Suchergebnisse

This volume tells the story of social psychology, its history, concepts, and major theories. Discussing the classic studies that have defined the discipline, it introduces social psychology's key thinkers, and shows how their personal histories spurred them to understand what connects people to people, and the societies in which we live. Taking us from the first ideas of the discipline to its most cutting-edge developments, it demonstrates how social psychology remains profoundly relevant to everyday life

Promoting a scholarly understanding of the psychology of social and cultural diversity in the early stages of 21st century, this volume encourages an in-depth appreciation of the value in diversity while directly addressing social intervention and policy implications. Offers, for the very first time, an integrated approach to the issues raised by increasingly complex representations of social identityExplores the psychological implications and applications of new forms of social and cultural diversityIncludes research from a diverse range of scholars that covers a broad spectrum of sub-discip

Three studies investigated the conditions under which imagining intergroup contact would lead to greater projection of positive traits to outgroups. In Experiment 1 (Mexico) imagined contact predicted greater self-outgroup positive trait overlap for majority but not minority ethnic groups. In Experiment 2 (UK) imagined contact led to greater projection of positive traits to the outgroup for lower compared to higher identifiers. In Experiment 3 (UK) imagined contact led to greater projection of positive traits to the outgroup when the self was salient compared to when the outgroup was salient. These findings suggest that the social cognitive consequences of imagined contact are most favorable for intergroup relations when the personal self, but not social self, is salient. We discuss the implications of these findings for a developing model of imagined contact effects.

This research examined the conditions under which behavioral contrast would be observed in relation to ingroup and outgroup primes. The authors tested the hypothesis that differing levels of commitment to the ingroup would predict diverging behavioral responses to outgroup but not ingroup primes. Across two studies, featuring both age and gender groups, we found that ingroup identification predicted responses to outgroup primes with higher identifiers showing an increased tendency to contrast, that is, behave less like the outgroup, and more like the ingroup. Ingroup identification did not predict responses to ingroup primes. The implications of these findings for social comparison and social identity theories are discussed.

We examined the combined effects of subgroup and superordinate group identification on intergroup evaluations within common ingroup identity contexts. In Studies 1 and 2 we observed a positive correlation between subgroup identification and intergroup bias, and a negative correlation between superordinate identification and bias. In Study 3 we replicated these effects using alternative measures and observed a common path underlying these relationships: the perceived psychological distance between the self and outgroup. In Studies 4 and 5 we replicated this path model and found that the relationship between superordinate identification and intergroup bias was contingent upon making the superordinate identity salient, but this was not the case for subgroup identification. We discuss the findings in the context of theoretical and applied development of the Common Ingroup Identity Model.

Recent work developing interventions designed to reduce intergroup bias has sometimes yielded disparate findings. We tested whether the varying effectiveness of such interventions may have a motivational basis. In two experiments we examined whether differential ingroup identification moderated the effectiveness of a differentiation-reducing intervention strategy. In Experiment 1, thinking of characteristics shared between the ingroup and outgroup reduced ingroup favoritism to a greater extent for lower identifiers than for higher identifiers. In Experiment 2 we replicated this finding with different target groups and evaluative measures while controlling for information load. We discuss the implications of this work for developing social psychological models of bias-reduction.

The present research investigated linguistic description as a moderator of biased evaluations of counterstereotypical individuals. Members of an online participant pool (N = 237) indicated their liking for stereotypical and counterstereotypical individuals who were described using adjectives or behaviors. There was a significant interaction between target typicality and linguistic description: People liked counterstereotypical individuals more than stereotypical individuals when target individuals were described using adjectives. In contrast, they showed no bias or a negative bias against counterstereotypical individuals who were described using behaviors. This interaction effect generalized across gender targets (men/women) and sexuality targets (gay/straight), and it was partially mediated by subjective processing fluency. Implications for the backlash effect and prejudice reduction are discussed.