to other nonimitative performance conditions and compares imitative and nonimitative performance under contingencies of differential reinforcement for S⁰ behavior, differential reinforcement for nonimitative behavior, and extinction. Many authors have suggested that a child's continued imitative performance of rewarded S^D and unrewarded S^Δ behavior is a function of subtle social cues or experimental demand present in most generalized imitation procedures. The two experiments presented here support that conclusion but also provide evidence that conclusions drawn from such generalized imitation studies were generally accurate. Even though a child's trial-by-trial imitative performance appeared to be a function of procedural artifacts, the child's later performance in the role of a model indicated that a functionally interdependent generalized response class of imitative behavior had been learned while the child imitated. As such, these experiments generally supported Baer's secondary reinforcement hypothesis for imitative performance and suggest that future research employ nonimitative tasks such as reversed imitation as a measure of imitative learning.