Motivational influences on compliance with and consequences of instructions to suppress stereotypes

Two experiments investigated differences in compliance with instructions to suppress stereotypes as a function of prejudice-related motivations. In Experiment 1, only participants identified as high in motivation to control prejudice [Dunton, B. C., & Fazio, R. H. (1997). An individual difference measure of motivation to control prejudiced reactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 316-326] complied with suppression instructions. These participants experienced post-suppression rebound effects, but only if they were also high in prejudice. In Experiment 2, only participants identified as high in external motivation to respond without prejudice [Plant, E. A., & Devine, P. G. (1998). Internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 811-832] complied with instructions to suppress. These participants later experienced stereotype rebound effects, but only if they were also low in internal motivation to respond without prejudice. These findings suggest that motivational factors play an important role in determining not only the outcome of suppression, but also the choice to attempt suppression in the first place. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Selection of the Bookmobile

published or submitted for publicatio

Difficult times, difficult students? Teaching students with learning difficulties to be teachers

The last decade of Australian higher education has witnessed significant expansion in the provision of student places, relative to the Australian population, with student enrolment figures for undergraduate award courses in 1993 totalling 453,926, compared with 287,713 in 1983. Such expansion has raised considerable speculation amongst academics about the quality of students now entering university and their ability to successfully negotiate academic learning environments, particularly since the mid 1990s when unmet demand for higher education began to diminish; the assumption often being that lower entry scores are indicative of future academic problems. This is a significant issue for Australian regional universities, which historically have struggled to attract students with high entry scores and which are likely to experience even greater competition from metropolitan universities given the prospect of \u27vouchers\u27, a possibility (re)floated by the West Review, which will enable students to be more selective in their university of choice. Moreover, these \u27problems\u27 seem compounded for teacher educators who are required to deliver greater numbers of graduates to satisfy a current shortage of teachers in many Australian States and also to \u27soak up\u27 government funded places within their institutions that other faculties have been unable to fill, while drawing from a diminishing pool of high entry-scoring applicants. Within this context, this paper addresses the possibility for teacher educators of facing classes with increasing numbers of students with learning difficulties and learning disabilities, estimated in the early 1980s by Sykes (1982) to be about 5% of university students. In raising these issues, the paper makes two broad contributions. First, it engages with the discussion within the literature concerning competing definitions of university students\u27 learning difficulties and learning disabilities, suggesting that the debate is unhelpful and that the differences are not that important when consideration is given to how they are experienced by students. Secondly, and flowing logically from this, the paper argues that rather than simply defining learning difficulty as intrinsic to students, academic learning environments, and those who construct them, are also implicated in the determination of how difficult (or otherwise) they are for students to access

Don't sit so close to me: Unconsciously elicited affect automatically provokes social avoidance

Behavior may be automatically prompted by cues in our social environment. Previous research has focused on cognitive explanations for such effects. Here we hypothesize that affective processes are susceptible to similar automatic influences. We propose that exposure to groups stereotyped as dangerous or violent may provoke an anxiety response and, thus, a tendency to move away. In the present experiment, we subliminally exposed participants to images of such a group, and found that they displayed greater avoidance in a subsequent interaction. Critically, this effect was explained by their increased sensitivity to threat-related information. These findings demonstrate an affective mechanism responsible for nonconscious priming effects on interpersonal behavior

Racism and racial categorization.

Social identity theory predicts that perceivers strongly identified with an in-group will maximize the distinction and maintain a clear boundary between their own and other groups by categorizing others' membership accurately. Two experiments tested the prediction that racially prejudiced individuals, who presumably identify highly with their racial in-group, are more motivated to make accurate racial categorizations than nonprejudiced individuals. Results indicated that prejudiced participants not only took longer to categorize race-ambiguous targets (Experiments 1 and 2), but also made more nonverbal vocalizations when presented with them (Experiment 1), suggesting response hesitation. The results support the hypothesis that, compared to nonprejudiced individuals, prejudiced individuals concern themselves with accurate identification of in-group and out-group members and use caution when making racial categorizations

Interactions with Queensland show children: enhancing knowledge of educational contexts

This paper analyses one element of Shulman's (1987) categories of the teacher knowledge base - knowledge of educational contexts - in relation to the education of Queensland travelling show children. This knowledge includes three sets of interactions: the children's relationships on and off the show circuits, the children's interactions with their teachers, and the teachers' interactions with the children's parents and home tutors. The concepts of 'border crossing' (Giroux, 1990) and 'boundary maintenance' (Barth, 1969) underscore the importance of show children and their teachers being able to cross the boundaries between show life and formal schooling

Individual Differences in (Non-Visual) Processing Style Predict the Face Inversion Effect

Recent research suggests that individuals with relatively weak global precedence (i.e., a smaller propensity to view visual stimuli in a configural manner) show a reduced face inversion effect (FIE). Coupled with such findings, a number of recent studies have demonstrated links between an advantage for feature-based processing and the presentation of traits associated with autism among the general population. The present study sought to bridge these findings by investigating whether a relationship exists between the possession of autism-associated traits (i.e., as indicated by individualsautism quotient [(AQ) and the size of the FIE. Participants completed an on-line study in which the AQ was measured prior to a standard face recognition task where half of the faces were inverted at test. The results confirmed that higher AQ levels were predictive of smaller FIEs. Implications for a common underlying factor relating to processing orientation are discussed

Automatic and ironic behavior are both mediated by changes in the self-concept

Recent accounts suggest that prime-to-behavior effects are mediated by changes to the active self-concept. Likewise, recent reports of post-suppression behavioral rebound have attributed changes to behavior to changes in the self-concept. According to such accounts, whenever an activated trait or stereotype can be easily incorporated into the active self, behavioral assimilation (i.e., behavior consistent with the activated concept) is likely to ensue. Yet, little evidence has emerged to directly support the mediating role of changes to the self-concept. The present research was designed to examine whether changes to the active self-concept are responsible for changes in behavior following stereotype suppression and priming. Participants who suppressed or were primed with stereotypes of the elderly were more likely to endorse stereotypic traits as self-descriptive and to behave in stereotypic ways. Critically, the former effect significantly mediated the latter. Implications for theories of concept activation and behavior are discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

An interactive computer information system for planetary quarantine for lunar programs

Development of data management system for gathering and storing spacecraft biocontamination dat

Priming in interpersonal contexts: Implications for affect and behavior

Priming stereotypes can lead to a variety of behavioral outcomes, including assimilation, contrast, and response behaviors. However, the conditions that give rise to each of these outcomes are unspecified. Furthermore, theoretical accounts posit that prime-to-behavior effects are either direct (i.e., unmediated) or mediated by cognitive processes, whereas the role of affective processes has been largely unexplored. The present research directly investigated both of these issues. Three experiments demonstrated that priming a threatening social group ("hoodies") influences both affect and behavior in an interpersonal context. Hoodie priming produced both behavioral avoidance and several affective changes (including social apprehension, threat sensitivity, and self-reported anxiety and hostility). Importantly, avoidance following hoodie priming was mediated by anxiety and occurred only under conditions of other-(but not self-) focus. These results highlight multiple routes through which primes influence affect and behavior, and suggest that attention to self or others determine the nature of priming effects