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Examines the relationships among social status, proximate family settings, student responsibility for school outcomes, and self-concepts of 460 South African high school students. Reports that social status, family settings, and student responsibility had modest to strong associations with self-concept development including gender-related differences in these relationships. (CMK)

Measures family environments, cognitive performance, and attitudes toward school among 700 11-year-old Australian children and their parents. Examines relationships between social categories, defined by ethnicity, gender, and social status. Finds differences in family environment and children's cognitive performance related more to ethnicity than to gender or social status. (Author/NL)

Investigates ethnic acceptance among 613 Israeli middle grade students. Using self-reports determines the degree students wish to be involved with their homeroom classmates. Finds lower ethnic status peers accepted more readily when they score higher on indices of sociability, academic track level, and achievement. Discusses implications for school integration processes. (NL)

Attempts to identify the master stigma, that characteristic of an individual that he believes to have the strongest negative effects on interactions with others, as perceived by students from four developing nations. Racial background was the master stigma only for the Nigerian students and being a foreigner was for the Iranian, Taiwanese, and Venezuelan students. (GG)

Based on social expectations associating White and Black racial categories with higher and lower ends of the social hierarchy, respectively, the criteria used in interpersonal judgments of social class categorizations should differ between White and Black targets, with Black targets needing objectively lower criteria than White targets to achieve a particular subjective level of social class. In an analysis of the occupations assigned to Working- and Middle-Class targets, respondents assigned occupations of higher financial and educational attainment, higher social status, more influence, and greater desirability to a White target than to a comparably described Black target. Despite this pattern, however, respondents judged the occupations assigned to a Black target as lower in prestige than those they assigned to a White target. The results are discussed in the context of interracial perceptions of social standing and motivations for societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precarious manhood paradigm posits that many men view their gender as a social status that must be earned and maintained, and can be lost. The present study applied the precarious manhood paradigm to a hypermasculine advertisement. A sample of 208 men was collected online. Using a false feedback paradigm, men's masculinity was either threatened, or not threatened. The men then viewed one of two commercials. One commercial was a neutral, control advertisement, and one was a hypermasculine advertisement. We also measured participants' endorsement of masculine norms. Results of a moderated moderation analysis indicated that men in the threat condition were more likely to view the hypermasculine advertisement as being masculinity-enhancing, if they also endorsed the masculine norms of Winning, Heterosexual Self-Presentation, and Power over Women. Results for future research applying precarious manhood to advertising, and implications for clinical work with men, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment distinguishing communion from agency, the purpose of the present work was to show that the strength of the relationship between social status and agency depends on specific components at issue: assertiveness, competence, and effort. Four experimental studies were conducted using two complementary paradigms. In Studies 1 and 2, we manipulated social status, and participants had to rate the target on competence, assertiveness, and effort. In Studies 3 and 4, we reversed the design. Results consistently showed that social status was primarily related to assertiveness, somewhat related to competence, and only slightly related to effort. The present research provides a better understanding of how the dimensions of social judgment are used to explain differences in social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how the stereotype of the poor (vs. middle class) influences behavioral predictions. In Study 1, participants made predictions regarding another person’s economic behavior in scenarios pertaining to rate of time preferences (loss, gain of smaller and larger amount). We find that participants, across scenarios, expect individuals with low SES to show more short-sightedness—i.e., steeper temporal discounting. This pattern persisted until strong diagnostic information about previous economic behavior was provided. These results are novel but consistent with previous work on stereotype application. Study 2 probed stereotype accuracy. Participants with lower vs. higher SES reported how they would act in scenarios matching those of Study 1. We find that they respond very similarly, which is in contrast to the stereotype that poor people are more short-sighted and may possibly be taken to suggest that the association between low SES and short-sightedness is biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the pursuit of love, individuals strategically use luxury products to signal status and other attractive attributes. Mighteco-friendlyproducts also signal mate-relevant information? The current research examined inferences from eco-friendly purchases and how they predict perceived suitability for short- and long-term romantic relationships. Participants read descriptions of a stranger’s eco-friendly or luxury purchase decisions, reported their perceptions of the purchaser, and indicated their potential romantic interest in the purchaser. The influence of the relative price of the chosen product was also investigated. Compared to luxury purchasers, eco-friendly purchasers were ascribed greater warmth, competence, and good partner traits, but less physical appeal, and they were preferred for long-term but not short-term relationships. The social costs and benefits of “going green” are discussed in light of their implications for environmental sustainability efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ostracism is a negative interpersonal experience that has been studied primarily in laboratory settings. Moreover, these studies have focused primarily on how people feel when they have been ostracized. The present study extended this research by investigating ostracism as it occurs in daily life, focusing on how people feel about ostracizing someone. Using a method modeled after the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR), for two weeks, 64 participants (adults residing in the community) described what happened each time they ostracized someone. The questions in the diary were based on Williams’s (2001) need–threat model of ostracism. Most ostracism episodes were directed toward people of equal status, and participants reported lower levels of belonging but higher levels of control after ostracizing someone. Punitive ostracism was associated with more positive outcomes for the source than when people ostracized someone for other reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjective social status (SSS) has been shown to predict well-being and mental health, above and beyond objective social status (OSS). However, little is known about the factors that moderate this relationship. Two studies explored whether the link between SSS and well-being varied depending upon the referent used for comparison in SSS judgments. Participants judged their well-being and SSS in comparison to referents that varied in abstraction. A confirmatory factor analysis on SSS judgments yielded two factors: (a) SSS perceptions toward global referents and (b) SSS perceptions toward local referents. SSS relative to a global referent was a better predictor of depression (Studies 1 and 2), life satisfaction (Studies 1 and 2), and self-esteem (Study 2) than SSS relative to a local referent. These findings have theoretical implications for understanding how people differentiate between local vs. global referents and practical implications for status-related health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on uniqueness is widely focused on cross-cultural comparisons and tends to postulate a certain form of within-culture homogeneity. Taking the opposite course of this classic posture, we aimed at testing an integrative approach enabling the study of within-culture variations of uniqueness. This approach considered different sources of variation: social status, gender, life contexts, and interpersonal comparison. Four hundred seventy-nine participants completed a measure based on descriptions of “self” and “other.” Results showed important variations of uniqueness. An interaction between social status and life contexts revealed the expression of uniqueness in the low-status group. This study highlights the complexity of uniqueness that appears to be related to both cultural ideology and social hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to the Spatial Agency Bias (SAB), more agentic groups (men) are envisioned to the left of less agentic groups (women). This research investigated the role of social status in shaping the spatial representation of gender couples. Participants were presented pairs consisting of one male and one female target who confirmed gender stereotypes. The status of the targets in each pair was systematically varied (high-status vs. low-status job). Participants chose the target order (female/male vs. male/female) they preferred. In line with gender-status expectations (male: high-status, female: low-status), a male in a high-status job led to a spatial arrangement that favored the male/female order, regardless of the status of the female target. The female/male order was favored only when the female had a high-status job and the male a low-status job. No SAB occurred for pairs in which both targets displayed low-status jobs. The implications of status for the SAB are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In two studies, the effect of instability of social stratification on intergroup behaviour of the intermediate-status group was investigated. In both studies, participants were categorised in the intermediate-status group. In Study 1, perceived instability was measured. Results show that the more social stratification was perceived as stable, the more intermediate-status group members were biased against the high-status group. Biases against both high- and low-status groups tended to become similar as social stratification was perceived as more unstable. In Study 2, instability was manipulated in upward and downward conditions. Results showed that, in the upwardly unstable condition, intermediate-status group members were more biased against high-status group, while in the downwardly unstable condition they were more biased against the low-status group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the effects of social consensus and social status on attitude certainty that is conceptualized multi-dimensionally as perceived clarity and correctness of one's attitude. In a mock opinion exchange about a social issue, participants were either supported (high consensus) or opposed (low consensus) by most of the confederates. They were informed that their opinion (high status) or their opponents' opinion (low status) had the alleged psychological significance indicative of future success. Post-experimental attitude clarity was significantly greater when attitudinal position was associated with high rather than low status. Attitude correctness was interactively affected by social status and social consensus. Supporting the compensatory effect hypothesis, attitude correctness was comparable across the levels of social consensus as long as they were associated with high status, and across the levels of social status as long as they were associated with high social consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the attribution of primary and secondary emotions in the context of equal status groups with a non-conflictual relationship, that is, Germans and French. In Study 1 (N = 169), we found that in such an intergroup context, there was no differential attribution of secondary emotions but an over-attribution of primary emotions to the out-group. Only high identifiers tended to attribute more secondary emotions to the in-group than to the out-group. In Study 2 (N = 423), the role of the identification with the in-group and a superordinate group (Europe) in the process of infrahumanization was examined. Participants' national versus European identification was primed. The results did not differ between these two conditions. As in Study 1, an over-attribution of primary emotions to the out-group was observed. Concerning the secondary emotions, the classical infrahumanization effect occurred, that is, an over-attribution of secondary emotions to the in-group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors tested the proposition that monetary household income affects subjective well-being (E. Deiner, E. M. Suh, R. E. Lucas, & H. L. Smith, 1999) through the mediating mechanisms of objective and subjective social classes. The present authors drew a representative sample in a door-to-door survey format from a Brazilian urban center. Using a back-translated version of E. Diener, R. A. Emmons, R. J. Larson, and S. Griffin's (1985) Satisfaction With Life Scale, the present authors demonstrated a significant relation with income. However, this effect was mediated by objectively and subjectively measured social classes. These effects reinforce, extend, and internationally generalize the Person X Situation perspective elaborated by E. Diener et al. (1999). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigated the prevalence and predictors of subjective well-being (SWB) in a particular Middle Eastern culture: that of Lebanon. The authors examined personality constructs of self-esteem, optimism, and positive affect in relation to SWB. The authors surveyed a sample of 689 individuals between the ages of 17 and 24 by using four instruments with established cross-cultural validity: (a) the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; E. Diener, R. Emmons, R. J. Larsen, & S. Griffin, 1985), (b) the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988), (c) the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; M. Rosenberg, 1965), and (d) the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R; M. F. Scheier, C. S. Carver, & M. W. Bridges, 1994). The results indicated that college youth's SWB was positively correlated with self-esteem, optimism, and positive affect. Examining the demographic variable of gender, the authors found that men had higher scores on positive affect than did women. A trend emerged that suggested that language dominance and socioeconomic status were associated with SWB levels. The results suggest that internal personality constructs are more predictive of satisfaction with life than are demographic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined the effect of ambivalent sexism on others' perceptions of alleged-rape incidents, in which there are socioeconomic status differences between the victims and their perpetrators. The dependent variables included measures of minimizing rape. Blaming the victim, excusing the perpetrator, and determining the length of the recommended sentence. The results indicated 4 noteworthy findings: First, individuals who scored high on the hostile power relation (HPR) measure tended to minimize the seriousness of rape incidents. Second, the HPR measure moderated victim blame only in the powerful-man scenario. Third, participants who scored high on the HPR measure tended to believe that the alleged rapist held less responsibility. Fourth, female participants tended to give longer sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. To test the hypothesis that lower social status is associated with more smiling, the authors used newspaper photographs and their associated news stories as the basis for scoring the smiling and relative social status of the 2 individuals in each photograph. Independent raters judged smiling and 5 dimensions of relative status for 496 individuals in 248 newspaper photographs. There was no relation between status and smiling, although status and smiling were both related to other variables such as gender, age, and story valence. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that there is no generalized relation between smiling and status. Key words: newspaper photographs, smiling, social status [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. In a sample of 156 college students (74 men and 82 women), the authors examined the influences of power status and gender on responsibility attributions and resolution choices during disagreements in personal relationships. The participants read vignettes in which relationships partners disagreed; then the participants placed themselves in the situations depicted and reported their perceived responsibility and resolution choices. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 power-status conditions (you have/your partner has greater power in the situation). Power status was based on resource power (i.e., a monetary inheritance) or on perceived power (i.e., financial knowledge). The authors tested 2 alternative power-status hypotheses (justified benefits/rights and ability/accountability) and 1 gender hypothesis. The results supported both power-status hypotheses. In addition, the men's and the women's responsibility attributions and resolution choices (i.e., adhering to their own wishes or deferring to their partner's wishes) revealed differential dependence on the type of power held by the person with greater situational power. The authors suggest issues further research concerning how situational differences in socially based expectations (e.g., power status and gender) may affect conflicts within relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test predictions of social identity theory (SIT; M. A. Hogg & D. Abrams, 1988; H. Tajfel & J. C. Turner, 1979) and the 5-stage model (FSM; D. M. Taylor & D. J. McKirnan, 1984) concerning reactions to membership in a low-status group, the authors led 112 pupils to believe that another (anonymous) class outperformed their class. In an overall permeable and legitimate intergroup context, the authors manipulated the stability of the low group status and the individual ability of the group members. Contrary to SIT and FSM, the pupils generally favored collective normative action. Individual mobility was preferred only by group members, especially boys, with high individual ability who thought that the low status of their group was stable. The results support FSM assumptions (a) that individual ability is a powerful determinant of intergroup behavior but (b) that one should consider its impact in combination with perceived stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The authors explored how negative intergroup comparisons affect inter-group differentiation. More specifically, they tested the prediction that the in-group's negative intergroup comparisons with a high-status group would result in more negative stereotyping of a lower status out-group. The authors elicited stereotypes of a lower status university in 2 conditions. In the 1st, the participants judged only the middle-ranking university in-group and a lower status university. In the 2nd, those judgments followed comparison with a higher status university. In the 2nd condition, there was an increased differentiation between the in-group and the lower status out-group because of the more negative stereotyping of the lower status out-group. This evidence of intergroup differentiation was found only on the dimension judged most important and along which the in-group was negatively compared with the higher status group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a study that examined the extent to which control, commitment, and support influenced the strain experienced among men in the U.S. who were acting as guardians for aged adults, an atypical role for such men. In this study, the researchers investigated whether control, commitment, and support, which have been linked with other forms of distress, apply to strain in such a nontraditional male role. Guardianship is a form of caring for another person that is the outcome of a legal process. A guardianship of the person, conservatorship of the estate, or a combined guardianship-conservatorship may be requested when older people are thought to be unable to make responsible decisions regarding their personal welfare, assets, or both. Having social support provides individuals with the sense of being cared for and loved, esteemed and valued as a person, and part of a network of communication and obligation. The researchers used a hierarchical, multiple regression analysis to test these hypotheses. Background and demographic characteristics formed a part of the context in which the needs of the ward were addressed. Six background variables were included in the first block: marital status, education, income, age of the guardian, condition of the ward, and interference with the health of guardian.

The article examines the concept of acceptance of disability in adults of the United States. In a sample of 1,266 U.S. adults with disabilities, relationships were examined between acceptance of disability and (a) demographic characteristics (age, gender, race, education, marital status, and income); (b) disability conditions (disability onset, multiple disabilities, and chronic pain); and (c) other psychosocial factors (self-esteem, emotional support, perceived discrimination, and hostility). Self-esteem and emotional support from family and friends played important roles in the participants' adjustment to disability. Furthermore, perceived social discrimination against people with disabilities had a significant impact on acceptance of disability. Disability conditions such as acquired disability, multiple disabilities, and chronic pain were also important variables related to disability acceptance. The examined results and the discussion on them are presented in the article.

The article presents a study that tests the hypothesis that greater religiosity is associated with stronger world beliefs among 16- to 18-year-olds. It also investigates whether there would be a differential association between religiosity and sphere-specific beliefs as assessed via the Multidimensional Belief in a Just World Scale (MBJWS). One hundred forty-three (31 female and 112 male) English school pupils, 16 to 18 years old, completed the Francis Scale of Attitudes towards Christianity (FSAC), the Global Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJWS), and the MBJWS. The MBJWS yields three subscale scores: Sociopolitical Just World Beliefs (SJW), Interpersonal Just World Beliefs (IJW), and Personal Just World Beliefs (PJW). Scores on the FSAC were not associated with scores on the GBJWS, the SJW, or the IJW, but they were positively associated, albeit weakly, with scores on the PJW. It describes that individual differences in just world beliefs can be divided into three components: personal (control over the nonsocial environment), interpersonal (control over other people), and sociopolitical (control over economic and political events).

The article examines the parenting practices and developmental expectations among fathers in Mexico and the United States. It compares the expectations and parenting practices of fathers in both the countries. It informs that in the present study, the parenting practices and developmental expectations were examined in a sample of 96 fathers from the countries, all with children from 1 to 5 years of age. The selection of fathers from both countries was controlled for the family's socioeconomic status (SES) and for the age and gender of their children. The Parent Behavior Checklist, a 100-item rating scale was used to measure parents' developmental expectations and their discipline and nurturing practices. It further informs about the results, Mexican and U.S. fathers did not differ significantly in their developmental expectations or parenting practices. In both countries, fathers from lower SES families were less nurturing and used more frequent discipline than fathers from higher SES families.

The article explores the relationship between moral reasoning and religiosity, religious orientation, age and education among 210 Arkansas participants. The sample consisted of 94 males and 116 females ranging in age from 16 to 84 years (mean age = 43.08 years). The socioeconomic status of the sample was predominantly middle to upper middle class, and the sample was approximately 95% Euro-American. Data for the study were gathered from a variety of Christian religious groups located in northwest and central Arkansas. Various religions have been ordered along a continuum from more conservative to more liberal, according to their beliefs and opinions. Researcher first computed correlations between moral reasoning and religiosity, religious orientation (i.e., intrinsicness, extrinsicness, and Quest), age, and education for all participants collectively and then for each category of religious group (i.e. conservative, moderate, liberal). The participants' responses in this study yielded partial support for each position, in that moderate relationships were detected between moral reasoning and education as well as between moral reasoning and both religiosity and Quest.

Authors of several research studies in the United States have found a positive relationship between marital status and physical and psychological well-being, and gender differences in well-being among married and unmarried people are well documented. Several explanations have been suggested for the findings of gender differences in perception of well-being among married and unmarried individuals. The combined 10-year (1982-1991) "General Social Surveys" data of the National Opinion Research Center (1991) were used in this reexamination of the relationships of marital status and gender to perception of well-being. The results of analysis of variance are the basis for discussion of observed differences in perception of well-being as to gender, marital status, race, and financial status. The results indicate that marriage enhances perceptions of well-being for both men and women. Married women expressed more satisfaction than men did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments, Canadian undergraduates heard a list of 13 male names and 13 female names; then they estimated how many male and female names there seemed to be. In Experiment 1, the list consisted of 26 famous names or 26 nonfamous names. Both male and female participants gave similar estimates for the number of male and female names, contradicting hypotheses of a bias toward males or toward one's own gender. In Experiment 2, where the list contained names of famous men and nonfamous women or names of famous women and nonfamous men, participants gave higher estimates for the gender that was famous (effect size d = 0.78). This result confirmed Tversky and Kahneman's (1973) fame availability effect and showed it to be moderate to large in size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field experiment was conducted in Germany to explore whether driver characteristics and the social status of cars are related to an aggressive response. Drivers waiting at a traffic light (N = 57) were blocked by an experimental car. The amount of time that elapsed until the drivers responded by honking their horns or beaming their headlights was recorded, and bivariate and multivariate methods of survival analysis were used to analyze the data. The status of the blocked cars was positively correlated with the tendency toward an aggressive response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents Australian evidence for the normative explanation of the quiz effect, the tendency of contestants in a game-quiz setting to discount the arbitrary nature of their roles in over-attributing cleverness to the questioner. In their theory of correspondent inference, Jones and Davis (1965) described how observers often ascribe to actors dispositions that match, or correspond with, the behaviors of the actor. Such attributions occur even when the observers know that the behaviors they see the actor performing occur under conditions of little or no choice (Jones & Harris, 1967). Ross (1977) argued that people have a general tendency to attribute the behaviors of others to internal or dispositional factors and to ignore or underestimate the effects of situational factors; he called this tendency the "fundamental attribution error." The present study provides another replication of the quiz effect, discounts the role of a possible confound in the original experiment, and provides no evidence that the effect is due to the failure of contestants to acknowledge the unrepresentative nature of the questions generated by the questioner, but it does provide evidence supporting a radically different, but quite conventional, alternative explanation. The quiz effect seems far from the robust and pervasive phenomenon it is often thought to be, and it may simply be a function of the measures used to examine it.

The article examines the relationship among Australian social groups, defined by ethnicity, gender and social status, and measures of students' learning environments and school-related outcomes. In this study, sample data were obtained from 21-year-old Australians of Anglo-Australian, Greek, and Southern Italian descent. The study found that young adult's educational attainment was significantly related to the educational aspirations they had as adolescents and the affective school attitudes they had as children. The young adults' occupational attainment and occupational aspirations were associated with the educational aspirations and perceptions of parental support for learning they had as adolescents and with their cognitive ability as children. The young adults' occupational attainment was also related to the affective school attitudes they had as children. The findings reveal that social groups, defined by ethnicity, gender, and social status, exhibit significant differences in the learning environments and school-related outcomes of children and adolescents.

This article presents the results of two studies examining the different social status that can predict the use of social influence and social power. Social influence and social power have traditionally been viewed as discrete, perhaps because social power is typically defined as the potential to influence another person or persons, whereas social influence is typically defined as either the agent behavior that causes behavioral or attitudinal change in the target or the change itself. The studies presented in this article expand upon the hypothesis that differences in status can predict the use of social power and influence strategies. Status can be defined as the authority or prestige enjoyed by a given individual in a group; and status differentiation, as the relative authority accorded by the group to individuals of varying status. The results of studies that concern status differences have indicated that status is a significant predictor of individual behavior in-group interactions. Persuasion may be perceived as a strategy that is more successful for higher status agents than for lower status agents because higher status connotes higher credibility. Referent power may be perceived as a strategy that is more successful for lower status agents than for higher status agents because it is the only power base that can effectively increase agent-target similarity.

This article presents a study on socio-economic status and demographic differences in reported alcohol and drug use among Black, Hispanic and White respondents to the 1988 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in the United States. These findings provide some support for the socio-cultural explanation of drug use. The socio-cultural interpretation for these findings suggests that middle-class culture is more accepting of casual drug consumption. In addition, the socio-cultural perspective suggests that peer pressure and personal circumstances, along with familial characteristics, may have contributed to higher levels of drug use among certain sub-cultural groups. Among Blacks, those who were divorced or separated or who had never been married, those who were full-time homemakers or students, and those who were employed reported using drugs more often than did those who were married or widowed and those who were unemployed. Age, marital status, and employment status were significant predictors of drug use for Hispanic respondents. Individuals between 18 and 25, those who had never been married, and those who were full-time homemakers, students, or unable to work used drugs more often than those who were older, married, or unemployed.

This article presents a cross-cultural study on the stereotyping of African and European Americans in the United States. In the present study researchers attempted to add to the cross-cultural database needed to supplement an understanding of the dynamics of racial stereotyping in the U.S. Specifically, researchers were interested in the extent to which Africans would distinguish between Americans of African and European descent. The fact that Africans share a cultural heritage with African Americans but maintain out-group status on the basis of nationality made them an especially intriguing and relevant sample. The results indicated that the Africans surveyed did not hold negative stereotypes of African Americans. Indeed, with the exception of being seen as more superstitious, African American stereotypes were more positive than those of European Americans, with African Americans perceived as more friendly, polite, religious, and generous. Finally, this study replicated the widely reported finding that the stereotypes of African Americans are less homogeneous and consistent than the stereotypes of European Americans.

This article explores the relative importance that an individual gives to principled moral reasoning and to relativism with respect to positive and negative attitudes toward minorities and to traditional and modern forms of racism. Evidence suggests that traditional discrimination may have virtually disappeared in the States, although symbolic/modern racism remains evident. However, one of the major social problems of heterogeneous societies continues to be that of prejudice and discrimination. Results of the stepwise regression analyses indicated that among these university students, those individuals who were less oriented toward humanitarian and more oriented toward a Protestant ethic were more likely to express negative racial attitudes. Previous research has indicated that although racism based on traditional stereotypes has declined in the United States; racism based on the belief that minorities fail to conform to the traditional American moral values embodied in the Protestant Ethic continues to exist.

We investigated the relationship between three factors — internal/external locus of control, self-esteem, and parental verbal interaction — for at-risk Black male adolescents in the United States. Forty-two male students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 who had been identified by their teachers as being at risk completed the Locus of Control Scale for Children (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973), the Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1967), and the Verbal Interaction Questionnaire (Blake, 1991 ). A moderate positive relationship found between self-esteem and parental verbal interaction was consistent with a previous finding for White high school students. A moderate negative relationship found between locus of control and self-esteem differed from a previous finding of no significant relationship for Black elementary children. A weak, yet significant, negative relationship was found between locus of control and parental verbal interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stimulus person was described as a candidate who was late for a job interview. Undergraduate students at the University of Bombay estimated the likelihood that the person would be late again in similar circumstances and indicated the strength of their recommendation that he or she should stop being late in similar circumstances. The study had a 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 (Subject's Gender x Stimulus Person's Gender x Job Status: manager, clerk, or sweeper x Nature of Outcome: positive, neutral, or negative) factorial design, with 16 subjects per cell. The estimated likelihood of unpunctuality was higher with a sweeper's job than with a manager's job and lower with the negative outcome (the candidate not getting the job) than with the positive outcome (the candidate getting the job) and the neutral outcome (the candidate awaiting the result of the interview). The female subjects' recommendations against unpunctuality were stronger for the male stimulus person than for the female stimulus person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the relationship between ethnic attitudes and factors associated with work-related intergroup contact in South Africa. The author remarks that intergroup contact has been regarded as one of the most important methods to reduce prejudice and to foster positive intergroup attitudes. Several factors that can influence intergroup attitudes and the effect of intergroup contact in work situations have already been identified. The research among Arab workers in Israel highlighted the potential role of supervisors, Arab employees who regarded themselves as well-treated by their Jewish supervisors tended to express more positive attitudes toward Jews. Some sociologists identified two fundamental dimensions of leader behavior, namely, structure and consideration. The importance of status hierarchies in interethnic contact has been stressed by various authors. The present study is an exploratory field study in which the relationships between various factors that are relevant to the workplace and intergroup attitudes were investigated for Whites and non-Whites.

This article examines a number of predictions from major intergroup theories concerning factors associated with individual and collective mobility strategies among minority group members. Immigrants are continuously challenged to find an effective strategy for successful integration into the host society. The integration strategies adopted by immigrants have both applied and theoretical importance. Assimilation is an individualistic strategy that involves the abandonment of the heritage culture and language and the attempt to melt into the mainstream and move up the social status hierarchy as an individual on the basis of personal merit. This option contributes directly to cultural homogeneity in the host society. Multiculturalism, however, is more of a collectivistic strategy and involves the maintenance of fundamental aspects of the heritage culture, including language, and participation in valued activities as part of an ethnic collectivity. By way of contrast, this option contributes to cultural heterogeneity in the host society.

This article presents a study that attempt to change negative attitudes toward the obese by providing factual information about obesity or not and exposure to either no models, high-status obese models or models who were similar to the subjects except for being obese. Stigmatization of the obese in Western cultures has caused obese individuals to suffer discrimination and feelings of shame and guilt and women of average weight to become obsessed with weight and eating. This study was an attempt to change these negative attitudes toward the obese by providing factual information about obesity or not and exposure to either no models, high-status obese models, or models who were similar to the subjects that is university students with similar music and activity preferences except for being obese. Subjects were 159 female and 85 male undergraduate psychology students at an American university. Most subjects were White, with 9% Black, 1% Asian, and 1% Hispanic. They were told that they would be reading and evaluating different interviews written for a school newspaper, and they were randomly assigned to conditions with randomly ordered questionnaires.

The article studies relationships between social categories defined by ethnicity, gender and social status and measures of children's family environments, cognitive performance and attitudes toward school in Australia. There were 700, 11-year-old Australian children and their parents from Anglo-Australian, Greek, and Southern Italian families in the sample. Results indicate that Greek and Southern Italian parents' aspirations for their children were stronger than those of Anglo-Australian parents. In contrast, the general press for learning was stronger in Anglo-Australian families. Two discriminant functions were identified as having significant discriminatory power among the eight social groups. Results suggest that: differences in profiles of family learning environments and children's cognitive performance are more strongly related to ethnicity than to gender or social status; variations in children's school attitudes are associated with differences in ethnicity, gender, and social status; and there are gender and social status differences in profiles of family environment and school outcome scores within different ethnic groups.

The article examines the relationship between the marital model endorsed by American couples and their style of communication. Material therapists and researchers have long been interested in the roles couples play in marriage and in the level of communication between spouses. Research on marital roles has been based on two marriage models, the traditional or instrumental model and the companionship or egalitarian model, which differ on what constitutes the husband-wife relationship. The traditional model assigns an instrumental role to the husband. He is responsible for providing material resources, establishing the family's social status, and handling the family's financial transactions. The wife is assigned the expressive role. A question of interest is whether differences in communication styles exist between traditional and egalitarian couples. Because the egalitarian model is based theoretically on relationship, affective interchange, and companionship, it seems reasonable to assume that good communication would be essential to the establishment and maintenance of such a friendship-oriented marriage. In the traditional marriage, the husband's responsibility for expressive concerns, which involve social interaction and emotional sharing within the family unit, is severely limited. The present investigation examined the relationship between couples' role expectations within a traditional or egalitarian model and theft communication styles.

The article examines whether a person's causal attributions for his or her own negative affect as influenced by information concerning other individuals' affect. A vast majority of epidemiological research has indicated that the Type A behavior pattern, an impatient, aggressive, competitive, arid achievement-oriented lifestyle, is probably a risk factor in the etiology of coronary heart disease. A individuals are twice as likely to incur coronary heart disease as Type B individuals. Controversial issues have been raised about the etiology of the Type A behavior pattern. Type A behavior has been thought to be encouraged by Western society, which appears to offer special rewards and opportunities to those who can think, perform, and even play more rapidly and aggressively than their peers. Sociodemographic variables used in the present study were the subject's age and sex, the family's place of residence, educational attainment of the subject's mother and father, occupational status of the subject's mother and father, and the family's annual income and socioeconomic status. The place of residence was classified as rural or urban.

The article studies the stability of the sociodemographic variance of type A behavior pattern found in a previous study in the same 1,333 adolescents and young adults. A vast majority of epidemiological research has indicated that the Type A behavior pattern, an impatient, aggressive, competitive, arid achievement-oriented lifestyle, is probably a risk factor in the etiology of coronary heart disease. A individuals are twice as likely to incur coronary heart disease as Type B individuals. Controversial issues have been raised about the etiology of the Type A behavior pattern. Type A behavior has been thought to be encouraged by Western society, which appears to offer special rewards and opportunities to those who can think, perform, and even play more rapidly and aggressively than their peers. Sociodemographic variables used in the present study were the subject's age and sex, the family's place of residence, educational attainment of the subject's mother and father, occupational status of the subject's mother and father, and the family's annual income and socioeconomic status. The place of residence was classified as rural or urban.

The article investigates the relationship between upward mobility and psychological well-being. According to much of the theoretical literature, the psychological consequences of intergenerational occupational mobility are associated with poorer psychological health, even when upward mobility is involved. One possible explanation is that mobility results in status inconsistencies that are experienced as stressful. Upward mobility also has been linked with poor psychological health, but for different reasons. Supporters of the marginality thesis argued that upward mobility creates marginal, alienated individuals, detached equally from the culture and community of theft origin and that of their destination; this dissociation from society engenders a certain degree of unhealthy stress. Upwardly mobile individuals who retain the values, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of their culture of origin may find these at odds with the orientations of new colleagues and acquaintances; adopting the orientations of the destination culture may result in value conflict and consequent alienation of mobile individuals from their culture of origin. The research reported here reconsiders the notions that mobility is associated with higher levels of stress and that stress results from exposure to status inconsistencies. Empirical studies have so far shed little light on the proposed relationship between stress and mobility, either upward or downward. Findings are at best inconclusive. The results obtained provide no basis for assuming that intergenerational upward mobility is inherently detrimental to psychological well-being. Respondents who had experienced upward occupational mobility did not report poorer psychological health than the occupationally stable individuals in their destination class.

Public self-consciousness is a major aspect of self-attention, concerned with attention to the self as a social object. In this study of American adults, public self-consciousness was tested against a number of variables with self-concept and/or socially conspicuous elements. Many relationships, involving public self-consciousness, stand out from the data analysis performed, including those with age, sexual self-image, and fashion-related variables, thus demonstrating the wide scope of public self-consciousness in relation to everyday behaviors and perceptions. Demographically, there were also racial and marital status differences in public self-consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]