Groups in space: stereotypes and the spatial agency bias

"We propose that spatial imagery is systematically linked to stereotypic beliefs, such that more agentic groups are envisaged to the left of less agentic groups. This Spatial Agency Bias was tested in three studies. In Study 1, a content analysis of over 200 images of male-female pairs (including artwork, photographs, and cartoons) showed that males were over-proportionally presented to the left of females, but only for couples in which the male was perceived as more agentic. Study 2 (N = 40) showed that people tend to draw males to the left of females, but only if they hold stereotypic beliefs that associate males with greater agency. Study 3 (N = 61) investigated whether scanning habits due to writing direction are responsible for the Spatial Agency Bias. We found a tendency for Italian-speakers to position agentic groups (men and young people) to the left of less agentic groups (females and old people), but a reversal in Arabic speakers who tended to position the more agentic groups to the right. Together, our results suggest a subtle spatial bias in the representation of social groups that seems to be linked to culturally determined writing/reading habits." [author's abstract

Converting Verbs into Adjectives: Asymmetrical Memory Distortions for Stereotypic and Counterstereotypic Information

This paper investigated the hypotheses that (a) inferences from behaviors to traits would occur more frequently than vice versa, (b) this induction-deduction asymmetry would be facilitated by stereotype congruence but inhibited by incongruence, and (c) the tendency to draw trait inferences from stereotype-congruent but not from stereotype-incongruent behaviors would become more pronounced with increasing levels of Need for Cognitive Closure. Participants read information about a female or male job applicant that was in part relevant to gender, in part gender-neutral. The gender-relevant information was either stereotype-congruent or incongruent. Half of the information was presented as trait-adjectives, half as behavior-descriptive verbs. A recognition task was constructed so that some of the items (traits and behaviors) had actually been seen, some were entirely new, and some were new but had been implied by the information given. All three hypotheses were supported. Implications for intra-individual and interpersonal stereotype maintenance are discussed

Communicating Between Groups, Communicating About Groups

This chapter provides a selective overview of some of the most relevant aspects of intergroup communication. We first introduce the topic by discussing the relationship between intergroup communication and social identity. In the second part, we then cover three language strategies (category labels, language abstraction, and metaphors) that different groups can adopt when communicating between and about groups. Category labels reveal social meaning well beyond mere classification, by triggering affective reactions and stereotyping, whereas language abstraction and metaphors play a central role in establishing and maintaining stereotypes and intergroup relationships. In the third part, we directly address specific social groups, including salient and relatively unambiguous social categories (i.e., gender and race) as well as more fluid categories (i.e., regional and social background as well as sexual orientation). The chapter provides a broad overview of linguistic strategies and of their specific use with selected social categories, together with suggestions for the development of future research and theorizing

“Make it happen!” Verbs as markers of agency increase message effectiveness

Verbs may be attributed to higher agency than other grammatical categories. In Study 1, we confirmed this hypothesis with archival datasets comprising verbs (N = 950) and adjectives (N = 2115). We then investigated whether verbs (vs. adjectives) increase message effectiveness. In three experiments presenting potential NGOs (Studies 2 and 3) or corporate campaigns (Study 4) in verb or adjective form, we demonstrate the hypothesized relationship. Across studies, (overall N = 721) grammatical agency consistently increased message effectiveness. Semantic agency varied across contexts by either increasing (Study 2), not affecting (Study 3), or decreasing (Study 4) the effectiveness of the message. Overall, experiments provide insights in to the meta-semantic effects of verbs – demonstrating how grammar may influence communication outcomes

Cortical tau deposition follows patterns of entorhinal functional connectivity in aging.

Tau pathology first appears in the transentorhinal and anterolateral entorhinal cortex (alEC) in the aging brain. The transition to Alzheimer's disease (AD) is hypothesized to involve amyloid-β (Aβ) facilitated tau spread through neural connections. We contrasted functional connectivity (FC) of alEC and posteromedial EC (pmEC), subregions of EC that differ in functional specialization and cortical connectivity, with the hypothesis that alEC-connected cortex would show greater tau deposition than pmEC-connected cortex. We used resting state fMRI to measure FC, and PET to measure tau and Aβ in cognitively normal older adults. Tau preferentially deposited in alEC-connected cortex compared to pmEC-connected or non-connected cortex, and stronger connectivity was associated with increased tau deposition. FC-tau relationships were present regardless of Aβ, although strengthened with Aβ. These results provide an explanation for the anatomic specificity of neocortical tau deposition in the aging brain and reveal relationships between normal aging and the evolution of AD

Using Mutual Information and Answer Set Programming to refine PWM based transcription regulation network

National audienceTranscriptional regulatory network models can be reconstructed ab initio from DNA sequence data by locating the binding sites, defined by position specific score matrices, and identifying transcription factors by homology with known ones in other organisms. In general the resulting network contains spurious elements, because the pattern matching methods for binding site location have low specificity, while homology to known transcription factors does not always identify correctly new ones. In the case of A. ferrooxidans, one of the bacterias involved in industrial bioleaching processes, the sequence based network reconstruction results in 66 transcription factors and 182 binding site motifs represented in 27 435 sites. In this work we use differential expression experimental data, in the form of Mutual Information, as logical constraints to be satisfied by any valid regulatory network subgraph. These rules are expressed as an Answer Set Program, a logical programming paradigm, and used to determine the minimal sets of motif and transcription factors which constitute a genetic regulatory network compatible with the experimental evidence. The resulting network comprises 27 transcription factors and 14 motifs in 2428 instances, satisfying all constraints

Tau deposition is associated with functional isolation of the hippocampus in aging.

The tau protein aggregates in aging and Alzheimer disease and may lead to memory loss through disruption of medial temporal lobe (MTL)-dependent memory systems. Here, we investigated tau-mediated mechanisms of hippocampal dysfunction that underlie the expression of episodic memory decline using fMRI measures of hippocampal local coherence (regional homogeneity; ReHo), distant functional connectivity and tau-PET. We show that age and tau pathology are related to higher hippocampal ReHo. Functional disconnection between the hippocampus and other components of the MTL memory system, particularly an anterior-temporal network specialized for object memory, is also associated with higher hippocampal ReHo and greater tau burden in anterior-temporal regions. These associations are not observed in the posteromedial network, specialized for context/spatial information. Higher hippocampal ReHo predicts worse memory performance. These findings suggest that tau pathology plays a role in disconnecting the hippocampus from specific MTL memory systems leading to increased local coherence and memory decline

A twofold subjective measure of income inequality

Social scientists have been aiming to calculate a “subjective income Gini coefficient”of survey respondents that would describe their beliefs about income inequality in their country. Niehues (Subjective perceptions of inequality and redistributive preferences: an international comparison, Cologne Institute for Economic Research, IWTRENDS Discussion Paper, 2014) derives this estimate from respondents’ beliefs about the relative sizes of different social classes (answers to “shape of society” questions), while Kuhn (The individual perception of wage inequality: a measurement framework and some empirical evidence, Technical report, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), 2015) estimates it using beliefs about the pay structure. We combine their efforts to calculate what we call a twofold subjective Gini coefficient, which incorporates both pieces of information independently from one another. We present the country-level distribution of perceived and desired twofold subjective Gini coefficients using the ISSP Social Inequality V survey (ISSP Research Group in International social survey programme: social inequalityv—issp 2019, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4225/13/511C71F8612C3 ). Accounting for both subjective class structure and pay structure yields much lower perceived and desired levels of inequality. At the country level the averages of the twofold subjective Gini coefficients are closer to actual income Gini coefficients than the previous measures. At the individual level the twofold subjective Gini coefficients are better predictors of the individual’s verbal assessment of inequality and their preferences towards redistribution