Suchergebnisse

The current work aims to investigate if social cueing during an attentional task is likely to influence prejudice. In three studies we adopted a Posner-like task whereby participants observed an outgroup (vs ingroup) member performing a reach-to-grasp movement. The individual's action, oriented rightward or leftward toward an object, preceded a peripheral target stimulus requiring a simple categorization response. The action direction could be congruent or incongruent with target location. Unbeknownst to the participants, the action direction predicted the target location with different validities. We measured the identification with the ingroup (i.e., Italians) and the prejudice toward the outgroup (i.e., Iraqi). Results showed that, for highly identified participants, explicit prejudice toward Arabs was lower after predictive-congruent social cues provided by an outgroup member than after predictive-incongruent cues. Thus, these findings suggest that positive experience with an outgroup member, even when subtle, might be effective in changing attitudes toward the entire social category.

In the last decade, a growing body of research has revealed that morality is the most important driver of impression formation. As such, social targets lacking morality are disliked and kept at distance, while moral targets are liked and respected. Here, we investigated whether social targets lacking morality elicit positive reactions in the observer. Study 1 revealed that participants reported an enhanced self-view when confronted with an immoral (vs. moral) behavior performed by a political opponent. Study 2 revealed the key role of morality in this process, as differential perceptions of the target's incompetence had no comparable effect on the observer self-view. Importantly, such results emerged when participants were highly identified with their ingroup. Taken together, these findings suggest that outgroup immorality can elicit positive self-related responses in the observer. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications for social judgment and intergroup relations.

Anthropomorphization is the tendency to ascribe humanlike features and mental states, such as free will and consciousness, to nonhuman beings or inanimate agents. Two studies investigated the consequences of the anthropomorphization of nature on people's willingness to help victims of natural disasters. Study 1 (N = 96) showed that the humanization of nature correlated negatively with willingness to help natural disaster victims. Study 2 (N = 52) tested for causality, showing that the anthropomorphization of nature reduced participants' intentions to help the victims. Overall, our findings suggest that humanizing nature undermines the tendency to support victims of natural disasters.

In an international relations context, the mutual images held by actors affect their mutual expectations about the Other's behavior and guide the interpretation of the Other's actions. Here it is argued that the effect of these images is moderated by the degree of entitativity of the Other—that is, the extent to which it is perceived as a real entity. Two studies tested this hypothesis by manipulating the entitativity of the European Union (EU) among U.S. citizens whose images of the EU varied along the enemy/ally dimension. Results of these studies yielded converging evidence in support of the hypothesized moderating effect of entitativity. Specifically, entitativity showed a polarizing effect on the relationship between the image of the EU and judgments of harmfulness of actions carried out by the EU.

When examining social targets, people may ask asymmetric questions, that is, questions for which "yes" and "no" answers are neither equally diagnostic nor equally frequent. The consequences of this information-gathering strategy on impression formation deserve empirical investigation. The present work explored the role played by the trade-off between the diagnosticity and frequency of answers that follow asymmetric questions. In Study 1, participants received answers to symmetric/asymmetric questions on an anonymous social target. In Study 2, participants read answers to a specific symmetric/asymmetric question provided by different group members. Overall, the results of both studies indicate that asymmetric questions had less impact on impressions than did symmetric questions, suggesting that individuals are more sensitive to data frequency than diagnosticity when forming impressions.

In 2007, the two most important Italian left-wing parties merged into a single political entity. This study intends to analyze the merging process. Specifically, and in line with the ingroup projection hypothesis of Mummendey & Wenzel, we have explored whether the identification and the favoritism toward the upcoming common group was affected by the perceivers' projection of specific and common stereotypical traits from the subordinate groups to the superordinate one. Political militants' (N=132) levels of ingroup identification; their representations of the previous ingroup, outgroup, and of the new party; and their attitudes towards the common group were assessed. Results confirmed that the cognitive representation of the merged party was shaped much more on the basis of the typical traits of the ingroup than of the outgroup. Moreover, structural equation analyses showed that the identification with the superordinate category and the consequent favoritism toward the merger were related to the projection of ingroup attributes. The findings also suggested that the ingroup projection may be particularly crucial when the intergroup bias is high. Finally, political implications are discussed in terms of obstacles and resources inherent to the merging process. Adapted from the source document.

Research has shown that perceived group status positively predicts competence stereotypes but does not positively predict warmth stereotypes. The present study identified circumstances in which group status positively predicts both warmth and competence judgments. Students (N = 86) rated one of two groups (psychologists vs. engineers) presented as either being low or high in social status on warmth and competence. Results showed that status positively predicted competence stereotypes for both groups, but warmth stereotypes only for psychologists, for whom warmth traits are perceived to be functional in goal achievement. Moreover, for psychologists perceived warmth mediated the relationship between status and perceived competence. Results are discussed in terms of the contextual malleability of the relationship between perceived status, warmth, and competence.