Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys

While there has been progress in the U.S. in terms of racial attitudes and opportunities, black men and boys continue to face challenges. This report presents original research, along with current studies in social psychology and neuroscience, offering an empirically grounded analysis of how emotions and fears about race shape behaviors and biases

The game transfer phenomena scale: an instrument for investigating the nonvolitional effects of video game playing

A variety of instruments have been developed to assess different dimensions of playing videogames and its effects on cognitions, affect, and behaviors. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Game Transfer Phenomena Scale (GTPS) that assesses non-volitional phenomena experienced after playing videogames (i.e., altered perceptions, automatic mental processes, and involuntary behaviors). A total of 1,736 gamers participated in an online survey used as the basis for the analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to confirm the factorial structure of the GTPS. The five-factor structure using the 20 indicators based on the analysis of gamers’ self-reports fitted the data well. Population cross-validity was also achieved and the positive associations between the session length and overall scores indicate the GTPS warranted criterion-related validity. Although the understanding of GTP is still in its infancy, the GTPS appears to be a valid and reliable instrument for assessing non-volitional gaming-related phenomena. The GTPS can be used for understanding the phenomenology of post-effects of playing videogames

Banning burkas and niqabs? Exploring perceptions of bias in media coverage of Islam and Muslims in Switzerland and their relation to people’s voting intention concerning the burka-initiative

In Switzerland, Islam and Muslims are repeatedly the subject of political debates and, thus, of media reporting. While content analyses show a certain bias in Western media coverage of Islam and Muslims, relatively little is known about the audience’s perspective on media bias in this context. Using data from an online survey of the Swiss population (n = 976), this study examines people’s perceptions of bias in the media coverage of Islam and Muslims in Switzerland and how it relates to their intention to vote on the popular initiative “Yes to a veil ban”. The study was conducted in March 2019, two years before the actual vote took place on 7 March 2021. The results show that the majority of the Swiss non-Muslim population perceives the reporting as distorted. In the study’s investigation of media bias perceptions, attitudes towards Islam and Muslims, political orientation and personal contact with Muslims proved to be the most relevant influencing factors. By contrast, exposure to political information via traditional news media and social media was not associated with bias perceptions. Finally, a stronger perception that the media understate certain problems related to Islam and Muslims in Switzerland was positively related to people’s intention to vote for a national ban on wearing burkas or niqabs in public

“You are doomed!" Crisis-specific and Dynamic Use of Fear Speech in Protest and Extremist Radical Social Movements

Social media messages can elicit emotional reactions and mobilize users. Strategic utilization of emotionally charged messages, particularly those inducing fear, potentially nurtures a climate of threat and hostility online. Coined fear speech (FS), such communication deliberately portrays certain entities as imminently harmful and drives the perception of a threat, especially when the topic is already crisis-laden. Despite the notion that FS and the resulting climate of threat can serve as a justification for radical attitudes and behavior toward outgroups, research on the prevalence, nature, and context of FS is still scarce. The current paper aims to close this gap and provides a definition of FS, its theoretical foundations, and a starting point for (automatically) detecting FS on social media. The paper presents the results of a manual as well as an automated content analysis of three broadly categorized actor types within a larger radical German Telegram messaging sphere (2.9 million posts). With a rather conservative classification approach, we analyzed the prevalence and distribution of FS for more than five years in relation to six crisis-specific topics. A substantial proportion between 21% and 34% within the observed communication of radical/extremist actors was classified as FS. Additionally, the relative amount of FS was found to increase with the overall posting frequency. This underscores FS's potential as an indicator for radicalization dynamics and crisis escalation

Assessing the effect of radical news exemplifications on perceived polarization : the role of emotions, partisanship, and hostile media perception

Amidst the growing concern over political polarization in the United States, which is characterized by a divergence of political attitudes toward different ends of the ideological spectrum or to a singular extreme (Wojcieszak, 2015), research has shown that individuals perceive these divisions among people to be even more substantial than they actually are (Enders & Armarly, 2018). This dissertation examines the impact of ideologically extreme and uncivil news exemplification, which I refer to as “radical exemplification,” featuring ordinary citizens, specifically how it affects individuals’ perception of how much division there is amongst American citizens. While journalists use quotes highlighting ideologically extreme or uncivil views because of their news values (e.g., Wagner & Gruszczynski, 2018), news audiences tend to believe that news exemplification of laypeople reflects public opinion, I argue that radical news exemplifications influence people to perceive that there is a great distance in issue attitudes between partisans as well as partisans’ animosity towards each other. To understand the role of anger, anxiety, and enthusiasm in people’s information processing, I also test if and how these emotions mediate the effect of radical exemplification on perceived polarization. Moreover, I draw upon social identity theory to explore the influence of partisan strength and hostile media perception in intensifying the effect of radical exemplifications on perceived polarization. In Study 1, I conducted a content analysis of 502 news articles, revealing that ideologically extreme exemplification is relatively prevalent, accounting for approximately 29 percent of the exemplification within the sample, whereas the exemplifications’ level of incivility was not very high. News stories from digital native outlets presented higher incivility scores than news from traditional newspapers. In Study 2, using an online experiment, I found that radical exemplification can further deepen individuals’ perception of polarization within American society and decrease people’s perceptions of news credibility. However, the effects of radical exemplifications varied depending on whether they featured right- or left-leaning ideology. Anger can make people perceive greater polarization, and radical exemplifications can fuel anger and decrease enthusiasm. Hostile media perceptions weakened the effect of exemplifications on people’s emotions and perceived polarization. I conclude that journalists bear at least some responsibility for shaping people’s perceptions of political polarization. This responsibility is particularly evident when journalists prioritize highlighting the voices of individuals with ideologically extreme and uncivil views. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.Journalism and Medi

Thinking about the media: a review of theory and research on media perceptions, media effects perceptions, and their consequences

This review explicates the past, present and future of theory and research concerning audience perceptions of the media as well as the effects that perceptions of media have on audiences. Before the sections that examine media perceptions and media effects perceptions, we first identify various psychological concepts and processes involved in generating media-related perceptions. In the first section, we analyze two types of media perceptions: media trust/credibility perceptions and bias perceptions, focusing on research on the Hostile Media Perception. In both cases, we address the potential consequences of these perceptions. In the second section, we assess theory and research on perceptions of media effects (often referred to as Presumed Influence) and their consequences (referred to as the Influence of Presumed Influence). As examples of Presumed Influence, we evaluate the literature on the Persuasive Press Inference and the Third-Person Perception. The bodies of research on media perceptions and media effects perceptions have been featured prominently in the top journals of the field of mass communication over the past 20 years. Here we bring them together in one synthetic theoretical review

The social cognitions of victims of bullying:A systematic review

The nature of the relation between victimization of bullying and social information processing is unclear. The prevention hypothesis predicts that victims focus more on negative social cues to prevent further escalation. In contrast, the reaffiliation hypothesis predicts that victims focus more on positive social cues to restore the social situation. Alternatively, the desensitization hypothesis predicts that victims become increasingly insensitive to social cues because of a numbing effect. This systematic review examines evidence for these three hypotheses on the relation between victimization and social information processing. The focus is on two phases of social information processing: encoding of social information (attending to and registration of social cues) and interpreting social information (making sense of multiple social cues simultaneously). These phases are important prerequisites for behavioral responses. The systematic search led to the inclusion of 142 articles, which were published between 1998 and 2021 and received quality assessment. The studies included on average about 1600 participants (range: 14–25,684), who were on average 11.4 years old (range: 4.1–17.0). The topics covered in the literature included attention to and accurate registration of social cues, peer perception, attribution of situations, empathy, and theory of mind. The results were most often in line with the prevention hypothesis and suggested that victimization is related to a negative social-cognitive style, as shown by a more negative perception of peers in general and more negative situational attribution. Victimization seemed unrelated to abilities to empathize or understand others, which contradicted the desensitization hypothesis. However, desensitization may only occur after prolonged and persistent victimization, which to date has been sparsely studied. The reaffiliation hypothesis could not be thoroughly examined, because most studies did not include positive social cues. In bullying prevention, it is important to consider the negative social information processing style related to victimization, because this style may impede the development of positive social interactions

Showing more kindness to disabled tourists because of understanding: The interaction among the perceived level of information, affection and altruistic behavior intention

It is the common responsibility of the whole society to provide friendly and appropriate help for disabled tourists.However, the altruistic behavior of ordinary tourists towards disabled tourists has been ignored in academia, and few studies have focused on the internal factors that affect the altruistic behavior of ordinary tourists. To fill in these gaps, planning to investigate 500 respondents, based on The Tri-component attitude model, this study, applying SEM, will examine the effect of ordinary tourists\u27 perceived level of information about the travel barriers faced by physical disabled tourists on their empathy and discomfort, which positively affected their altruistic behavior intention to physical disabledtourists. Moreover, the contents of ordinary tourists\u27 perceived level of information and information source will be explored through 10 in-depth interviews. Theoretical and practical implications of this research were discussed as well

A Comparison of Factors Affecting Verbal Aggression Between Japan and China: Emotion and Politeness

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of politeness on verbal aggression in the different cultural contexts of Japan and China. Questionnaire research was administered to 195 Japanese university students and 255 Chinese university students. In the questionnaire, students were asked to recall an incident within a week or two in which they got angry. They were also asked to indicate (1) the intensity of their anger, (2) the hostility of the other party, (3) the degree of emotional regulation, (4) the action taken, (5) rational behavioral tendency, (6) social distance between self and the other party, (7) relative power of the other party, and (8) ranking of imposition. Participants\u27 behavior in (4) was categorized into verbal aggression and other. Logistic regression analysis was conducted on the data from both countries, with verbal aggression and other categorized from (4) as the objective variables and the remaining variables from (1) through (8), excluding (4), as explanatory variables. The results showed that proximity to the other party increased verbal aggression for both Japanese and Chinese participants. Emotional variables – anger and emotion regulation-affected verbal aggression only among Chinese students