Suspicion of Motives Predicts Minorities' Responses to Positive Feedback in Interracial Interactions.

Strong social and legal norms in the United States discourage the overt expression of bias against ethnic and racial minorities, increasing the attributional ambiguity of Whites' positive behavior to ethnic minorities. Minorities who suspect that Whites' positive overtures toward minorities are motivated more by their fear of appearing racist than by egalitarian attitudes may regard positive feedback they receive from Whites as disingenuous. This may lead them to react to such feedback with feelings of uncertainty and threat. Three studies examined how suspicion of motives relates to ethnic minorities' responses to receiving positive feedback from a White peer or same-ethnicity peer (Experiment 1), to receiving feedback from a White peer that was positive or negative (Experiment 2), and to receiving positive feedback from a White peer who did or did not know their ethnicity (Experiment 3). As predicted, the more suspicious Latinas were of Whites' motives for behaving positively toward minorities in general, the more they regarded positive feedback from a White peer who knew their ethnicity as disingenuous and the more they reacted with cardiovascular reactivity characteristic of threat/avoidance, increased feelings of stress, heightened uncertainty, and decreased self-esteem. We discuss the implications for intergroup interactions of perceptions of Whites' motives for nonprejudiced behavior

Are You Feeling What I'm Feeling? Emotional Similarity Buffers Stress

We examine the idea that it is beneficial for people in threatening situations to affiliate with others who are experiencing similar, relative to dissimilar, emotions. Pairs of participants waited together and then engaged in a laboratory stressor (i.e., giving a speech). We created an index of each pair’s emotional similarity using participants’ emotional states. We also measured how threatening participants perceived the speech task to be (i.e., whether they had high vs. low dispositional fear of public speaking). We hypothesized that perceiving greater threat in the situation would be associated with greater stress, but interacting with someone who is emotionally similar would buffer individuals from this heightened stress. Confirming our hypotheses, greater initial dyadic emotional similarity was associated with a reduced cortisol response and lower reported stress among participants who feared public speaking

Suspicion of Motives Predicts Minorities' Responses to Positive Feedback in Interracial Interactions.

Strong social and legal norms in the United States discourage the overt expression of bias against ethnic and racial minorities, increasing the attributional ambiguity of Whites' positive behavior to ethnic minorities. Minorities who suspect that Whites' positive overtures toward minorities are motivated more by their fear of appearing racist than by egalitarian attitudes may regard positive feedback they receive from Whites as disingenuous. This may lead them to react to such feedback with feelings of uncertainty and threat. Three studies examined how suspicion of motives relates to ethnic minorities' responses to receiving positive feedback from a White peer or same-ethnicity peer (Experiment 1), to receiving feedback from a White peer that was positive or negative (Experiment 2), and to receiving positive feedback from a White peer who did or did not know their ethnicity (Experiment 3). As predicted, the more suspicious Latinas were of Whites' motives for behaving positively toward minorities in general, the more they regarded positive feedback from a White peer who knew their ethnicity as disingenuous and the more they reacted with cardiovascular reactivity characteristic of threat/avoidance, increased feelings of stress, heightened uncertainty, and decreased self-esteem. We discuss the implications for intergroup interactions of perceptions of Whites' motives for nonprejudiced behavior

Optimising leisure participation: a pilot intervention study for adolescents with physical impairments

Purpose: To assess the feasibility of an intervention to improve participation in leisure activities of adolescents with physical impairments by changing aspects of the activity or environment.Methods: A pre-test/post-test pilot study of a multi-strategy intervention was used to explore the effectiveness of the strategies and to determine whether the intervention was practical to apply in a community setting. The intervention involved establishing adolescent and family focused goals, measuring and addressing environmental barriers and building activity performance skills. The Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) and the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure measured outcomes. Results: Eight participants (aged 12&ndash;19 years; five males) with physical disabilities set participation goals using a structured approach. Analysis of personal and environmental barriers and facilitators for participation guided the choice of intervention strategies to support goal attainment. The natural environment, government policies and availability of transport were identified as the most frequent barriers to participation in leisure. Support to secure appropriate devices to enable participation was commonly required. As a group, attainment of 12 of 17 GAS goals, and progress on four more goals, was demonstrated. Conclusions: The intervention model was applicable and practical to use in a community therapy setting and the majority of the participation goals set were achieved.<br /