Oxytocin attenuates racial categorization in 14-month-old infants

Intergroup bias – the preferential attitudes one holds towards one's social group – is a ubiquitous socio-cognitive phenomenon. In fact, studies show that already in the first months of life, infants manifest a preference for members of their own social group. This points to the possibility of inborn mechanisms involved in social group cognition. Here we assess the effect of a biological activation of infants’ affiliative motivation on their social categorization capacity. In a first visit to the lab, mothers self-administered either Oxytocin (OT) or placebo (PL) via a nasal spray and then engaged in a face-to-face interaction with their 14-month-old infants, a procedure previously shown to increase OT levels in infants. Infants then performed a racial categorization task presented on an eye-tracker. Mothers and infants returned a week later and repeated the procedure while self-administering the complementary substance (i.e., PL or OT, respectively). In total, 24 infants completed the two visits. We found that whereas infants in the PL condition on the first visit exhibited racial categorization, infants in the OT condition in their first visit did not. Moreover, these patterns remained a week later despite the change in substance. Thus, OT inhibited racial categorization when infants first encountered the to-be-categorized faces. These findings highlight the role of affiliative motivation in social categorization, and suggest that the neurobiology of affiliation may provide insights on mechanisms that may be involved in the downstream prejudicial consequences of intergroup bias.     

Arguing about definitions

What are the implications of taking seriously Chaïm Perelman's proposition that “definitions are rhetorical”? Efforts to find Real Definitions are dysfunctional to the extent they direct argumentation toward pseudo “is” claims and away from explicit “ought” claims about how words are to be used. Addressing definitional disputes explicitly as propositions ofought rather thanis could put on the agenda the pragmatic concerns of definitional choice that might otherwise remain tacit.     

De Re Language,De Re Eliminability,and the Essential Limits of Both

De re modality is eliminable if there is an effective translation of all wffs into non-de re equivalents. We cannot have logical equivalence unless logic has odd theses, but we can have material equivalence by banning all essences, something the non-de re facts let us do, or by giving everything such humdrum essences as self-identity and banning the more interesting ones. Eliminability cannot be got from weaker assumptions, nor independent ones of even modest generality. The net philosophical import is that, quite apart from the merits of essentialism, de re language has scant utility.     

Multisensory stimulation with other-race faces and the reduction of racial prejudice

This study investigated whether multisensory stimulation with other-race faces can reduce racial prejudice. In three experiments, the faces of Caucasian observers were stroked with a cotton bud while they watched a black face being stroked in synchrony on a computer screen. This was compared with a neutral condition, in which no tactile stimulation was administered (Experiment 1 and 2), and with a condition in which observers’ faces were stroked in asynchrony with the onscreen face (Experiment 3). In all experiments, observers experienced an enfacement illusion after synchronous stimulation, whereby they reported to embody the other-race face. However, this effect did not produce concurrent changes in implicit or explicit racial prejudice. This outcome contrasts with other procedures for the reduction of self-other differences that decrease racial prejudice, such as behavioural mimicry and intergroup contact. We speculate that enfacement is less effective for such prejudice reduction because it does not encourage perspective-taking.     

Psychological Essentialism and Nationalism as Determinants of Interethnic Bias

ABSTRACT

The present study examined whether individuals without strong national identity (i.e., low nationalism) would be susceptible to temporarily elicited essentialism to alter their mental representations of ethnic boundaries, and thus increase interethnic bias. To test these ideas we experimentally induced essentialist beliefs among Japanese subjects about the boundary between Japanese and Chinese ethnicities, while measuring the strength of nationalism as an individual variable. The results were generally consistent with predictions, suggesting that the activation of essentialist beliefs can strengthen interethnic biases among people without strong nationalism.     

E pluribus unum: Dual identity and minority group members' motivation to engage in contact, as well as social change

Recent work on social change illustrates that disadvantaged-group members are sometimes less influenced by prejudice-reduction strategies than are advantaged-group members, and interventions to improve intergroup relations (e.g., commonality) can sometimes have the unintended consequence of reducing social-change motivations among members of disadvantaged groups. Focusing on disadvantaged groups' (i.e., racial/ethnic minorities) orientations toward advantaged groups, the present research experimentally investigated the potential of dual, relative to common, identity to produce greater willingness to engage in contact, while maintaining social change motivation. Relative to common identity, dual identity produced not only greater willingness to engage in contact, which was mediated by perceptions of shared values, but also greater social change motivation, mediated by decreased optimism about future relations. Thus, for dual identity, enhancing approach motivation (willingness for contact) does not necessarily undermine social change motivation. Implications for intergroup relations and more broadly social change are discussed.     

I know you're me, but who am I? Perspective taking and seeing the other in the self

Research examining the consequences of perspective-taking on cognition suggests that through perceiver–target overlap, perspective-taking can lead to greater valuing of targets, greater helping of targets, and a reduction in stereotyping of targets and the groups to which they belong. Research has also begun to focus more closely on the ways perceivers come to think and act like targets. This research, however evocative, is not conclusive. The current studies set out to provide firmer support. Reported here, two studies found that perspective-taking influences perceiver–target overlap, which mediates changes in self-concept (ratings of the self on researcher-related attributes and beliefs after taking the perspective of a researcher in Study 1 and attitudes toward African Americans after taking the perspective of a racist in Study 2). In the same studies, overlap simultaneously mediated valuing of the targets (target ratings on positive attributes in Study 1 and liking for the target in Study 2).