Social Psychology

Research has begun to reveal the malleability of implicit prejudice. One measure of this construct, the race Implicit Association Test (IAT), represents a widely-used tool to assess individuals' positive and negative associations with different racial groups. In two studies, we demonstrate the capacity of salient pressures to alter implicit racial responses. In Study 1, an enhancement of promoting pressures through an explicit instruction to stereotype was sufficient to increase pro-White bias on the IAT. In Study 2, an enhancement of inhibiting pressures through a simple instruction to avoid stereotyping was sufficient to reduce pro-White bias. Taken together, the studies suggest that implicit prejudice is amenable to voluntary control through the use of simple, direct means.

The present research experimentally investigated the impact of terrorism salience on authoritarian practices. It was found that terrorist threat cues (induced by reminders of terrorist incidents) had a significant impact upon both attitudes and behaviors regarding authoritarian parenting practices (Studies 1 and 2) as well as their actual occurrence in a real parent-child playing interaction (Study 3). The implications of these findings for the social psychological perspective on threat and parenting style are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Many have questioned what Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election means for prejudice and intergroup relations in the United States. In this study, we examined both explicit and implicit prejudice toward African Americans prior to and immediately following the election of the first African American to the nation’s highest office. Results indicated that implicit prejudice (as measured by an IAT) decreased following Obama’s victory, though explicit prejudice remained unchanged. The results are discussed in terms of the malleability of implicit attitudes, race relations, and the impact an Obama presidency and other positive exemplars may have on intergroup relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Drawing on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment (OECD/PISA), we examined the relationship between the percentage of immigrant students and the reading and mathematics performances of native and immigrant students across nations. In line with research on cultural diversity, results indicated performance benefits as the percentage of immigrant students increased across nations. Interestingly, these effects remained significant for both native and immigrant students, once several other predictors of test performance at the national, school, and individual levels were controlled for. These findings challenge the assumption that the increasing presence of immigrant students in educational institutions represents a threat to native students’ academic performance. Potential mechanisms are proposed and discussed, offering new avenues for research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Social identity theory, intergroup emotions theory (IET), and related approaches offer the potential to understand the social psychological aspects of collective behavior such as movements that protest against or argue for war. Social identification, however, tends to be a weak predictor of collective action intentions. We argue that in order to understand the fault lines of collective action it is useful to consider identification with opinion-based groups. We illustrate this in relation to support for and opposition to the war on terror (WoT) in Australia. Comparing predictions based on IET with those based on opinion-based group identification, we found limited support for the sets of connections hypothesized by IET. Alternatively, social identification with pro- and anti-WoT opinion-based groups was a strong predictor of different emotional reactions and associated action intentions. In particular, highly identified supporters of the WoT were angry at terrorists, and this anger in turn predicted offensive action tendencies against the terrorists. Stronger yet were the emotional reactions of anger at the government reported by highly identified opponents of the WoT, which strongly predicted anti-war protest action intentions. The results point to the utility of the opinion-based group concept for understanding the collective, yet contested, aspects of political support for war and peace in contemporary society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In this paper I argue that, to make intentional actions fully intelligible, we need to posit representations of action the content of which is nonconceptual. I further argue that an analysis of the properties of these nonconceptual representations, and of their relationships to action representations at higher levels, sheds light on the limits of intentional control. On the one hand, the capacity to form nonconceptual representations of goal-directed movements underscores the capacity to acquire executable concepts of these movements, thus allowing them to come under intentional control. On the other hand, the degree of autonomy these nonconceptual representations enjoy, and the specific temporal constraints stemming from their role in motor control, set limits on intentional control over action execution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Two basic principles governing the motivational regulation of automatic affective processing are described and relevant evidence is reviewed. According to the counter-regulation principle, attention is automatically allocated to information that is opposite in valence to current motivational states: A positive outcome focus increases the salience of negative information whereas a negative outcome focus induces an attentional focus on positive information. Counter-regulation in automatic affective processing prevents motivational states from escalating or becoming chronic. According to the control-dependency principle, processing of information is characterized by a problem focus (negativity bias) if goal pursuit is experienced as controllable, whereas experiencing a lack of control over important outcomes is accompanied by an enhancement focus (positivity bias). Control-dependency of affective processing promotes persistent goal pursuit in the face of controllable challenges, and facilitates the acceptance of a given situation and disengagement from blocked goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Perceptual bias in simple visuospatial tasks, such as line bisection seen among healthy dextrals, has often been attributed to the hemispheric activation hypothesis. The often reported leftward perceptual bias was explained by an activation of the right hemisphere during visuospatial tasks. However, imposed scanning direction and stimuli saliency have also been used to explain these spatial asymmetries. One example of scanning direction is the well-trained one resulting from reading direction. Here, we present studies that target the role of reading direction on nonverbal tasks: line bisection, esthetic preference, and straight-ahead pointing by comparing left-to-right and right-to-left readers. The findings are discussed regarding the interaction between cultural factors, such as reading habits, and biological factors, such as cerebral lateralization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Processes involving an automatic activation of stereotypes in different contexts were investigated using a priming paradigm with the lexical decision task. The names of social categories were combined with background pictures of specific situations to yield a compound prime comprising category and context information. Significant category priming effects for stereotypic attributes (e.g., Bavarians–beer) emerged for fitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a marquee) but not for nonfitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a shop). Findings indicate that social stereotypes are organized as specific mental schemas that are triggered by a combination of category and context information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Two attitude dichotomies—implicit versus explicit and affect versus cognition—are presumed to be related. Following a manipulation of attitudinal focus (affective or cognitive), participants completed two implicit measures (Implicit Association Test and the Sorting Paired Features task) and three explicit attitude measures toward cats/dogs (Study 1) and gay/straight people (Study 2). Based on confirmatory factor analysis, both studies showed that explicit attitudes were more related to implicit attitudes in an affective focus than in a cognitive focus. We suggest that, although explicit evaluations can be meaningfully parsed into affective and cognitive components, implicit evaluations are more related to affective than cognitive components of attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This article investigates the interplay between darkness, construal level, and psychological distance based on the link between environmental lighting conditions and visual perception. In the dark, visual perception becomes less focused and detailed, leading to more abstract representations. We argue that this link between physical darkness and a global perceptual processing style spills over to the conceptual level. In three experiments, darkness triggered a more global perceptual and conceptual processing style than did brightness, regardless of whether the darkness was physically manipulated or primed. Additionally, two Implicit Association Tests (IATs) showed that darkness is more strongly associated with high-level construal than with low-level construal. Moreover, drawing on the generalized link between construal level and psychological distance, we proposed that darkness is also linked to perceived psychological distance because the lack of detail information and the abstract representations in the dark remove objects and other persons from people’s direct, detailed experience. Eight IATs confirmed the implicit link between darkness and four dimensions of psychological distance. These implications of these results are discussed with regard to thinking styles and social processes like stereotyping and cooperation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Goal-striving and achievement can be undermined when individuals have a competing desire to protect a cherished self-view. When individuals are more concerned with avoiding the negative implications of a likely failure than with self-improvement, they may ignore negative information or may even go so far as to purposefully undermine their own performance. For example, self-handicapping involves creating or claiming obstacles to success in order to protect self-esteem in the event of task failure. One method to reduce such destructive behavior is to address self-protection concerns through other means. Notably, affirming overall self-integrity by drawing attention to other positive aspects of the self has been previously shown to reduce subsequent self-handicapping behavior. The present studies demonstrate, however, that these effects may not be as broad as previously assumed. Specifically, only self-affirmations in domains unrelated to the current threat seem to be effective in reducing self-handicapping. Self-affirmations related to the threatened domain may only serve to create a standard of comparison for the current performance, maintaining or even intensifying the existing threat. Thus, it appears that attempts to protect a specific self-conception can severely hamper goal-striving and subsequent achievement. Implications for understanding the motivations underlying self-handicapping and for reducing this self-defeating behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

“Not in my back yard” (NIMBY) is characterized as behavioral opposition to proposed change and reflects vested interest and perceived negative personal consequences. The present research examined the role of arousal in moderating the relationship between vested interest and oppositional behavior. Two studies replicated previous research with high vested interest associated with greater oppositional behavior and greater attitude-behavior consistency than that observed with low vested interest. Moreover, a misattribution of arousal manipulation (Study 1) resulted in reduced oppositional behavior, whereas an induced arousal manipulation (Study 2) resulted in greater oppositional behavior. These results provide experimental support for the role of arousal underlying vested interest and behavioral opposition. Implications of the results for applications and further research are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This study examined whether social dominance orientation (SDO) affects the malleability of group stereotypes in the face of disconfirmation. Data were collected at two time points: At Time 1, baseline stereotypes and SDO were assessed, and at Time 2, either moderately or extremely stereotype-inconsistent information was presented and stereotyping measures were repeated. Consistent with previous research, exposure to moderately inconsistent information resulted in greater stereotype change than exposure to extremely inconsistent information. As expected, SDO was negatively related to stereotype change, in particular after presentation of moderately inconsistent information. The judged typicality of the target exemplar mediated the effects of the manipulation but did not mediate the effects of SDO. Implications for future research and interventions to reduce stereotyping are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

We examined whether perceptions of status (in)stability moderate the effects of ingroup identification on explicit and implicit intergroup attitudes. We expected that identification with Italians (low-status group) would enhance ingroup bias toward (US) Americans (high-status group) more when status was unstable rather than stable. We also predicted that the effects of identification on bias would be driven by ingroup enhancement for explicit attitudes and by both ingroup enhancement and outgroup derogation for implicit attitudes. The results revealed that identification increased explicit ingroup evaluation and ingroup bias independently from status (in)stability. However, identification increased implicit outgroup derogation only with unstable status. The results are discussed with reference to social identity theory and to the importance of considering both explicit and implicit attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Participants (N = 567) from six countries (Belgium, Ivory Coast, Italy, Kosovo, Portugal, and Switzerland) drew borders of their own and of neighbor countries on boundary-free maps. It was predicted and found that the tendency to overestimate versus underestimate the sizes of the countries, compared to the original maps, reflects the perceiver’s attitudes toward the target country, status asymmetries, and the quality of relations between the ingroup and outgroup countries. The findings are discussed with regard to the use of drawings in revealing people’s attitudes toward outgroups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The purpose of this study was to test an integrative model in which worldview beliefs were treated as antecedents of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and two sets of attitudes related to the War on Terror: endorsement of restrictions on human rights/civil liberties and support for the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003. Dangerous and competitive world beliefs significantly predicted RWA and SDO, respectively, during structural equation modeling. Whereas both RWA and SDO predicted endorsement of human rights/civil liberties attitudes, only RWA predicted support for military aggression against Iraq. Tests of indirect effects suggested that RWA mediated the effects of dangerous world beliefs on attitudes toward human rights/civil liberties and support for military aggression, whereas SDO mediated the effects of competitive world beliefs on attitudes toward human rights/civil liberties only. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Hindsight bias describes characteristic changes in the perceptions of events or facts once their outcomes are known. This article focuses on one important facet of this, named creeping determinism, denoting enhanced hindsight perceptions of the inevitability of event outcomes. We suggest a systematic link between the literatures on causal attribution and hindsight bias/creeping determinism and introduce a comprehensive causal model theory (CMT) of creeping determinism. We then distinguish between two alternative versions of CMT, which reflect recent debates in the causal attribution literature. These versions assume, respectively, that individuals make causal attributions by means of covariation analysis or via the discovery of some underlying mechanism. In order to contrast these assumptions, we introduce a new hypothesis concerning the magnitude of creeping determinism, based on the conjunction effect in causal attribution, and we present empirical evidence concerning this hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Fifty years after the publication of The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (Heider, 1958), attribution inquiry remains strong, but no longer dominant. This article examines some of the people (particularly, Fritz Heider, Edward Jones, and Harold Kelley), publications, and conceptual issues that contributed to the duration of this line of work. Personal anecdotes are included. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In studies on biased eyewitness memory, the biasing information about the witnessed event is typically detailed and specific. We investigated the influence of global biasing information, such as a co-witness’ impression of a suspect. Student participants watched a video depicting a bar-brawl involving a male target person. After retelling the incident to a generic fellow student who presumably disliked (vs. liked) the target person, participants exhibited audience-congruent biases in memory and judgment: They remembered more negative information about the target, believed he was more responsible, and assigned him longer penalties. No such effects were found when participants were less motivated to create a shared view about the incident (with the audience being a student from a different study field). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This article presents an experiment testing the assumption that humans show clear avoidance reactions to possible nonbeneficial social contacts, even without conscious awareness. When the potential costs of interpersonal contacts are salient, people quickly respond to and extensively explore those situational configurations that are relevant to experimentally induced goals. A priming procedure was used to activate potential costs or benefits of interpersonal contacts or neutral aspects. To assess the unconscious activation of social approach or avoidance responses we chose three parameters reflecting participants’ eye movements on different pictures that contained (1) social and (2) nonsocial flight- and avoidance-relevant areas (areas of interest, AOI). Participants primed with the costs (benefits) of social contacts explored nonsocial (social) AOI on the presented pictures significantly longer than participants who were primed with the benefits (costs) of interpersonal contacts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In three studies we examined the effects of private and public self-awareness on the saliency of behavioral standards. We used several well-known manipulations to test the effects of private or public self-awareness on the activation of behavioral standards. We expected and found that public self-awareness was related to relatively social standards, such as “getting along well” with others, conveying a positive image, and wanting to be accepted. Private self-awareness was related to the relatively individualistic standard to be authentic and even to being different from others. The consequences of these results are discussed in light of previous research. It is argued that it is important to acknowledge that awareness of different self-aspects may increase saliency of distinct behavioral standards. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The present study shows how directional movement is related to meaning. We measured the influence of congruent versus incongruent movement—meaning pairings on reaction times in a Stroop-type categorization task. Movement-related words corresponding to the vertical up-down axis (e.g., happiness—grief; successful; to sink) and to the sagittal front-back axis (e.g., tomorrow—yesterday; decisive; to retreat) were coupled with actual movement in the vertical and sagittal axes. The color of the word appearing on a computer screen indicated the movement direction, creating congruent and incongruent movement—meaning trials. Participants reacted faster on congruent trials (e.g., happy—upward movement; decisive—forward movement) than on incongruent trials (e.g., happy—downward movement; decisive—backward movement). Results supported the hypothesized movement—meaning relation for both the vertical and the sagittal dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research has shown that mimicry increases the social influence of the mimicker and leads to greater liking of the mimicker. It has been proposed that mimicry is exhibited to create affiliation and rapport during social interaction. In two experiments (total N = 95) we manipulated the role of incidental similarity between two individuals on mimicry behavior. Undergraduates who believed they had (vs. did not have) the same first name (Study 1) or same subject of study (Study 2) as a target presented on videotape were more likely to mimic the target’s nonverbal behavior. Results support the notion that mimicry helps to create affiliation and rapport because the desire to build such a relationship is higher in the similarity condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research on intergroup contact has recently begun to examine how individual differences moderate the reduction of prejudice. We extend this work by examining the moderating role of diversity beliefs, i.e., the strength of individuals’ beliefs that society benefits from ethnic diversity. Results of a survey among 255 university students in the United States show that the relationship between contact and reduced prejudice is stronger for individuals holding less favorable diversity beliefs compared to those with more positive diversity beliefs. Likewise, the relationship between contact and perceived importance of contact is stronger for people with less favorable diversity beliefs. Together with previously reported moderator effects, these results suggest that contact especially benefits people who are the most predisposed to being prejudiced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Previous research has found that people collectively wronged by an outgroup take insult when its representative offers compensation, and that an expression of shame but not guilt can lower such insult. This experiment showed a moderating factor: strength of outgroup blame. Black community members were participants, presented with an apology for discriminatory searches of Blacks by the police. The effects – that shame but not guilt reduces insult from compensation – were replicated only among those who strongly blamed outgroup entities. As before, these effects emerged only on insult rather than satisfaction measures, and only when compensation was offered. When blamed by the public, an official body should therefore consider how much its apology conveys shame rather than guilt. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In the present paper, relying on event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we investigated the automatic nature of gender categorization focusing on different stages of the ongoing process. In particular, we explored the degree to which gender categorization occurs automatically by manipulating the semantic vs. nonsemantic processing goals requested by the task (Study 1) and the complexity of the task itself (Study 2). Results of Study 1 highlighted the automatic nature of categorization at an early (N170) and on a later processing stage (P300). Findings of Study 2 showed that at an early stage categorization was automatically driven by the ease of extraction of category-based knowledge from faces while, at a later stage, categorization was more influenced by situational constrains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This article reviews some of the central ideas in Heider's (1958) book, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations: common-sense psychology, personal causality, causal attribution, and the social perception of mental states. Relying on Heider's own words to introduce these topics, the review shows that post-Heiderian attribution research overlooked and misunderstood several of Heider's contributions. For example, he has been falsely portrayed as postulating a person-situation dichotomy as the core of people's understanding of behavior; and his analysis of dispositions as primarily mental states has been mistaken for one of dispositions as stable traits. Heider's original ideas are, however, firmly connected to cognitive science research on the folk theory of mind and provide a foundation for recent social-psychological work on inferences of other people's mental states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Editorial discussing the contributions to the field of intergroup contact research. On August 28, 2008, Professor Thomas F. Pettigrew, PhD, Research Professor of Social Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, received an honorary doctoral degree from the Department of Psychology, Philipps- University Marburg, Germany. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The present study looks at the effects of familiarity among group members on collaborative inhibition, false memory creation, and social contagion. Friend, nonfriend (adhoc) and nominal three-person groups studied categorized wordlists, followed by free recall and recognition tests, including remember/know judgments. Friend and nonfriend group members were asked to engage in collaborative recall, while nominal group members were tested individually. Results showed that collaborative inhibition was evident among friend and nonfriend groups. However, these detrimental effects of collaboration disappeared during recognition judgments. In terms of susceptibility to false memory creation, it was found that friend groups showed higher levels of social contagion and made more know than remember judgments than nonfriend and nominal group members. These findings suggest that friend group members took the veracity of others’ memories for granted and were less able to make clear distinctions between what they did and did not see. The findings are discussed in relation to the lasting effects of collaboration and social pressures on group recall among friend and nonfriend groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

A longitudinal study examined the relationship between contact with successful ingroup members and women’s stereotypes about their own leadership abilities, career goals, and assertive behavior in class. Upon entry into college and toward the end of their sophomore year we measured (1) participants’ quantity and quality of contact with successful ingroup members (female professors), (2) implicit and explicit leadership self-concept, (3) career goals, and (4) classroom behavior. Frequent contact with ingroup members predicted stronger implicit self-conceptions of leadership and more career ambitions, but only when contact experiences were of high quality rather than superficial. Quality and quantity of contact independently predicted assertive behavior. The findings suggest that changing implicit self-beliefs requires both high quality and frequent exposure to counterstereotypic individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The stereotype content model says that warmth and competence are fundamental dimensions of social judgment. This brief report analyzes the cultural stereotypes of relevant social groups in a German student sample (N = 82). In support of the model, stereotypes of 29 societal groups led to five stable clusters of differing warmth and competence evaluations. As expected, clusters cover all four possible combinations of warmth and competence. The study also reports unique findings for the German context, for example, similarities between the perceptions of Turks and other foreigners. Moreover, it points to different stereotypes of lesbians and gay men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that the content of group perception is influenced by whether it is driven by a self-enhancement or a comprehension goal. In both studies, we found support for the hypothesis that participants' perception of males and females was more stereotypical when a comprehension or a self-enhancement goal was activated than when no goal was activated. Furthermore, activation of a self-enhancement goal led to relatively more negativity in group judgments. Implications for theories on group perception are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Information about source consensus may either create expectancies of message validity that bias subsequent processing, or may determine the amount of message processing. The authors propose that which of the two effects occurs depends on the framing of consensus information. Undergraduates (N = 242) read strong, ambiguous, or weak arguments on an issue; the source was framed as either knowledgeable or similar to participants; source consensus was either low (minority) or high (majority). Dependent variables were the favorability of cognitive responses and post-message attitudes. As predicted, knowledge framing caused consensus-based assimilation for ambiguous arguments, and contrast for both strong and weak arguments, whereas similarity framing caused extensive processing of minority arguments, but uncritical acceptance of majority arguments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The current research examines the extent to which individuals endorse “sexblind” versus “sexaware” ideologies. Analogous to colorblind and multicultural ideologies, sexblindness involves ignoring sex categorization when perceiving others, and sexawareness involves recognizing and celebrating sex differences. Results revealed that participants endorsed sexblindness more (and, thus, sexawareness less) in work than in social contexts. Further, sexblindness was correlated with an internal motivation to respond without sexism, suggesting people perceive sexblindness as a way to reduce sexism. Consistent with this view, the more participants endorsed sexblindness in social settings, the less benevolent sexism they harbored. The implications of sexaware and sexblind ideologies and the difference between these ideologies and colorblind and multicultural ideologies are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Given the central role of romantic relationships in the lives of men and women and the many benefits of having romantic relationships, some people may derive their self-worth from having a romantic partner (i.e., relationship contingency; Sanchez & Kwang, 2007). Moreover, relationship success may be viewed as somehow related to being beautiful and attractive. Under structural equation modeling, results suggested that both men and women's relationship contingency (N = 329) was connected to body shame, mediated by greater urgency about finding mates. In addition, greater body shame was connected to concern over romantic partners' physical appearance. The findings are discussed considering contingencies of self-worth, rising appearance concerns for both men and women, and the perceived connection between relationship status and physical attractiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research on perceptions of homosexuals implicitly assumes that individuals think about lesbians as an undifferentiated group. By contrast, this paper investigated the stereotypes of the overall category as well as of different subgroups of lesbians within the frame of the stereotype content model (SCM). Participants (N = 70) rated the overall category and four subgroups on perceived warmth, competence, status, and interdependence (cooperative vs. competitive). Results showed that the overall category landed in the middle of the competence-warmth space, while the subgroups spread across the SCM dimensions. Moreover, perceived status and cooperation predicted competence and warmth stereotypes, respectively. Perceived competition failed to predict warmth stereotypes. The importance of these findings for lesbian stereotyping and for the SCM is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research has demonstrated that repeat offenders are generally punished more severely than first-time offenders. In the present article, we argue that this should particularly be true if the offender is a member of one’s own social category. A group of 86 students were told about a fellow student who hid books from the university library. The student was either an ingroup or an outgroup member and was either a first-time or a repeat offender. As expected, repeat ingroup offenders were more severely punished than first-time ingroup offenders; this effect was mediated by anger/outrage and societal concerns. If the offender was an outgroup member, however, criminal history did not influence punitive reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Groups often fail to solve so-called “hidden profiles.” Common explanations for this failure focus on group processes. However, recent findings show that group members stick to their individual faulty preferences even in the absence of such group processes. The present study examines whether listing and structuring of discussion content improves individual decision quality in hidden profile tasks. We found that the probability of detecting the best and the worst alternative was higher in the experimental conditions where participants listed and structured all information concerning decision alternatives, as compared to a control condition without any listing and structuring. Additional structuring criteria, namely structuring according to valence and novelty of information did not affect solution rates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Ego-depletion theory postulates the existence of a mental resource that is necessary for self-regulation. If the resource is diminished by a task involving self-control, achievement in subsequent self-control tasks will be impaired. Three experiments examined whether ego-depletion limits people’s intentionality regarding risk behavior (i.e., choosing an option that has a certain probability of resulting in an adverse outcome). It is assumed that people operating under ego-depletion lack the self-control to deal with these possibly negative outcomes and will, therefore, be prone to avoid risky alternatives, if the decision requires certain levels of responsibility and information processing (i.e., people will choose safe options in an investment scenario with actual pay-offs according to expected values). Results support the assumption that people become risk averse under ego-depletion even when controlling for the alternate assumption that ego-depletion strengthens an existing individual disposition toward risk taking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This special issue of Social Psychology commemorates the 50th anniversary of Fritz Heider's 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The contributions to the special issue address the history and current state of attribution research, or illustrate contemporary research in the field. The historical articles document that Heider's analysis of causal attribution and of common-sense psychology was significantly influenced by his academic teachers Alexius Meinong and Ernst Cassirer. We distinguish between the mainstream reception of Heider's book, which has given rise to an extensive empirical research program, and a minority reception by authors who emphasized aspects of Heider's thinking not well represented in mainstream psychology. Currently, there are indications of a "back to Heider" movement in social psychology. This new phase of attribution research is inspired by a fresh reading of Heider's book, and is marked by an interdisciplinary orientation. The articles illustrating current attribution research address both classic and novel topics: the causality implicit in language, the role of causal attribution in hindsight bias, the justification of actions, and the attribution of mistakes in organizational contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Human rights have advanced to an important category of peace and international politics in recent decades. The reference document for human rights is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which emphasizes, among other things, the relevance of human rights education. However, this topic has been largely neglected in empirical research until now. Peace psychology might contribute to a better understanding of human rights education. The present article examines effects of human rights education on knowledge, attitudes, and commitment concerning human rights. Three university seminars dealing with human rights as one of two principal topics formed the background for three quasiexperimental studies with pre-/posttest designs. All studies demonstrate that even short-time human rights education can increase the knowledge about human rights and enhance positive attitudes and commitment concerning human rights. The discussion stresses the importance of further empirical studies on human rights education for a culture of peace. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Implicit preferences for Whites compared to Blacks can be reduced via exposure to admired Black and disliked White individuals (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). In four studies (total N = 4,628), while attempting to clarify the mechanism, we found that implicit preferences for Whites were weaker in the “positive Blacks” exposure condition compared to a control condition (weighted average d = .08). This effect was substantially smaller than the original demonstration (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; d = .82). Factors beyond exposure to admired Blacks may be necessary for the effect, such as making race accessible during exemplar exposure and including negative White exemplars. Our evidence suggests that exposure to known-group members shifts implicit race bias reliably, but weakly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Investigations of prejudice toward lesbians and gay men mostly rely on self-report questionnaires and rarely make use of indirect, behavioral measures. This field experiment investigated helping in an everyday face-to-face situation as an indicator of discrimination. Members of the public ( N = 240) were approached by a person asking for 10 pence for a parking meter. The requestor wore either a neutral or a pro-gay T-shirt. Additional independent variables were the requestor’s and the target person’s gender. Results showed that a person perceived as being a lesbian or a gay man received much less help, especially from men, than the same person perceived as being heterosexual. Findings are discussed in comparison with earlier studies involving either behavioral or self-report measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Counterfactual thoughts predominantly occur in response to failed goal pursuit. The primary function of self-related counterfactuals seems to be correction of specific behaviors and preparation for future successful goal attainment. In the present article we describe a model that outlines this view of counterfactual thoughts. We focus specifically on automatic versus controlled processes of counterfactual thinking and their relation to the formation of intentions. We link our model to research on goal pursuit, in which the impact of counterfactual thoughts and related affective experiences (e.g., regret) has been somewhat neglected. Implications for research on motivation and goal pursuit are discussed and novel predictions highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Two distinct spatial metaphors for the passage of time can produce disparate judgments about grieving. Under the object-moving metaphor, time seems to move past stationary people, like objects floating past people along a riverbank. Under the people-moving metaphor, time is stationary; people move through time as though they journey on a one-way street, past stationary objects. The people-moving metaphor should encourage the forecast of shorter grieving periods relative to the object-moving metaphor. In the present study, participants either received an object-moving or people-moving prime, then read a brief vignette about a mother whose young son died. Participants made affective forecasts about the mother’s grief intensity and duration, and provided open-ended inferences regarding a return to relative normalcy. Findings support predictions, and are discussed with respect to interpersonal communication and everyday life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

According to Heider, some of his ideas about common-sense psychology presented in The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (Heider, 1958) originally came from his academic teacher, Alexius Meinong. However, Heider makes no reference to Meinong in his book. To clarify Meinong's influence on Heider, we compare Heider's explication of common-sense psychology with Meinong's writings, in particular those on ethics. Our results confirm that Heider's common-sense psychology is informed by Meinong's psychological analyses in several respects: Heider adopts aspects of Meinong's theory of emotion, his theory of value, and his theory of responsibility attribution. In addition, Heider more or less continues Meinong's method of psychological inquiry. Thus, even without Meinong's name attached, many aspects of Meinong's psychology found their way into today's social psychology via Heider. Unknowingly, some of us have been Meinongians all along. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Although relatively brief encounters with counterstereotypic targets can change automatic stereotypes, the capacity to subtype such counterstereotypic targets can also protect stereotypes against change. In a novel combination of these findings, the current research hypothesized that malleability in one subtype of a category engendered by mental imagery (Blair, Ma, & Lenton, 2001) would not bleed over easily into other prominent subtypes of a category. Supporting this hypothesis, imagining a strong businesswoman elicited a reversal of the “women-as-weak” stereotype—but only for women presented in business contexts (i.e., businesswomen). When women were presented in domestic contexts (i.e., homemakers), the mental imagery had no effect on the stereotype of women as weak. Thus, these data suggest that stereotype malleability elicited by mental imagery can be subtype-specific, with changes in one subtype not bleeding over easily to other subtypes of the category. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This experiment examined six short texts for their effectiveness in inducing positive or negative mood in an online environment. Compared to two control groups, the texts successfully changed mood in the desired direction for mood measured on a single-item self-report scale. In accordance with previous research, negative mood was induced more effectively than positive mood. In addition to the self-report mood measure, two non-self-report mood measures are used; namely, word-pleasantness ratings and subjective probabilities of negative life-events. Pleasantness ratings of uncommon words seemed to be a suitable measure for mood, whereas subjective probabilities of negative life-events were not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This editorial takes stock of the journal's first year (2008) as an English-language publication. The journal has made a smooth transition to an international journal, covering a wide range of topics. Its first authors came from a variety of countries. An overview of the 2008 coverage is given, as well as an outlook on future topics and special issues.