Search

An investigation of the cause of opposite evaluative responses depending on the social category of the origination of the information, which is the unconsciously presented affective information, is presented.

Whereas previous research has shown automatic behavior conforming to outgroup stereotypes, the authors demonstrate automatic behavioral contrast away from a stereotype/trait associated with an outgroup (Study 1 and 2) and point to the importance of an 'us-them' intergroup comparison in this process. In ,Study 1, participants colored pictures more messily when neatness was associated with an outgroup rather than the ingroup. In Study 2, using a different behavior; participants primed with busy business people reacted faster than controls (assimilation) but became slower when their student ingroup identity was activated (contrast). Subliminally priming an 'us-them' intergroup comparison set undermined the, accessibility of outgroup stereotypic words (Study 3), especially for those higher in prejudice (Study 4). This suggests that people automatically distance themselves from outgroup attributes when intergroup antagonism is cued or chronic. Implications for the role of self and comparison processes in automatic behavior are discussed. Keywords: automatic behavior; contrast effects; social comparison; social identity; intergroup relations

The present research studied the effects of suppression of stereotypes on subsequent stereotyping. Moreover, the moderating influence of motivation to suppress stereotypes was examined. The first three experiments showed that suppression of stereotypes leads to the experience of engaging in self-control (Study 1), to depleted regulatory resources as indicated by worse performance on an unrelated subsequent task that involves self-regulation (Study 2), and to hyperaccessibility of the suppressed thoughts (Study 3). However, these effects were moderated by internal suppression motivation: Increased self-control, depleted regulatory resources, and hyperaccessibility of suppressed thoughts only occur for people with low internal suppression motivation. Furthermore, in line with the argument that depletion of regulatory resources after suppression also should result in increased stereotyping in general, it was found that suppression of a specific stereotype leads to an increased use of stereotypes in general, but only for people with low internal suppression motivation (Study 4). Keywords: stereotype suppression; motivation; self-regulation; ego depletion

Two experiments were run in The Netherlands and Belgium 1 week after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The aim was to investigate whether social categorization affected emotional reactions, behavioral tendencies, and actual behaviors. Results showed that focusing participants' attention on an identity that included American victims into a common ingroup led them to report more fear and stronger fear-related behavioral tendencies and to engage more often in fear-related behaviors than when victims were categorized as outgroup members. Results are discussed with respect to appraisal theories of emotion and E. R. Smith's model of group-based emotions. Keywords: self-categorization; social identity; emotions

Three experiments examined how change in minority size influenced information processing and attitude change. Experiment 1 showed that when strong rather than weak arguments were presented, a message attributed to an expanding rather than shrinking minority elicited more issue-relevant thoughts and more related attitude change in the argued direction. Experiment 2 showed more related attitude change in the argued direction when it was unlikely that expanding size was due to the shifting majority members' self-interest. Experiment 3 replicated these findings. In addition, results indicated that change in size interacted differently with the majority than with minority status of the source: related issues remained largely unaffected in the case of majority support, whereas expanding minorities elicited more related attitude change in the argued direction.

This article examines the influence of prejudice on knowledge of cultural stereotypes of minority groups. Findings indicate that prejudice significantly influences stereotype knowledge and that highly prejudiced people in the Netherlands believe that stereotypes of Surinamese and Moroccan people are more negative in content than less biased people.

People may be sympathetic to violent extremism when it serves their own interests. Such support may manifest itself via biased recognition of hate crimes. Psychological surveys were conducted in the wakes of mass shootings in the United States, New Zealand, and the Netherlands (total n = 2,332), to test whether factors that typically predict endorsement of violent extremism also predict biased hate crime perceptions. Path analyses indicated a consistent pattern of motivated judgment: hate crime perceptions were directly biased by prejudicial attitudes and indirectly biased by an aggrieved sense of disempowerment and White/Christian nationalism. After the shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, disempowerment-fueled anti-Semitism predicted lower perceptions that the gunman was motivated by hatred and prejudice (study 1). After the shootings that occurred at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, disempowerment-fueled Islamoprejudice similarly predicted lower hate crime perceptions (study 2a). Conversely, after the tram shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands (which was perpetrated by a Turkish-born immigrant), disempowerment-fueled Islamoprejudice predicted higher hate crime perceptions (study 2b). Finally, after the Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas, hate crime perceptions were specifically biased by an ethnonationalist view of Hispanic immigrants as a symbolic (rather than realistic) threat to America; that is, disempowered individuals deemphasized likely hate crimes due to symbolic concerns about cultural supremacy rather than material concerns about jobs or crime (study 3). Altogether, biased hate crime perceptions can be purposive and reveal supremacist sympathies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of minority and majority support on attitude change is examined in a self-persuasion task. Two studies show that pro-attitudinal advocacy for the majority leads to more self-persuasion than does advocacy for the minority. In contrast, devil's advocacy for a minority leads to stronger self-persuasion than for a majority. No differences are found with respect to the number and nature of the arguments generated. Results suggest that self-persuasion is mediated by the extent to which one perceives the group of people argued for as similar to oneself. Two follow-up studies manipulating similarity to the group argued for support of this notion. When arguing for an ingroup, arguing for the majority is more self-persuasive than is arguing for the minority. Conversely, arguing for an outgroup leads to stronger self-persuasion for a minority than for a majority, because the minority is perceived as less threatening.