Redefining climate change inaction as temporal intergroup bias: Temporally adapted interventions for reducing prejudice may help elicit environmental protection

The consequences of the environmental decisions we make today will bear upon future generations of people. We argue that the framing of climate change is inherently intergroup in nature and suggest a reason for inaction on climate change is the perception of future generations as an outgroup. We test whether a technique adapted from the realm of intergroup relations may provide a novel approach to encouraging more sustainable environmental conduct. In Study 1 we found that participants who completed a simple social categorization technique designed to reduce (temporal) intergroup bias subsequently displayed a heightened preference for sustainable goods in a product choice task. Study 2 replicated these results with an alternative measure of pro-environmental intentions, and confirmed that the effect of the intervention on environmental outcomes was explained by changes in intergroup perception

Can past intergroup contact shape support for policies in a pandemic? Processes predicting endorsement of discriminatory Chinese restrictions during the COVID-19 crisis

A survey of 340 UK residents was conducted when the COVID-19 virus first reached the UK in February 2020. We measured past experiences of positive and negative intergroup contact with Chinese people as predictors of intergroup threat and emotions in the context of the pandemic; and how these processes in turn predicted support for discriminatory policies designed to restrict the freedom of Chinese people in the UK. We tested a novel threat-matching hypothesis which draws upon models of outgroup-specific social perception to predict that the emotional processes underlying contact effects will depend on the specific threat posed by the outgroup. In the present epidemiological context, Chinese people posed a salient threat to individuals’ physical health and welfare. Accordingly, we show that whilst intergroup contact predicted both fear and anger towards the outgroup, the indirect effect of contact on support for Chinese restriction policies via fear was significantly stronger than the indirect effect via anger. Our findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how specific threat and emotions drive intergroup contact effects, and offer important insights for efforts to maintain positive intergroup relations in the face of the crisis

Surveillance or self-surveillance? Behavioral cues can increase the rate of drivers' pro-environmental behavior at a long wait stop

By leaving their engines idling for long periods, drivers contribute unnecessarily to air pollution, waste fuel, and produce noise and fumes that harm the environment. Railway level crossings are sites where many cars idle, many times a day. In this research, testing two psychological theories of influence, we examine the potential to encourage drivers to switch off their ignition while waiting at rail crossings. Two field studies presented different signs at a busy rail crossing site with a 2-min average wait. Inducing public self-focus (via a “Watching Eyes” stimulus) was not effective, even when accompanied by a written behavioral instruction. Instead, cueing a private-self focus (“think of yourself”) was more effective, doubling the level of behavioral compliance. These findings confirm the need to engage the self when trying to instigate self-regulatory action, but that cues evoking self-surveillance may sometimes be more effective than cues that imply external surveillance

Everyday cosmopolitanism in representations of Europe among young Romanians in Britain

The paper presents an analysis of everyday cosmopolitanism in constructions of Europe among young Romanian nationals living in Britain. Adopting a social representations approach, cosmopolitanism is understood as a cultural symbolic resource that is part of everyday knowledge. Through a discursively-oriented analysis of focus group data, we explore the ways in which notions of cosmopolitanism intersect with images of Europeanness in the accounts of participants. We show that, for our participants, representations of Europe are anchored in an Orientalist schema of West-vs.-East, whereby the West is seen as epitomising European values of modernity and progress, while the East is seen as backward and traditional. Our findings further show that representations of cosmopolitanism reinforce this East/West dichotomy, within a discourse of ‘Occidental cosmopolitanism’. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the diverse and complex ideological foundations of these constructions of European cosmopolitanism and their implications

Cleaning up our acts: Psychological interventions to reduce engine idling and improve air quality

A large-scale field experiment tested psychological interventions to reduce engine idling at long-wait stops. Messages based on theories of normative influence, outcome efficacy, and self-regulation were displayed approaching railway crossing on street poles. Observers coded whether drivers (N = 6049) turned off their engine while waiting at the railway crossings (only 27.2% did so at baseline). Automatic air quality monitors recorded levels of pollutants during barrier down times. To different degrees, the social norm and outcome efficacy messages successfully increased the proportion of drivers who turned off their engines (by 42% and 25%, respectively) and significantly reduced concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter (PM2.5) 2 m above ground level. Thus, the environment was improved through behavior change. Moreover, of both practical and theoretical significance, there was an ‘accelerator effect’, in line with theories of normative influence whereby the social norm message was increasingly effective as the volume of traffic increased

Evidence of a dynamic association between intergroup contact and intercultural competence

Three studies explored the association between intergroup contact and intercultural competence. Study 1 and Study 2 provided evidence of a cross-sectional association between intergroup contact and intercultural competence in which positive contact was associated with increased intercultural competence and negative contact was associated with reductions in this outcome. In Study 3 longitudinal data allowed us to test the possibility of mutual influence between these variables whereby intercultural competence is not only a consequence of intergroup contact, but is also predictive of the quality of future intergroup contact. Results showed that positive contact was longitudinally associated with improvements in intercultural competence, and that higher intercultural competence was associated with a reduction in future negative contact. Findings speak to the importance of taking a dynamic outlook on contact effects. The beneficial consequences of positive contact may be the same variables capable of transforming future contact encounters and reducing the likelihood of negative interactions

Homocysteine and Coronary Heart Disease: Meta-analysis of MTHFR Case-Control Studies, Avoiding Publication Bias

Robert Clarke and colleagues conduct a meta-analysis of unpublished datasets to examine the causal relationship between elevation of homocysteine levels in the blood and the risk of coronary heart disease. Their data suggest that an increase in homocysteine levels is not likely to result in an increase in risk of coronary heart disease

Characterization and mitigation of gene expression burden in mammalian cells

Despite recent advances in circuit engineering, the design of genetic networks in mammalian cells is still painstakingly slow and fraught with inexplicable failures. Here, we demonstrate that transiently expressed genes in mammalian cells compete for limited transcriptional and translational resources. This competition results in the coupling of otherwise independent exogenous and endogenous genes, creating a divergence between intended and actual function. Guided by a resource-aware mathematical model, we identify and engineer natural and synthetic miRNA-based incoherent feedforward loop (iFFL) circuits that mitigate gene expression burden. The implementation of these circuits features the use of endogenous miRNAs as elementary components of the engineered iFFL device, a versatile hybrid design that allows burden mitigation to be achieved across different cell-lines with minimal resource requirements. This study establishes the foundations for context-aware prediction and improvement of in vivo synthetic circuit performance, paving the way towards more rational synthetic construct design in mammalian cells