Changing, priming, and acting on values: Effects via motivational relations in a circular model

Circular models of values and goals suggest that some motivational aims are consistent with each other, some oppose each other, and others are orthogonal to each other. The present experiments tested this idea explicitly by examining how value confrontation and priming methods influence values and value-consistent behaviors throughout the entire value system. Experiment 1 revealed that change in 1 set of social values causes motivationally compatible values to increase in importance, whereas motivationally incompatible values decrease in importance and orthogonal values remain the same. Experiment 2 found that priming security values reduced the better-than-average effect, but priming stimulation values increased it. Similarly, Experiments 3 and 4 found that priming security values increased cleanliness and decreased curiosity behaviors, whereas priming self-direction values decreased cleanliness and increased curiosity behaviors. Experiment 5 found that priming achievement values increased success at puzzle completion and decreased helpfulness to an experimenter, whereas priming with benevolence values decreased success and increased helpfulness. These results highlight the importance of circular models describing motivational interconnections between values and personal goals

Effects of promotion and compunction interventions on real intergroup interactions: promotion helps but high compunction hurts

We show the promotion intervention has positive effects during intergroup contact, but that high levels of compunction can have negative effects. Intergroup contact is probably the longest standing and most comprehensively researched intervention to reduce discrimination. It is also part of ordinary social experience, and a key context in which discrimination is played out. In this paper, we explore two additional interventions which are also designed to reduce discrimination, but which have not yet been applied to real intergroup interactions. The promotion intervention encourages participants to relax and enjoy an interaction, while the compunction intervention motivates participants to avoid discrimination. Across two studies, we tested the separate effects of promotion (Study 1) and then compunction (Study 2) on participants' interactions with a confederate whom they believed to have a history of schizophrenia. In Study 1, participants received either a promotion intervention to “relax and have an enjoyable dialogue” or no intervention (control; n = 67). In Study 2, participants completed a Single-Category Implicit Attitude Test before being told that they were high in prejudice (high compunction condition) or low in prejudice (low compunction condition; n = 62). Results indicated that promotion was associated with broadly positive effects: participants reported more positive experience of the interaction (enjoyment and interest in a future interaction), and more positive evaluations of their contact partner (increased friendliness and reduced stereotyping). There were no effects on participants' reported intergroup anxiety. In contrast, high compunction had broadly negative effects: participants reported more negative experiences of the interaction and more negative evaluations of their contact partner (using the same dependent measures outlined above). In addition, participants in the high compunction condition reported increased intergroup anxiety and increased self-anxiety (anxiety around thinking or doing something that is prejudiced). Participants in the high compunction condition also reported reduced expectancies of self-efficacy (i.e., they were less confident that they would be able to make a good impression)

Anti-immigrant prejudice: understanding the roles of (perceived) values and value dissimilarity

Although human values and value dissimilarity play pivotal roles in the prejudice literature, there remain important gaps in our understanding. To address these gaps, we recruited three British samples (N = 350) and presented Muslim immigrants, refugees, and economic migrants as target groups. Using polynomial regression analyses, we simultaneously tested effects of individuals’ own values, their perceptions of immigrant values, and self-immigrant value dissimilarities on prejudice. Results indicated that favorability toward immigrants is higher when individuals hold higher self-transcendence values (e.g., equality) and lower self-enhancement values (e.g., power), and when they perceive immigrants to hold higher self-transcendence values and lower self-enhancement values. In addition, prejudice toward immigrants is higher when individuals who hold higher conservation values (e.g., security) perceive immigrants to value openness (e.g., freedom) more, suggesting a value dissimilarity effect. No value dissimilarity effects emerged when immigrants were perceived to be higher in conservation, self-transcendence, or self-enhancement values. Overall, these results showed that effects of values and value dissimilarity differ depending on which value dimension is considered. Additionally, the results revealed support for a novel mechanism with the motivation to be nonprejudiced underpinning the links between individuals’ values and prejudice. Our discussion highlights the multifaceted manner in which values are linked to prejudic

On implicit racial prejudice against infants

Because of the innocence and dependence of children, it would be reassuring to believe that implicit racial prejudice against out-group children is lower than implicit prejudice against out-group adults. Yet, prior research has not directly tested whether or not adults exhibit less spontaneous prejudice toward child targets than adult targets. Three studies addressed this issue, contrasting adults with very young child targets. Studies 1A and B revealed that participants belonging to an ethnic majority group (White Europeans) showed greater spontaneous favorability toward their ethnic in-group than toward an ethnic out-group (South Asians), and this prejudice emerged equally for infant and adult targets. Study 2 found that this pattern occurred even when race was not a salient dimension of categorization in the implicit measure. Thus, there was a robust preference for in-group children over out-group children, and there was no evidence that this prejudice is weaker than that exhibited toward adults

The source attribution effect: Demonstrating pernicious disagreement between ideological groups on non-divisive aphorisms

We tested whether mere source attribution is sufficient to cause polarization between groups, even on consensual non-divisive positions. Across four studies (N = 2182), using samples from Germany, the UK, and the USA, agreement with aphorisms was high in the absence of source attribution. In contrast, atheists agreed less with brief aphorisms when they were presented as Bible verses (Studies 1 and 2), whereas Christians agreed more (Study 2). Democrats and Republicans (USA) and Labour supporters and Conservative supporters (UK) agreed more with politically non-divisive aphorisms that were presented as originating from a politician belonging to their own party (e.g., Clinton, Trump, Corbyn) than with the same aphorisms when they were presented as originating from a politician belonging to the rival party (Studies 3 and 4). This source attribution effect was not moderated by education, amount of thinking about the aphorisms, identification with the ingroup, trust, dissonance, fear of reproach, or attitude strength. We conclude that source attribution fundamentally interferes with epistemic progress in debate because of the way in which attributions of statements to sources powerfully affects reasoning about their arguments

The Work of Roberto Busa SJ: Open Spaces between Computation and Hermeneutics

A review of the achievements of Fr. Busa over the course of his 60 years of work in the area of computational linguistics: internal hypertexts, the systematization of allographs, lemmatization, homographs and typologies; the lexical system; the laws of economy for graphemes, for semantic typology, for heterogeneity among terms, and of the two lexical hemispheres. Finally, the project of disciplined languages is mentioned, a response to the linguistic challenge resulting from informational globalization

Seeing and Treating the Out-group Like Family: Transference Effects in an Ethnic Context

Item does not contain fulltextTransference effects occur when our impressions are guided by our mental representations of significant others. For instance, if a target resembles an individual's significant other, then that person’s feelings toward their significant other will be transferred onto the target. The present research examines whether transference effects emerge even when the target belongs to an ethnic out-group. In two experiments, participants received descriptions of in-group and out-group targets who partly resembled their own (or another's) positive significant other. The findings showed that resemblance to one’s own significant other improves attitudes and behavior toward both in-group and ethnic out-group targets, as found across two nations and three different ethnic out-groups. The present research hence provides evidence of robust transference effects across ethnic group boundaries.17 p