Identification and changes in prejudice and in authoritarianism.

Ss "were first given the F Scale and a measure of anti-Negro prejudice… . Four weeks later they read a case history of a person who was prejudiced and authoritarian. Half of the subjects were told that the person in the case history was similar to themselves in background and objective personal characteristics. The other half… that the person was dissimilar to them. Three weeks later the F Scale and the anti-Negro prejudice scale were readministered. It was found that those low in prejudice at the first administration became more prejudiced but only if they were told the case history was about someone like themselves… . These results were interpreted in terms of the social support for suppressed 'wrong' feelings and in terms of the pressures to achieve cognitive consistency in one's self-concept." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD65S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, ethnic, and body type biases: The generality of prejudice in childhood.

From a very young age, children show signs of prejudice. However, it is not clear whether those who are the most biased in one domain (e.g., gender) are also the most biased in other domains (e.g., ethnicity). This study addressed the issue using multiple measures of prejudice (negative bias) in 3 domains: gender (male, female), ethnicity-language (French Canadian, English Canadian), and body type (overweight, normal weight). The flexibility of attitudes (i.e., the belief that people from different categories can possess similar traits) was also assessed. A total of 254 children (127 boys, 127 girls) in kindergarten to Grade 6 participated. Children demonstrated clear biases against groups to which they did not belong, although attitudes became more flexible and prejudice declined somewhat with age. There was little predictive power across domains; that is, there was no evidence that prejudice represents a general characteristic that differentiates children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prejudice and Stereotype Maintenance Processes: Attention, Attribution, and Individuation.

Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential perception of certain jobs and people by managers, clerks, and workers in industry.

"… describes the use of the semantic differential for the study of how certain jobs and certain people are perceived by various groups of industrial Ss… . Five jobs and 6 people were rated on 38 scales of corresponding semantic differentials by 156 Ss representing various groups in industry." Supervisors considered successful and unsuccessful by vice-presidents were both considered successful by subordinates. "… the most significant variable in the perception of jobs is the level of the job… . the managers make finer discriminations between jobs than do the workers… . The findings suggest that management ought to consider the tendency of workers to value their jobs more than management values them, in its communication to them." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The active control of prejudice: Unpacking the intentions guiding control efforts.

To date, there is little direct evidence that people who are motivated to respond without prejudice actively work to reduce their prejudice. The authors explored people's efforts to control prejudice for an upcoming interracial interaction. They proposed that people who were motivated to respond without prejudice should exert effort to control prejudice but that their efforts should reflect the intentions underlying their motivation. Behavioral evidence was provided across 3 studies supporting the contention that external motivation to respond without prejudice results in the intention to hide prejudice and that externally motivated people actively work to reduce detectable prejudice. In contrast, internal motivation gives rise to the intention to be free of prejudice, and internally motivated people actively work to eliminate any form of prejudice whether or not it would be apparent to others. The short- and long-term implications of these differential intentions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race, social class, religion, and nationality as determinants of social distance.

"In a study of social distance of college students with respect to various social objects, a factorial design with two levels of value of race, social class, religion, and nationality was employed and analyses of variance were computed on social distance scores. For white Ss race and social class were found to be more important determinants of social distance than religion or nationality… . The data are interpreted in terms of a theory of prejudice that employs conformity, cognitive dissonance, and insecurity as its main constructs." (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frustration, aggression, and murder.

"… 51 male murderers and their 51 nearest-age brothers were investigated with respect to frustration in infancy, childhood, and adolescence… . The central hypothesis was: There is a significant positive relationship between the amount of frustration experienced by persons in infancy, childhood, and adolescence… and whether or not they later commit murder… . [The results showed that] significantly more murderers than control brothers scored high on the Indices of Physical, Psychological, and General Frustration." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antisemitism and the expression of fantasy aggression.

"In order to test a hypothesis derived from the scapegoat theory of prejudice [Dollard, et al, 1939], two groups… chosen on the basis of… high and… low scores on the Levinson Anti-Semitism Scale, [A-S] were subjected to an aggression arousing situation. Following aggression arousal a specially designed fantasy test was administered, which yielded measures of aggression expressed toward fantasy characters with Jewish or non-Jewish names. Control subjects, matched with Arousal group subjects on… A-S scores, took the fantasy test without prior aggression arousal. Aggression arousal produced significant differences in the fantasy aggression of High and Low A-S subjects… . [supporting] the hypothesis that persons high in anti-Semitism have a greater… tendency… to displace aggression selectively onto Jews." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD54W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying Jewish names: Does prejudice increase accuracy?

Ss with strong prejudices were no more capable of identifying names as being more or less Jewish than Ss who were not so prejudiced. "The present negative results… are consistent with the fact that properly controlled photographic studies have been uniformly negative. It seems reasonable to conclude that the hypothesis that prejudice increases accuracy of identification of Jews may be safely put to rest." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative efficacy of various types of prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion.

"It was postulated that people characteristically defend their beliefs… by avoiding exposure to contradictory information… . Since the person is unmotivated to develop a defense of his belief to the extent that he considers it invulnerable, it was hypothesized that such beliefs are more effectively immunized against persuasion by preexposure to counterarguments… . Second, since the person is unpracticed in the defense of such beliefs, it was predicted that immunizing pretreatments would lose effectiveness to the extent that they required the person to participate actively… in the defense. Finally, an interaction effect was predicted such that the detrimental effect of requiring active participation is greater with the defense involving pre-exposure to the counterarguments than with the supportive defense." The hypotheses were supported. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD27M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

GSR conditioning, anxiety, and extraversion.

"Hypotheses by Eysenck and Spence relating GSR conditioning to extraversion and anxiety, respectively, were examined… [Ss] scoring on the extremes of anxiety and extraversion were selected… . Using a conditioned response amplitude measure,… a significant positive relationship was found between anxiety and conditioning. No significant relationship was found between extraversion and conditioning… . The results give clear support to Spence's theory while failing to support that of Eysenck." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4CG27B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive risk and environmental change.

"It is the objective of the present paper to examine wherein breadth of categorizing reflects the manner in which people deal with the risk of errors of judgment—specifically, the risk of saying that things are similar when they might be different, or that they are different when they might be similar… . Our central interest is in the specific behavior of broad and narrow categorizers in a highly simplified judging task. Two questions concern us. The first… with consistency of preference for broad and narrow categorizing in a stable stimulus situation… [and the] consistent manner in which… categorizers alter their judgments in the face of changes in the stimulus situations… . The narrow categorizer appears to prefer the risk… possibly being wrong… . The broad categorizer prefers the risk of not reacting to change and possibly being wrong." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HE31B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Difference, not prejudice, engenders intergroup tension.

Comments on S. O. Gaines & E. S. Reed (See record 82-21046) acceptance of E. B. DuBois's sociohistorical view, arguing that prejudice and racism begin with the exploitation of a people of peoples. The most effective way to improve intergroup or intercultural relations is to admit and to discuss frankly, the existing differences, and at the same time explaining that there is nothing wrong with being different. Because we are different, we can only understand each other better if we are aware that we are different. People's stereotypes, when capturing group or cultural differences, are accurate, and that understanding and appreciating group and cultural differences will help us to understand prejudice better and deal with intergroup tensions more effectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflict and repression during sleep deprivation.

"A series of three TAT cards representing a continuum of low, medium, and high sleep suggestions was selected on the basis of rankings by 10 psychologists and 10 lay people. These three cards were administered… to 24 experimental Ss after about 86 hours of sleep deprivation, as well as to 24 control subjects… . [On these TAT cards] the sleep-deprived group gave fewer sleep themes than did the control group… . The results… were interpreted as indicating that the subjects were avoiding thoughts or verbal responses which might arouse overpowering sleepiness… . An analysis of these phenomena in terms of the Dollard-Miller theory of repression was made." 23 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between self-acceptance and sociometric choice.

"Lipsitt's… [see 34: 4134] Self-Concept and Ideal-Self scales and two Sociometric scales were given to fourth, sixth, and eighth grade subjects… Acceptance of others, acceptance by others, and acceptance by best friends were curvilinearly related to self-concept scores… . trends were not significantly different in different grades or sexes… . Acceptance by others was more strongly related to self-concept than was acceptance by best friends… . The sociometric measures were not significantly related to the discrepancy between ideal-self and self-concept scores suggesting that the discrepancy score obtained by subtraction may not be a valid measure of self-acceptance." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FF72R. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ageism, psychology, and public policy.

Chronological age—either young or old—may be the basis for prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices, and institutional policies. The importance and role of ageism differs greatly between societies, such as the United States and Japan. Psychological research has documented a variety of examples of negative attitudes toward older people in the United States, but these results may reflect the methods used or may indicate a preference for age similarity rather than prejudice against the aged. Vulnerability to ageism in old age is associated demographically with being a woman, living alone, and having a poor health status. Discriminatory attitudes, mental health services, and employment policies are examples of the interface of ageism and psychology. Ageism may be reduced by emphasizing diversity among older people, paying attention to compensations for reduced abilities, and developing public policy based on need rather than on age. The importance of ageism as a psychological issue must be recognized and included in the public debate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparative study of individual, majority, and group judgment.

"The performance of individuals working alone, under majority rule, and as members of discussion groups were compared on a complex intellectual task… . The results indicated that:… Majority decisions, when deadlocks are evenly divided between right and wrong, decisions, are not significantly different from those made by the average individual and are inferior to those of the best members of the group working alone… . Group decisions, reached through cooperative deliberation, are significantly superior to decisions made by individual members working alone and to majority rule." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes toward old people: The development of a scale and an examination of correlates.

"The present paper reports on the development of a Likert scale for assessing attitudes toward old people and discusses empirical relations found between such attitudes and other attitudinal and personality variables. Three samples of college undergraduates served as subjects… a scale containing items making unfavorable reference to old people and a scale containing matched favorably worded items [were constructed]… no clear consistent relation obtained between authoritarianism as measured by the F Scale and attitudes toward old people. On the other hand, unfavorable attitudes toward old people were associated with feelings of anomie, and with negative dispositions toward ethnic minorities and a variety of physically disabled groups. A nurturance factor… was significantly correlated with… scale scores, the more nuturant subjects being more positively disposed toward old people." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3GD44K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Category and stereotype activation: Is prejudice inevitable?

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that people high and low in prejudice respond similarly to direct stereotype activation but differently to category activation. Study I (N?=?40) showed that high- and low-prejudice people share the same knowledge of the stereotype of Black people. In Study 2, (N?=?51) high-prejudice participants formed a more negative and less positive impression of the target person after subliminal priming of the category Blacks than did participants in the no-prime condition. Low-prejudice people tended in the opposite direction. In Study 3 (N?=?45), both high- and low-prejudice people increased negative ratings when valenced stereotype content was also primed. These findings support a distinction between automatic stereotype activation resulting from direct priming and that consequent upon category activation, implying that the relations among categorization, stereotyping, and prejudice are more flexible than it is often assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of mild frustration on the expression of prejudiced attitudes.

"The present study was designed to test the proposition that frustration may increase the expression of prejudice. Sixty-four S's were given a series of attitude scales, following which all were exposed to a relatively mild, experimentally induced frustration. Immediately thereafter, alternate forms of the attitude scale were administered. Significant increases were found… [and] the results were interpreted as an instance of 'targeting' of a minority group within the general framework of the scapegoat phenomenon." 23 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)