Showing papers in "European Journal of Social Psychology in 1994"

Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness

Abstract: The overwhelming majority of research on affect and social information processing has focused on the judgments and memories of people in good or bad moods rather than examining more specific kinds of emotional experience within the broad categories of positive and negative affect. Are all varieties of negative affect alike in their impact on social perception? Three experiments were conducted to examine the possibility that different kinds of negative affect (in this case, anger and sadness) can have very different kinds of effects on social information processing. Experiment I showed that angry subjects rendered more stereotypic judgments in a social perception task than did sad subjects, who did not differ from neutral mood subjects. Experiments 2 and 3 similarly revealed a greater reliance upon heuristic cues in a persuasion situation among angry subjects. Specifically, their level of agreement with unpopular positions was guided more by the credibility of the person advocating the position. These findings are discussed in terms of the impact of emotional experience on social information-processing strategies.

Collective self-esteem consequences of outgroup derogation when a valued social identity is on trial

Abstract: A structural equation model tested the role of degree of identification with a group (Americans) and level of collective self-esteem as determinants of outgroup derogation under identity-threatening and non-threatening conditions. High identification and reductions in collective self-esteem following a threat to that identity lead to outgroup derogation, but level of collective self-esteem did not predict outgroup derogation in the no-threat condition. The consequences of derogating both threat-relevant (Russians) and threat-irrelevant nationalities for subsequent self-esteem were assessed. As predicted by social identity theory, higher amounts of derogation of the threat-relevant outgroup in the identity-threatened condition elevated subsequent collective self-esteem. Derogation of threat-irrelevant outgroups did not have this positive esteem consequence; in fact, increased derogation of irrelevant outgroups reduced subsequent self-esteem. In the no-threat condition, amount of derogation directed towards either type of outgroup did not significantly influence subsequent self-esteem, with the overall pattern being opposite to what was observed in the threat condition. Implications for theories concerning self-processes as instigators of outgroup derogation and the consequences of intergroup comparisons for collective self-esteem are discussed.

The role of emotion in social judgments: An introductory review and an Affect Infusion Model (AIM)

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of current evidence for the role of affect in social judgments, and the work represented in this Special Issue in particular A new integrative theory, the Affect Infusion Model (AIM) IS outlined as a comprehensive and parsimonious explanation of these effects. The model assumes that the degree of affect infusion into judgments varies along a processing continuum, and identifies four alternative processing strategies: (a) direct access, (b) motivated, (c) heuristic, and (d) substantive processing. Consistent with the empirical material reviewed here, the AIM predicts that judgments requiring constructive, generative processing (heuristic and substantive strategies) are more likely to be infused' by affect than are simple, reconstructive judgments (direct access and motivated processing). The role of target, judge and situational features in recruiting different processing strategies is considered, and evidence supporting the model is reviewed.

Effects of mood on high elaboration attitude change: The mediating role of likelihood judgments

Abstract: Two experiments examined the processes by which positive and negative mood states produce attitude change under high elaboration conditions. We hypothesized that under high elaboration conditions, mood would influence attitudes by affecting the perceived likelihood of occurrence for consequences presented in message arguments. In Experiment I, arguments were framed positively, and positive mood led to greater perceived likelihood of the consequences and more favourable attitudes than negative mood for subjects high in need for cognition (NC). In Experiment 2, arguments were framed either positively or negatively, and a mood × frame interaction was obtained on attitude and likelihood judgments for high-NC subjects. That is, positive mood led to marginally greater perceived likelihood of positive consequences but to lower likelihood of negative consequences as compared to negative mood. As a result, positive mood tended to lead to more persuasion than negative mood when the message was framed positively, but to less persuasion when the message was framed negatively In both experiments, path analyses supported the prediction that likelihood judgments mediated the impact of mood on attitudes for high-NC individuals.

Beyond mood and social judgment: Mood incongruent recall and mood regulation

Abstract: Two studies explored mood incongruent recall and the self-regulation of moods. In Study I, subjects were put into sad or happy moods before recalling a mood incongruent event. Subjects engaged in one of three types of recall: effortless, effortful, or no recall. Results showed that the greatest change in mood occurred for effortful recall. In Study 2 subjects were again put into a particular mood and were asked to recall anything they wanted — either at the beginning or the end of a class session. In general, subjects chose to remember mood congruent events; however, subjects in negative moods recalled more positive events when they performed the task at the beginning of class. Implications of the results for issues of mood regulation and mood congruent judgment are discussed.

On the consequences of deindividuation manipulations for the strategic communication of self: Identifiability and the presentation of social identity.

Abstract: According to traditional models of deindividuation, lowered personal identifiability leads to a loss of identity and a loss of internalized control over behaviour This account has been challenged by arguing that manipulations of identifiability affect the relative salience of personal or social identity and hence the choice of standards to control behaviour The present study contributes to an extension of this argument according to which identifiability manipulations do not only affect the salience of social identity but also the strategic communication of social identity. Reicher and Lvine (1993) have shown that subjects who are more identifiable to a powerful outgroup will moderate the expression of those aspects of ingroup identity which differ from the outgroup position and which would be punished by the outgroup. Here we seek to show that in addition, subjects who are more identifiable to a powerful outgroup will accentuate the expression of those aspects of ingroup identity which differ from the outgroup position but which would not be punished by the outgroup. This is because, when identifiable, subjects may use such responses as a means of publicly presenting their adherence to group norms and hence as a means of establishing their right to group membership. A study is reported in which 102 physical education students are either identifiable (I) or not identifiable (NI) to their academic tutors. They are asked to respond on a number of dimensions where pilot interviews show the ingroup stereotype to differ from outgroup norms. Expressions of difference from the outgroup position would lead to punishment on some of these dimensions (P items) but would not lead to punishment for others (NP items) The predicted interaction between identifiability and item type is highly significant. As expected, for NP items identifiability accentuates responses which differentiate the ingroup stereotype from outgroup norms. All these results occur independently of shifts in the salience of social identity. The one unexpectedfinding is that, for P items, identifiability does lead to decreased expression of the ingroup stereotype, but the diference does not reach significance. Nonetheless, overall the results do provide further evidence for the complex effects of identifiability on strategic considerations underlying the expression of social identity in intergroup contexts.

Arousal and evaluative extremity in social judgments: a dynamic complexity model

Abstract: A dynamic complexity model is used to explain some effects of emotional arousal on retrieval of social information. Two hypotheses are presented: (1) emotional arousal reduces the cognitive complexity of social perception, and (2) these reductions in complexity result in polarized evaluations of social targets. In Study I, where arousal was operationalized as exam apprehension. Evaluations of famous target figures were polarized under arousal. In Study 2, where arousal was induced with loud white noise, arousal reduced cognitive complexity and polarized evaluations. The polarization of evaluative judgments seems to hinge on the fact that evaluation is the primary dimension in person perception: under arousal, evaluation becomes relatively stronger as secondary dimensions are discarded. Hence, evaluative judgments become more extreme. Other supportive evidence is summarized and the model is compared with other competing frameworks.

The role of mood and message ambiguity in the interplay of heuristic and systematic processing

Abstract: The mechanisms by which mood states influence attitude judgments in persuasion settings are delineated in terms of current dual-process theorizing. With an emphasis on mechanisms that may operate when the evaluative implications of message content are ambiguous. In a preliminary test of hypotheses concerning such circumstances, college-aged subjects were put into a happy or sad mood and then read a message containing unambiguous strong, unambiguous weak, or ambiguous arguments, which was attributed to a highly credible source (heuristic cue) When message content was ambiguous, sad (as compared to happy) subjects' attitudes were more influenced by heuristic processing, and their message-related thoughts were biased by the heuristic cue. These and other results are discussed within a dual-processing framework, and compared to other social cognition theorizing on the impact of affect on social judgment.

Incongruent effects of sad mood on self- conception valence: it's a matter of time

Abstract: A new hypothesis is proposed to account for the relation between sad mood and selfconception valence, the first, congruency; then, incongruency' hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, sad mood initially influences the valence of open-ended self-descriptions in a mood-congruent fashion, but after a short period of time self-descriptions become mood-incongruent. Subjects were placed into a sad, neutral, or happy mood state, and were subsequently asked to freely describe themselves in writing. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. Sad mood affected the valence of the first half of self descriptions in a congruent manner, but affected the valence of the second half of self descriptions in an incongruent manner. That is, with the passage of time sad mood led to increasingly positive self-descriptions (i.e. equally positive as neutral mood did). Implications of the findings are discussed.

Do people avoid sitting next to someone who is facially disfigured

Abstract: Most psychological research on the social effects of facial appearance has compared ‘normal’ with attractive faces whereas little work has been concerned with the possible differences in reactions to disfigured and ‘normal’ faces. Yet many cranio-facial surgeons wish to know whether their disfigured patients are reporting reality when they complain that members of the public avoid or react negatively to them. This study finds that people travelling on a suburban railway significantly avoided sitting next to someone who appeared to have a facial port-wine stain. It is concluded that facially disfigured people's accounts of avoidant behaviour towards them are probably the results of correct perceptions.

Affective and cognitive influences in social dilemma game

Abstract: An experiment is reported that examines the effects of emotional mood and evaluative priming on cooperation in a social dilemma game. Unlike an associative-network account or an equity account of mood-dependent prosocial behaviour. The present approach assumes that the primary effect of elated mood is to increase behavioural variability rather than altruism or cooperation per se. Accordingly, a positively emotional state serves the function of freeing the individual from the need to optimize local profits and increasing the range of behavioural judgments and decisions. As a consequence, positive mood may sometimes produce a secondary increase of prosocial behaviour (especially when the normal behaviour is rigidly competitive) but positive mood may at other times lead to antisocial tendencies and transgression. The empirical findings are consistent with such an interpretation. Cooperation in a four-person dilemma game increases when positive connotations of cooperation andnegative connotations of competition are primed in a preceding verbal learning task. However, the mood manipulation does not directly affect the decision to cooperate but only indirectly via increased variability. In fact, subjects in good mood make more cooperative as well as more competitive choices than people in bad mood. The notable priming effect does not support the pessimistic view that the cooperation is largely determined by crystallized personality factors.

Politics and participation: Some antecedents of young people\'s attitudes to the political system and political activity

Abstract: The antecedents of political disaffection and political activism have been extensively studied in adult populations, producing two models of political protest, the ‘dissatisfaction model’, suggesting that protest action is rooted in political disaffection, and the ‘resource model’ which bases interest in politics in a sense of political self-efficacy. There has been a dearth of research extending this theorizing to young people of prevoting age. The present study presents the results of regression analysis applied to longitudinal data collected in a U.K. Programme of research and economic and political socialization, the ESRC 16-19 Initiative. The analysis relates ‘lack of interest in politics’, ‘intention not to vote’ and ‘political activity’, to attitudes, personality characteristics, experience and circumstances measured earlier. It is concluded that political disaffection including lack of interest and intention not to vote, is strongly associated with a growing cynicism about politics rooted in poor educational performance and a working class family background. The connections with activism are negative but much weaker, suggesting the potential for protest activity across a wider spectrum of youth. This lends support to Marsh's (1990) view that given the right circumstances, protest action under both the ‘resource model’, and the ‘dissatisfaction model’, can apply.

Changing social stereotypes: The case of the information seeker

Abstract: Previous research has shown that stereotype-based judgements can be attenuated through the attribution of disconfirming information to individual group members. Typically in these studies, subjects are forced to process all the available in formation, including disconfirming information, before providing their impressions of the group. In the reported research, in contrast, we attempted to create a more naturalistic paradigm by allowing subjects to control the amount and nature of information they received about individual group members. Under these conditions, we expected subjects to instigate a biased information-seeking strategy and display a preference for stereotype-matching rather than stereotype-mismatching information. Our results supported this prediction. When subjects could control the nature and amount of information they received about a target group they showed: (i) a preference for stereotype-matching information and (ii) no change in their stereotypic impressions of the group. When, however, subjects were forced to process all the available information, their stereotypic evaluation of the group diminished. These findings demonstrate the general resistance of stereotypes to change in naturalistic, information-seeking settings.

The cues decoders use in attempting to differentiate emotion-elicited and posed facial expressions

Abstract: Dynamic facial expressions, either posed or elicited by afectively evocative materials, were objectively scored to determine the movement cues and temporalparameters associated with the two types of expression. Subjects viewed these expressive episodes and rated each of them on a number of scales intended to assess perceived spontaneousness and deliberateness. Subsequent to viewing all stimuli, subjects reported the spec$c cues that they felt they had used to discriminate spontaneous from deliberate expressions. The results reveal that (a) subjects were able to accurately report the cues they employed in the rating task and that (b) these cues were not always valid discriminators of posed and spontaneous expressions. Subjects were in fact relatively poor at identifying expressions of the two types and this low discrimination accuracy was found to be a function of the consistent use of these invalid cues. A measure of the level of perceived ‘honest demeanour of the stimulus persons based on their neutral expressions was found to relate to perceivers accuracy in discriminating posed and spontaneous expressions.

Cognitive feelings and metacognitive judgments

Abstract: In two studies, subjects read and rated how well they understood a poem. Beforehand, however, they had participated under hypnosis in an exercise designed to induce feelings of being uncertain about something. For half of the subjects hypnosis was made salient as a cause for the feelings; for the other half the feelings remained unexplained. The results showed that when left unexplained, the feelings of uncertainty were interpreted by subjects as indications that they did not understand the poem. When attributed to the hypnosis, however, the feelings had no effect on ratings of comprehension. In one experiment, subjects were also studied who were not susceptible to hypnosis, and who, therefore, did not feel uncertain in the first place. The results suggest that just as positive and negative affective feelings serve as information for making evaluative judgments, feelings of certainty and uncertainty serve as information for making cognitive judgments (t. e. judgments of knowing).

Person perception through facial photographs: effects of glasses, hair, and beard on judgments of occupation and personal qualities

Abstract: Thirty-two photographs of male faces, four for each combination of the presence and absence of glasses, hair, and beard, were rated by 75 judges on 23 scales, assessing the typicality for 15 occupations as well as eight personal qualities. The effects of facial attributes on ratings formed characteristic profiles for the different scales. The pattern of correlations between facial attributes and factor scores from a factor analysis of the ratings indicates that the judges associated wearing glasses with intellectualism and goodness, being bald with idealism, and wearing a beard with unconventionality and goodness. In two further experiments, judges were to identify each of three faces with one of three or four occupations; the results confirmed the operativeness of the profiles from the rating experiment.

Political distinctiveness: An identity optimising approach

Abstract: According to Optimal Distinctiveness Theory and Self-Categorization Theory, possible self-definition as a member of contextually moderately distinctive social categories should be more central to identity than association with very general or with highly unique social categories. Data from a large scale cohort survey of 4156 18-21-year-olds were analysed to test this hypothesis. Respondents' self-reported political affiliations were classified according to the social popularity (size and support) accorded each party. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that minority political parties should provide more central and important bases of social identity. Supporters of minority parties showed greatest commitment, perceived their parties to be more representative of themselves, and were less likely to simply conform to parental political views. Minority supporters were also significantly more likely to discuss politics with their friends. Additional data from Scotland confirmed that identification with Scotland was more strongly associated with support for the Scottish Nationalist Party than with support for other minority or majority parties. These data provide convergent evidence that minority parties may attract members through their capacity to provide a meaningful social identity.

Cognitive models of stereotype change (4): Motivational and cognitive influences

Abstract: Three experiments investigating the efects of cognitive and motivational factors on stereotype change are reported. Trait ratings in all three experiments showed there to be greater stereotype-change when stereotype-inconsistent information was dispersed across many group members than when it was concentrated in only a few. A sorting task (Experiment I) indicated that, in the concentrated conditions the stereotype disconjirmers were more strongly isolated from the rest of the group than in the dispersed conditions. Free recall protocols (Experiment 2) showed greater memory for the target exemplars when subjects anticipated interaction with a group member than when no interaction was anticipated. The questions subject chose to ask target group exemplars were also influenced by anticlpated future interaction. Subjects chose more stereotypeinconsistent questions when interactian was anticipated than when no interaction was anticrpated. Experment 3 showed the impact of stereotype-inconsistent information to be greater when expectancies for the stereotyped group are weaker A cued-recall task yielded evidence of spontaneous subtyping. AN these studies support the subtyping model, even in the presence of cognitive and motivational factors that might be expected to impede stereotype change.

Judgements of compensation for misfortune: the role of expectation

Abstract: In three questionnaire studies, we asked subjects how much compensation should be provided, by a third party, to an accident victim. We tested the hypothesis, derived from norm theory, that compensation would be greater when the injury was less to be expected, e.g. when the injury was caused by failure - as opposed to success - of a safety routine. To rule out the possibility that such expectation effects depended on subjects' anticipations of the reactions of the parties involved in the accident. the parties were said to be ignorant of factors that could affect these reactions. Effects of expectation were still found, even when subjects themselves judged the accident to be equally serious in all conditions. Information about what would have happened in the absence of the cause (e.g. if the routine had succeeded instead of failed) affected compensation. as predicted by norm theory, but expectation effects were found even when this information about counterfactuals was held constant, so norm theory cannot account for all the results. We suggest that subjects are applying simple heuristics unreflectively Subjects may also have attempted to fulfil an implicit social contract through their awards. The results cannot be explained through the hypothesis that compensation was optimal: the accident was the same, and it had no deterrent effect, so optimal compensation should be the same in all cases.

Are you what you feel ? The affective and cognitive determinants of self-judgments

Abstract: Subjects recalled an affect-eliciting event that had occurred to them in either an achievement situation or an interpersonal situation. Recalling a positive or negative achievement experience (for which Subjects appeared to take personal responsibility) influenced judgments of their competence in achievement situations. Whereas thinking about a positive or negative interpersonal experience (for which subjects appeared to deny responsibility) did not influence judgments of their competence in social situations. On the other hand, both types of affect-eliciting experiences influenced subjects' judgments of their competence in the domain to which these experiences had no direct implications, and also judgments of their general self-esteem. Implications of these results for a more general conceptualization of self-esteem and its stability are discussed.

How does mood operate in an impression formation task? An information integration approach.

Abstract: The present study is concerned with the processes mediating the impact of mood on impression formation. Four assumptions are distinguished: (1) mood as a prime for the generation and/or association of additional information, (2) mood as a cue for the change of meaning of incoming stimuli, (3) mood as a direct source of information, and (4) mood as a cue for selective weighing of incoming stimuli, These mediating processes assumptions are specified in terms of information integration theory A pattern of hypotheses is derived which allows to examine what mechanisms underlie the impact of mood in an impression formation task. The results confirm the mood congruency effect and show that mood congruent judgments are mediated neither by change of meaning nor by selective weighing of incoming information. Also the explanation by additionally activated information primed by mood was not supported, However, the findings indicate that mood serves as a direct source of information to be incorporated into the judgment together with the presented information: (1) parameter estimations show that the global impression depenh on the person's current mood, whereas the scale values and the weights of the traits presented are independent of the mood state, (2) judgments of single traits are more influenced by mood than judgments of pairs, (3) medium traits are more affected than extreme traits and (4) the negativity effect is more pronounced in a good mood than in a bad mood. The final judgment is an averaging process of a mood-dependent global impression and of mood-independent stimulus information. Implications of these findings for current mood and social judgment models are discussed.

Effects of gain-loss frames on satisfaction with self-other outcome-differences

Abstract: This research concerned satisfaction with outcome-differences (advantageous inequity, equity, or disadvantageous inequity) as a function of the individual's gain or loss frame, other's gain or loss frame, the cooperative or noncooperative nature of the relationship, and their interactions. After reading a scenario, subjects rated on a satisfaction-dissatisfaction soak a series of outcome-pairs providing themselves and another party with outcomes. Consistent with Equity Theory, results showed that gain framed individuals found equity more pleasing than advantageous inequity, which in turn was preferred over disadvantageous inequity, but only when the decision making context was cooperative rather than noncooperative. In a noncooperative context, gain framed individuals were as pleased with equity as with advantageous inequity. Contrary to Equity Theory, but consistent with Prospect Theory, loss framed individuals were relatively insensitive to outcome-differences and the nature of the relationship. Results finally suggested that advantageous inequity was preferred less when the other party had a loss rather than gain frame, albeit only under cooperative circumstances.

Social representations and intergroup conflicts: Who's smoking here?

Abstract: We studied the influence of explicitating a social conflict between smokers and nonsmokers on the social representations held about tobacco. Two representations were found: a psychological' representation which was defined by psychological explanations of the causes of beginning to smoke, a characterization of smokers as psychologically disturbed, and negative feelings towards smokers; a second defensive representation which attributes smoking to social factors, and hold both a positive stereotype of smokers and positive feelings towards smokers. The percentage of smokers who adhere to the defensive representation increased significantly when the conflict was made salient. Non-smokers were not influenced by the explicitation of the social conflict. The structure of each representation was analyzed. It was found that in the psychological' representation the structuring element was the negative stereotype of smokers. By contrast, the structuring element in the defensive representation was identification with smokers. The implicatlons of this data for theories of both intergroup relations and social representations are discussed.

Mood and the expression of intergroup attitudes: The moderating role of affect intensity

Abstract: This study investigated the effect of mood on the favourability of intergroup attitudes, and on two important components of intergroup attitudes, namely stereotypes and feelings (i.e. emotional associates) toward social groups. In addition, the individual difference variable of affect intensity (AIM, Larsen and Diener, 1987) was considered as a potential moderating variable. With high AIMs expected to demonstrate more pronounced mood-judgment effects. After a musical mood induction, subjects completed measures assessing attitudes, stereotypes, and feelings toward French Canadians and Pakistanis. The results revealed that mood influenced attitudes. Stereotypes, and feelings toward the groups, but only for high AIMs. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Effects of social value orientation on expecting and learning others' orientations

Abstract: The influence of an individual's own social value orientation on the orientation expected from others and on the learning of others' social orientations was examined. The subjects (N = 148) were classified according to theirown social value orientation. The orientations they generally expected from others were assessed as well. Each subject learned the choices of five other persons, representing the orientations altruism, cooperation, equality, individualism, and competition. With respect to subjects' expectations of others' orientations the triangle hypothesis was not fully supported: only individualists expected their orientation in high frequencies. The false consensus hypothesis received more support. Generally an orientation was expected more frequently by subjects who themselves had that particular orientation than by subjects with other orientations. With regard to the learning of others' orientations support was found for the predictions derived from the triangle and the false consensus hypothesis. Cooperators and individualists were the best overall learners, followed by egalitarian and maximum subjects, and at the lowest level competitors. In addition, nearly every orientation was learned better by subjects who had that orientation than by subjects with a different orientation.

Depression and social comparison motives

Abstract: This study examined the role of informational social comparison motives in depressed and nondepressed individuals' opinion comparison activities. In particular. We examined the impact of agreement and disagreement from sources similar or dissimilar to depressed and nondepressed subjects on an attribute related to the focal judgment. AS predicted, depressed compared to nondepressed subjects indicated a greater preference for the similar-disagreer, whereas nondepressed preferred as a partner the dissimilar-agreer to a greater extent than did depressed subjects. Furthermore, measures of validation and construction motives were found to be associated with diflerent partner preferences. Results are discussed in terms of the multiple motivations underlying and distinguishing depressed and nondepressed social comparison activities.

An ethnic bias in scientific citations.

Abstract: Recent experimental findings of subtle forms of prejudice prompted this search for a similar phenomenon outside the laboratory. In Study 1, with a sample of more than 12 000 citations by North American social scientists, names of both citing and cited authors were classified as Jewish, non Jewish, or other Author's name category was associated with 41 per cent greater odds of citing an author from the same name category Study 2 included over 17 000 citations from a much narrower research domain (prejudice research), and found a similar (40 per cent) surplus in odds of citing an author of the author's own ethnic name category. Further analyses failed to support two hypotheses — differential assortment of researchers by ethnicity to research topics, and selective citation of acquaintances' works — that were plausible alternatives to the hypothesis that the observed citation discrimination revealed implicit (unconsciously operating) prejudicial attitudes. Given the sociopolitically liberal reputation of social scientists (and of prejudice researchers especially), it seems unlikely that the observed bias in citations reflected conscious prejudicial attitudes.

Towards a theory of collective phenomena. II: Conformity and power

Abstract: A new theory of power is presented using the concept of symmetry breakdown in small and large groups. Power appears to result from the building up of conflicts within the group. Introduction and support of these conflicts requires an internal organization of the group. The organization-associated complexity is a decreasing function of group size. Thus small groups have more difficulties in generating internal conflicts than large ones. This group dynamic is characterized by two states which are different in their nature. The group is first built within the paradigmatic state aimed to determine and reproduce group conformity The group challenge is then to reach the transitional state which enriches the group possibilities through the inclusion and stabilization of internal conflicts.

When the outgroup becomes ingroup and when the ingroup becomes outgroup: Xenophobia and social categorization in a resource allocation task

Abstract: Subjects classified as more or less xenophobic allocated resources to SWISS nationals (ingroup) and foreign residents (outgroup) in three intergroup judgement modes: negative interdependence, independence and positive interdependence. When both groups were assessed together as a single beneficiary (positive interdependence) they were allocated more resources than those provided to the outgroup under negative interdependence or independence. More xenophobic subjects, however gave less resources to both groups together under positive interdependence than to the ingroup under independence. In contrast, less xenophobic subjects allocated to both groups together a similar amount as to the ingroup under independence. These results suggest that, depending on their initial attitudes towards the outgroup, individuals will categorize a superordinate entity either more as an ingroup or more as an outgroup.

Social perception: A test of the role of arousal in self-evaluation maintenance processes

Abstract: Social prediction was used to examine the causal role of physiological arousal in self- evaluation maintenance (SEM) processes. Subjects' level of arousal was manipulated by having half of the subjects engage in physical exercise and half of the subjects relax prior to receiving performance feedback on high and low relevance tasks. On each task, subjects were given an opportunity to predict the performance of a friend or a stranger. The SEM modelpredicts that the more relevant the task the less charitable one's perception of another S performance, particularly a close other. Subjects in the high arousal condition showed a pattern of behaviour which was significantly closer to that predicted by the SEM model than subjects in the low arousal condition. Thus arousal appears to play a causal role in the unfolding of SEM behavrours.