Asymmetries in the perception of other as a function of social position and context

In the two experiments reported here an adaptation of the paradigm developed by Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff, & Ruderman (1978) was used to investigate: a) the impact of contextual factors on the accentuation effect, and b) asymmetries in the outgroup homogeneity effect as a function of relative group status. In both experiments targets were categorized on the basis of highly salient physical features, which also evoke asymmetric positions in intergroup relations: color of the skin in experiment 1 and sex in experiment 2. In experiment 1, with black and white participants, context was manipulated by introducing topics of discussion which were relevant (interethnic relations) and irrelevant (student university life) to the categorization, whereas in experiment 2, with female and male participants, the relevant topic of discussion was dating relationships and the irrelevant one was the same as in the previous experiment. According to our results, the accentuation effect was affected by context in experiment 1, but not in experiment 2, and the outgroup homogeneity effect was not symmetrical. Overall, target members of subordinate groups, blacks in experiment 1 and females in experiment 2, were more homogenized than target members of dominant groups, whites in experiment 1 and males in experiment 2.Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Critical success factors during the implementation of ISO 22000:2018

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to evaluate why companies still struggle with ISO 22000 implementation and maintenance, identifying which aspects are key for its success. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review was carried out based on Scientific articles and implementation guides collected from Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and ResearchGate. Findings - Nine aspects seem to have a broader impact on organizations maintenance of ISO 22000 and other FSMS. Furthermore, the empirical research reveals that having an efficient food safety management system is a prerequisite for companys competitiveness. Practical implications - The findings show that many of the critical success factors for a FSMS implementation are based on regular and adequate management of people inside the company. Originality/value - A novel model of segmenting critical success factors is presented, which has practical implications for ISO 22000 achievement.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Robust take-off and landing for a quadrotor vehicle

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Social representations of history, wars and politics in Latin America, Europe and Africa

This study analyzes how people perceive world history on three continents: Latin America, Europe and Africa. A total of 1179 university students form Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde were asked to evaluate world events and leaders in terms of their valence and importance. The results demonstrated that social representations of history show a Euro/North American-centric, long-term positive evaluation, recency, and socio- centric bias. Euro/North American-centric events and leaders were found to be rated as more important and were more positively perceived in general. Distant political events, like French or American Revolution, were considered to be more positive than XX century similar events, which supports the long-term positive evaluation bias hypothesis. The hypothesis on recency bias was partially substantiated. Confirming the existence of such bias, World War II was rated as more important than the previous XX century wars and revolutions. Socio-centric bias also received partial support. African participants rated Mandela as a more important leader than other participants did. Latin Americans rated Che Guevara less positively, which suggests that some leaders are generally idealized icons, not based on group belongingness. However, results did not bring support to the centrality of war hypothesis. Wars were indeed negatively evaluated and World War II was rated as an important and negative event. Nevertheless, war- and politics-related events were not perceived as more important than the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that people appraise the importance of long-term socioeconomic factors of history when responding to close-ended quantitative measures (vs. open-ended salience measures). Results are discussed in the framework of social representations of history.El estudio analiza como las personas perciben la historia mundial en tres continentes: Latinoamérica, Europa y África. 1179 estudiantes universitarios de Argentina, Brasil, Perú, Portugal, España, Guinea-Bissau y Cabo Verde evaluaron una lista de eventos mundiales y líderes en lo que concierne a su valoración e importancia. Los resultados han mostrado que la representación social de la historia se caracteriza por un Euro centrismo, una evaluación positiva a largo plazo, y por sesgos socio-céntricos. Los eventos “Occidentales” (vinculados a Europa y Norteamérica) fueron evaluados como más importantes y percibidos más positivamente que los no-Occidentales. Eventos políticos distantes, como la Revolución Francesa o Americana, fueron evaluados más positivamente que eventos similares del siglo XX, apoyando la hipótesis de la evaluación positiva del pasado lejano. La hipótesis del sesgo de recencia o proximidad fue parcialmente confirmada, ya que la II Guerra Mundial fue evaluada como más importante que revoluciones o guerras anteriores al siglo XX. El sesgo socio-céntrico también recibe apoyo parcial. Los africanos consideraron a Mandela como un líder más importante comparado con los otros participantes. Los Latinos americanos evaluaron Che Guevara menos positivamente, lo que sugiere que ciertos líderes son generalmente íconos idealizados, y su valoración positiva no se basa en la proximidad o la pertenencia grupal. Sin embargo, los resultados no apoyaron la hipótesis de la centralidad de la guerra. Las guerras fueron efectivamente evaluadas negativamente y la II Guerra Mundial fue evaluado como la guerra más importante y como un evento muy negativo. No obstante, las guerras y eventos políticos relacionados con la violencia no fueron percibidos como más importantes que la Revolución industrial, sugiriendo que las personas valoran la importancia general de los factores históricos socioeconómicos cuando responden a medidas cuantitativas cerradas (vs. medidas abiertas). Los resultados se analizan desde el marco teórico de las representaciones sociales de la Historia

''Remembering'' World War II and willingness to fight : sociocultural factors in the social representation of historical warfare across 22 societies

Students from 22 nations answered a survey on the most important events in world history. At the national level, free recalling and a positive evaluation of World War II (WWII) were associated with World Values Survey willingness to fight for the country in a war and being a victorious nation. Willingness to fight, a more benign evaluation of WWII, and recall of WWII were associ- ated with nation-level scores on power distance and low postmaterialism, suggesting that values stressing obedience and competition between nations are associated with support for collective violence, whereas values of expressive individualism are negatively related. Internal political vio- lence was unrelated to willingness to fight, excluding direct learning as an explanation of legit- imization of violence. Recall of wars in general (operationalized by WWI recall) was also unrelated to willingness to fight. Results replicate and extend Archer and Gartner’s classic study showing the legitimization of violence by war to the domain of collective remembering

Interwoven migration narratives: identity and social representations in the Lusophone world

First published online: 17 Oct 2016This article provides an exploratory analysis of the life narratives of migrants in the Portuguese-speaking world. By interweaving the life experiences of eight participants in three thematic clusters – ‘shared past’, language and sense of community – we propose a critique of the deep-seated idea of the Lusophone space as a community constructed by the harmonious conviviality of different countries and people. Drawing on contributions from cultural studies, social psychology, anthropology and sociology, we first aim to give voice to the human subjects who embark on migrations and then to understand how the engendered process of identity construction is framed by their social world, simultaneously reframing it. Thus, we aim at shedding light on the ways in which aspects of the political discourses on Lusophony are used (and are instrumental) to the migrants’ identity narrative (re)construction.This work was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia: [Grant Number PTDC/CCI-COM/105100/2008]

Media(ted) discourses and climate change : a focus on political subjectivity and (dis)engagement

Research has shown that the media are the main source of information and the main factor shaping people’s awareness and concern in relation to climate change and therefore have an important role in setting the public agenda. As a key forum for the production, reproduction and transformation of the meaning of public issues, the media influence understandings of risks, responsibilities, as well as of the functioning of democratic politics. This article argues that the media also matter to citizens’ perception of their (potential) political agency or their political subjectivity. Media representations construct particular ‘subject positions’ for individuals and cultivate dispositions to action or inaction. The article discusses the importance of citizens’ political engagement with climate change and points out some aspects of media(ted) discourses that may constrain the perceived possibilities of participation in the politics of climate change. While engagement with climate change has multiple dimensions and a number of barriers have been identified through empirical studies, this article offers a critique of the role of the media in political engagement with the problem and suggests avenues for future research.The author is grateful to the Portuguese Funda A, o para a CiIncia e a Tecnologia for funding the project 'The Politics of Climate Change: Discourses and Representations' (POCI/COM56973/2004), to Jan Zienkowski for relevant comments on this paper, and to the reviewers who provided detailed feedback

Heroes and villains of world history across cultures

© 2015 Hanke et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedEmergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox, Muslim, and Asian country clusters. The highest consensus across cultures involved scientific innovators, with Einstein having the most positive evaluation overall. Peaceful humanitarians like Mother Theresa and Gandhi followed. There was much less cross-cultural consistency in the evaluation of negative figures, led by Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. After more traditional empirical methods (e.g., factor analysis) failed to identify meaningful cross-cultural patterns, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify four global representational profiles: Secular and Religious Idealists were overwhelmingly prevalent in Christian countries, and Political Realists were common in Muslim and Asian countries. We discuss possible consequences and interpretations of these different representational profiles.This research was supported by grant RG016-P-10 from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (http://www.cckf.org.tw/). Religion Culture Entropy China Democracy Economic histor

When climate science became climate politics: British media representations of climate change in 1988

Climate change has become a pressing environmental concern for scientists, social commentators and politicians. Previous social science research has explored media representations of climate change in various temporal and geographical contexts. Through the lens of Social Representations Theory, this article provides a detailed qualitative thematic analysis of media representations of climate change in the 1988 British broadsheet press, given that this year constitutes an important juncture in this transition of climate change from the domain of science to that of the socio-political sphere. The following themes are outlined: (i) “Climate change: a multi-faceted threat”; (ii) “Collectivisation of threat”; (iii) “Climate change and the attribution of blame”; and (iv) “Speculative solutions to a complex socio-environmental problem.” The article provides detailed empirical insights into the “starting-point” for present-day disputes concerning climate change and lays the theoretical foundations for tracking the continuities and discontinuities characterising social representations of climate change in the future