Community Gender Norms Change as a Part of a Multilevel Approach to Sexual Health Among Married Women in Mumbai,India

Inequitable gender norms in societies and communities negatively contribute to women’s sexual and reproductive health. While the need for change in gender norms is well recognized, the task is highly challenging in terms of intervention design, implementation and assessment of impact. This paper describes a methodology for identification of gender norms, the design of community level intervention, community participation and the assessment of intervention impact in a low income, predominately Muslim community of 600,000 people in Mumbai, India. Formative research focused on in‐depth interviews with women, men and couples yielding gender normative statements and assessment of community resources to facilitate change. A Gender Equity Scale (GES) based on this formative research was developed and administered annually for a three‐year period to random, cross‐sectional samples in the intervention and control communities, and to community based, non‐governmental organizations (NGO) staff and Imams (religious leaders) in the intervention community. NGO staff disseminated gender oriented messages to their female constituency through their regular outreach activities and through special events and festivals in the community. Imams disseminated gender messages through lectures on social issues for men attending Friday prayers. The results showed that the NGO staff and Imams, assumed more gender equitable attitudes across time. The intervention was associated with a significant improvement in attitudes towards gender equity in the intervention relative to the control community. Men showed a dramatic change in more positive gender attitudes, while women lagged behind in their GES scores. The meaning of these results are explored and the implications assessed for the generalizability of the methodology for other countries, cultures and communities.     

Fat talk and self-presentation of body image: Is there a social norm for women to self-degrade?

The current investigations build upon previous ethnographic research, which identified a social norm for adolescent females to engage in “fat talk” (informal dialogue during which individuals express body dissatisfaction). In Study 1, participants were shown a vignette involving women engaging in fat talk dialogue and were subsequently asked to chose one of three self-presentational responses for a target female: (1) self-accepting of her body, (2) providing no information, or (3) self-degrading about her body. Male and female participants believed the target would be most likely to self-degrade, and that this would lead women to like her, while the self-accepting response would lead men to like her most. Study 2 used the same vignette but participants were asked to respond in an open-ended fashion. Participants again expected the target female to self-degrade. The present findings suggest college students perceive fat talk self-degradation of body image as normative.     

Living in a multicultural world: Intergroup ideologies and the societal context of intergroup relations

In a relatively short time span, issues of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity have become central topics of discussion in various nations. As a result, the role of broad ideologies that frame and structure relations between groups has received increasing attention by social psychologists. Of particular concern has been the role of these intergroup ideologies in promoting intergroup harmony and reducing prejudice. In this article, we appraise the evidence related to three main intergroup ideologies, assimilation, colourblindness, and multiculturalism. We argue that research in this area has paid insufficient attention to the social and political context. Intergroup ideologies have been studied and conceptualised as being located solely within individual minds. We suggest that the potentially vital aspect of these ideologies is that they are sometimes widely shared by members of a social group. Integrating sociological and political analyses, we discuss the fact that intergroup ideologies are institutionalised as policies and that, as such, they often vary across countries and across time. We present a series of studies to illustrate the theoretical implications of studying the shared nature of these intergroup ideologies, providing insights into the question of when and why national policies can shape individuals’ intergroup attitudes and beliefs and improve intergroup relations.     

Reducing prejudice via direct and extended cross-group friendship

One of the most exciting developments in intergroup contact theory is the idea that a certain type of contact, cross-group friendship, might be particularly effective at reducing prejudice. In this chapter we review research on two types of cross-group friendship. Direct cross-group friendship refers to friendships that develop between members of different groups. Extended cross-group friendship, on the other hand, refers to vicarious experience of cross-group friendship, the mere knowledge that other ingroup members have cross-group friends. We consider the relationship between both types of cross-group friendship and prejudice and the processes that mediate and moderate these relationships. The research highlights the respective strengths and weaknesses of direct and extended cross-group friendship and illustrates how they might be practically combined in efforts to improve intergroup relations.     

Psychoanalysis and Human Values

Psychoanalysis can contribute quite a lot to the question of values and to a theory of ethics. While the first part of this presentation is focused on the impact psychoanalysis continues to exert on present day ethical theory, the second part discusses Erich Fromm's particular approach to psychoanalysis. Fromm was the first to reformulate in his psychoanalytic approach the idea of an ethic of the virtues. With his theory of character (and of social character) he made values an integral part of psychoanalytic theory. Hence, what matters most morally from a psychoanalytic stance is the quality of character orientation. Despite the fact that - in Fromm's own socio-psychoanalytic approach - man's character is the product of adaptation to the environment, morality for him is dictated by economic and social requirements - whatever common sense may tell us to the contrary. For Fromm there is an intrinsic primary tendency to growth in all human beings. Thus, morally good is whatever furthers the growth of our own powers by which we relate to the outside world and to ourselves in a loving, "sane" and creative way. The last section reflects some implications of Fromm's approach to understanding values as an integral part of psychoanalytic theory, and finally discusses whether the search for truth and human values is as obsolete as postmodern thinking claims.     

Prototypicality of responses of autistic,language disordered,and normal children in a word fluency task

This article describes an example of making pediatric neuropsychological assessments more time-efficient. Empirical support, including new data, for the utilization of an eight-subtest short form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III; Wechsler, 1991) is reviewed. It is concluded that this short form of the WISC-III is a valid substitute for the complete version under most clinical circumstances, allowing the practitioner to expand on interview, history or more specific neuropsychological tests without adding financial or time burdens to the evaluation.     

Empathy, group norms and children's ethnic attitudes

Two minimal group studies (Ns = 150, 123) examined the impact of emotional empathy on the ethnic attitudes of 5 to 12-year old white Anglo-Australian children. Study 1 evaluated the relationship between empathy and attitudes towards a same (Anglo-Australian) versus different ethnicity (Pacific Islander) outgroup. A significant empathy × outgroup ethnicity interaction revealed that empathy was unrelated to the children's liking for the same ethnicity outgroup, but that liking for the different ethnicity outgroup increased as empathy increased. Study 2 examined the influence of empathy on attitudes towards the different ethnicity outgroup when the ingroup had a norm of inclusion versus exclusion. A significant empathy × group norm interaction revealed that empathy was unrelated to liking when the ingroup had a norm of exclusion, but that liking for the different ethnicity outgroup increased when the ingroup had a norm of inclusion. Implications of the findings for promoting children's positive attitudes to ethnic minority groups are discussed.     

Failure to warn: How student race affects warnings of potential academic difficulty

In two studies, we document “failure to warn”—a reduced likelihood of warning Black students against potential academic difficulty compared to White students. In both studies, participants placed in the role of academic advisors saw a highly challenging academic course plan, attributed to either a Black or a White student, and gave Black students less warning about the potential negative consequences of taking on the proposed plan. Study 1 (N = 172) demonstrates this effect using undergraduate peer academic advisors, and Study 2 (N = 58) provides evidence that this effect is moderated by Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice (Plant & Devine, 1998), suggesting that this effect is driven by the fear that discouraging an ambitious Black student might reflect prejudice. This well-intentioned concern can have the ironic consequence of leading the recipients of this advice into academic difficulties.     

Norm-Narrowing and Self- and Other-Perceived Aggression in Early-Adolescent Same-Sex and Mixed-Sex Cliques

We examined the relations between group context and self- and other-perceptions of aggressive behavior in an ethnically-diverse sample of 168 male and female grade 7 adolescents. We used self- and peer-reports of aggression in high- and average-aggressive mixed-sex and same-sex cliques to examine whether group members would assimilate their self-report of aggression to the aggression report of their peers by way of perceived homophily or, conversely, engage in contrast and see their level of aggression as comparatively low in the face of high-aggression peers. Among boys in mixed-sex groups, comparison with highly-aggressive others resulted in a self-perception of lower levels of aggression than those perceived by their peers. Conversely, girls in mixed-sex groups reported their own levels of aggression to be higher than those perceived by their peers. We interpret these findings in terms of the notion of “norm narrowing”: rather than being set by the larger social environment, such as the school, norms are more narrowly determined within one's immediate peer group.