Pascal Morchain

• Docteur en Psychologie (Psychologie Sociale) - PhD
• Maître de Conférences at University of Rennes 2

Representation of magic in children aged 4 to 9 years The study presented here focuses on the representation of magic (illusionism) in children. It is assumed that this representation is related to the development of the distinction between appearance and reality, a dimension of theory of mind. Forty-two children, divided into three age groups (4 y...

Numerous studies show that activities and professions are stereotypically associated with gender. The purpose here is to describe an artistic profession — stage magician — using typical spoken material sourced from the Internet. This qualitative study shows that the profession of stage magician is always presented as highly gendered, i.e., overwhel...

Is magic a serious research topic ? Reflexions on some French students’ remarks about magic in psychology This paper investigates the reasons for which some students in psychology curriculum seem to be not interested in the theme of magic as a research topic. Contextual factors are evoked, but this apparent disinterest is also interpreted in terms...

In 2011, Reinhard and colleagues showed that a woman’s personal “strengths” and “weaknesses”, linked to gender stereotypes, affect students’ estimations of her suitability to a job. In the present study, in a very much lighter and minimal design, we hypothesize that a similar result would be noticed in the case of a male target presented as stereot...

The objective of the research described here is to discover whether the features of obedience must be present in order for responsibility to be so attributed or whether the status of the actors and the meaning of the situation are sufficient. In two studies, we present animation showing the movements of three geometrical figures. The subjects are a...

Since 1990 and 2000, French laws imply specific places for gypsies locations in 5.000 at least inhabitants villages. Relations between gypsies and non gypsies people are quite difficult. Indeed, most of the time fear and threat guide these relations. Based on different social psychology theories, two studies are presented. The first aim concerns th...

This paper addresses how cognitive processes may be influenced by different values of liberal ideology. Adopting a priming paradigm, we used adver tising and coaching messages to prime liberal values such as autonomy, hedonism, inter-individual difference and freedom. Compared to neutral priming, liberal priming is more likely to facilitate the ado...

Cette étude s’intéresse à l’effet de l’’activation de valeurs pro-environnementales sur la représentation sociale du développement durable chez des étudiants. Suivant le paradigme des études indépendantes, les sujets de la condition expérimentale (N=43) ont fait l’’objet d’’un amorçage à l’’aide de termes liés à la valeur „protection de l’environne...

Le programme de recherches présenté ici montre combien notre sensibilité aux influences sociales, et plus particulièrement à celles qui échappent à notre conscience, est tributaire de notre perception du contexte social. On sait que l’activation non consciente de différents concepts affecte perceptions, jugements et comportements. Mais cet impact e...

Social values are one core element of social life. They are guides, and also allow justifying different social situations. The aim of the two studies reported here was to test the effects of an activation of values (following Schwartz) on stereotypic perception (here, entitativity) of a group. In the first study, it is shown that the impact of valu...

According to the social judgeability model, stereotypes have two components. First, they possess a content. Second, they include a theory explaining why the members of the stereotyped category are a group. Such a theory gives an indication of the judgeability of the members of this group. Indeed, if one knows that they are group members, one can fe...

The aim of the three researches presented in this paper is to understand the processes by which stereotypes affect the rationalization and the justification of the fate of disadvantaged groups. According to us, stereotypes have two components. First, they possess a content. Second, they indicate that the target persons constitute a group, an entity...

Studied how individuals form stereotypes about groups. Human Ss: 54 normal French adults (university students). Ss were asked to watch a series of 4 videos of various kinds of group interaction. The Ss were subsequently divided into 2 groups;1 group was given psychological, social and cultural data about the groups seen on video and 1 group was mad...

Selon le modèle de la jugeabilité sociale, les stéréotypes ont deux composantes. Ils comportent d’une part un contenu, et d’autre part une théorie expliquant pourquoi les personnes concernées constituent un groupe. Une telle théorie fournit une indication de la jugeabilité des membres du groupe stéréotypé: s’ils sont membres d’un groupe, c’est que...

In a 2 × 2 design, 85 subjects were asked to estimate the size of angles (direct influence) that were either 90 or 85°, after being confronted with incorrect judgements of a majority (88 per cent) or a minority (12 per cent) of people estimating the angles at 50°. Additionally, pre- and post-test measures were used to establish indirect influence o...