The Contributing Role of Prevalent Belief Systems to Intergroup Attitudes and Behaviors

Abundant research shows that prevalent belief systems across cultures contribute to people’s levels of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Such popular belief systems are often communicated by everyday sayings (e.g., the belief that hard work leads to success, as captured by “Madruga y verás, trabaja y tendrás” [Colombia], “Kung may tiyaga, may nilaga” [Philippines], The early bird catches the worm [U.S.A.]). We review the relations between intergroup processes and the following belief systems: entity theory, incremental theory, multiculturalism, colorblindness, polyculturalism, and the Protestant work ethic. We discuss factors that affect the development, maintenance, and potential change in these belief systems, and ways that this knowledge may be used to reduce prejudice are discussed

Lay Theories and Intergroup Relations

Lay theory research on intergroup relations has rapidly grown over the past two decades. Drawing on articles in this Special Issue, we showcase the latest developments. First, we define lay theories, addressing the extent of overlap with scientific theories and differences among lay theories in terms of type of representation, level of articulation, frequency of activation and use, range of applicability, and degree of universality. Second, we describe advances in the understanding of the functions of lay theories. Third, we review the far-reaching implications of lay theories for group and intergroup processes. Fourth, we discuss the movement toward comparing and contrasting related lay theories. Taken together, these articles suggest the study of lay theories provides a fuller understanding of intergroup relations

Considering the roles of Culture and Social Status: The Protestant Work Ethic and Egalitarianism

The Protestant work ethic (PWE) is prevalent in many cultures. Abundant work in social psychology, primarily in the U.S., suggests that people use PWE to justify their own prejudice and society’s differential treatment of less successful or disadvantaged persons. Recent theorizing suggests that PWE’s intergroup meaning can be influenced by people’s age, social status, and culture such that PWE not only has an intolerant or “justifier”-of-inequality meaning (disadvantaged persons deserve their disadvantage), but also a tolerant or equalizer meaning (effort is a social equalizer). The main goal of the present investigation was to show that PWE does not necessarily develop a justifier meaning within or across cultures. Past work shows that among the majority group, European Americans, PWE is positively related to egalitarianism among children but less so with increasing age, presumably because the justifier meaning becomes increasingly salient and group relevant (justifies their groups’ high status). In Study 1, we show that among the majority group in Colombia, Mestizos, PWE is positively related to egalitarianism (and negatively related to social dominance orientation) across age groups, presumably because the justifier meaning is less salient and relevant in a culture where people tend to blame others less for their disadvantage. In Study 2, we show that among African Americans, who have historically been a disadvantaged and stigmatized group, PWE is positively related to egalitarianism across age groups, presumably because the justifier meaning is less relevant and salient to their group. The implications of these findings are discussed

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Reducing prejudice: Lessons from social-cognitive factors underlying perceiver differences in prejudice

This article describes research findings on individual differences in stereotyping and shows how these findings have been and can be further applied to prejudice reduction efforts. A notable strength of this "new" generation of individual difference work is its dynamic nature-that individual differences can be both stable and malleable. The first section of this article reviews work showing that both adults and children differ in social-cognitive factors related to stereotyping, namely the way they process social information and their endorsement of social ideologies. The second section describes intervention strategies that target these factors. In the final section, limitations and future directions of basic and applied research on individual differences and stereotyping are discussed