Emotion in inter-group relations

The study of inter-group relations has seen a renewed emphasis on emotion. Various frameworks converge on the general conceptualisation of group-level emotions, with respect to their antecedent appraisals and implications for inter-group relations. However, specific points of divergence remain unresolved regarding terminology and operationalisation, as well as the role of self-relevance (e.g., self-categorisation, in-group identification) in moderating the strength of emotion that individuals feel about groups and their inter-relations. In this chapter we first present a typology of group-level emotions in order to classify current conceptual and empirical approaches, differentiating them along the dimensions of the (individual or group) subject and object of emotion. The second section reviews evidence for the claim that individuals feel stronger group-level emotions about things that are relevant to their self-concept, with emphasis on three indicators of self-relevance: domain relevance, self-categorisation as an in-group member, and in-group identification. Implications for, and future directions in, the study of emotion in inter-group relations are discussed

Scaling of the Surface Plasmon Resonance in Gold and Silver Dimers Probed by EELS

The dependence of surface plasmon coupling on the distance between two nanoparticles (dimer) is the basis of nanometrology tools such as plasmon rulers. Application of these nanometric rulers requires an accurate description of the scaling of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) wavelength with distance. Here, we have applied electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and scanning transmission electron I l microscopy (STEM) imaging to investigate the relationship between the SPR wavelength of gold and silver nanosphere dimers (radius R) and interparticle distance (d) in the range 0.1R < d < R. The choice of EELS enables probing the SPRs of E individual dimers, whose dimensions and separation distances are measured in situ with subnanometer resolution using STEM. We find that the decaying exponential description of the fractional SPR wavelength shift with d/2R holds valid only over a limited range of d. instead, within the range 0.1R < d < R the fractional SPR wavelength shift is found to be related to (2R/d)(n), with n similar to 0.9 determined for both gold and silver dimers. Despite this common power dependence, consistently larger SPR wavelength shifts are registered for silver for a given change in d, implying silver dimers to be more sensitive plasmon rulers than their gold counterparts