Multi-level analysis of cultural phenomena: The role of ERPs approach to prejudice

Brain processes and social processes are not as separated as many of our Social Psychology and Neuroscience departments. This paper discusses the potential contribution of social neuroscience to the development of a multi-level, dynamic, and context-sensitive approach to prejudice. Specifically, the authors review research on event related potentials during social bias, stereotypes, and social attitudes measurements, showing that electrophysiological methods are powerful tools for analyzing the temporal fine-dynamics of psychological processes involved in implicit and explicit prejudice. Meta-theoretical implications are drawn regarding the social psychological modeling of social attitudes, and for the integration of social neuroscience into a multi-level account of cultural behavior.     

Acculturation and Prejudice in Germany: Majority and Minority Perspectives

This article explores the connections between prejudice and specific attitudes toward acculturation in Germany. Results of surveys confirm the hypothesis that prejudice is related to ideologies of assimilation and segregation among majority- group members. Moreover, experimental and correlational studies indicate that these attitudes are linked to discriminatory behavior. Further analyses of studies with ethnic minorities prove that prejudice and acculturation are linked within minority groups as well. Additionally it is shown that prejudice is functional in order for minorities to acculturate. These studies confirm the impression that there is a close link between macrosocial and microsocial levels of coping with migration.     

The Utility of Allport's Conditions of Intergroup Contact for Predicting Perceptions of Improved Racial Attitudes and Beliefs

We test the predictive power of perception as it relates to Allport's (1954/1979) classic articulation of the conditions of contact conducive to reducing intergroup prejudice and increasing tolerance. After summarizing theories of prejudice and models of prejudice reduction, as well as recently published reviews of evidence relating to the Contact Hypothesis, we present results of an evaluation of a prejudice reduction program that trains and places college student facilitators in middle and high school classrooms to lead discussions about race. We show that a composite of five classroom climate conditions that the Contact Hypothesis suggests are conducive to prejudice reduction predicts teachers' and college student facilitators' perceptions of change in three aspects of middle and high school student racial attitudes. Students' perceptions of the school interracial climate are modestly predictive of their changes in these three aspects of racial attitudes. However, teacher and facilitator estimates of student outcomes are uncorrelated with actual student outcomes. Implications of these results for prejudice reduction theory and practice are discussed.     

Relative Importance of Contact Conditions in Explaining Prejudice Reduction in a Classroom Context: Separate and Equal?

Research on contact theory has typically presented four major situational conditions of intergroup contact as separate and equally important in creating an environment that leads to lower levels of racial/ethnic prejudice. We empirically test this "separate and equal" assumption with a variety of student samples and outcome variables. Using data from three cohorts of high school students, as well as one middle school sample, we demonstrate that acquaintance potential and interdependence are the most consistent and robust predictors of prejudice reduction, outgroup orientation, and perceptions of a common ingroup identity. Findings concerning differences in the relative importance of these situational conditions for different racial/ethnic groups are also reported. Implications for implementing optimal contact conditions for prejudice reduction among various ethnic groups are drawn.     

The Transferability of Welfare Models: A Comparison of the Scandinavian and State Socialist Models in Relation to Finland and Estonia

In this paper, two examples of the close relationship between a national social welfare system, and explicit transnational influences are discussed. Both the state socialist and Scandinavian models have a recognized structure independent of the particular countries in which they have been implemented, although they are both associated with a home base, Russia and Sweden respectively. Our examples, Estonia and Finland, faced both common and specific national problems following 1991, which led to rapid change in each country's economic situation and pressure on their respective welfare systems. There were elements of continuity and discontinuity with the main tenets of their respective welfare models, and both structural factors and cultural diffusion will be explored to understand the origin of these changes. The paper could be seen as a case study of welfare changes in the "borderlands" where "old empires meet". The countries were chosen because they are peripheral to what were rival spheres of influence and because they see themselves as having much in common. We also expect changes to occur more rapidly in peripheral areas.     

Introduction Are We Ready to Translate Research Into Programs?

There is enough basic research on social cognition, developmental psychology,and peer relations as they relate to prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping to address program development and evaluation. At the same time, there are enough race relations programs being developed and implemented to inform basic research on prejudice. This issue brings together articles on the interface between basic research and programs on prejudice. The articles focus onspecific programs such as affirmative action, multicultural and bilingual education, cooperative learning, social-cognitive skills training, and bystander interventions. This introductory article provides an overview of the goals and implications of the issue.     

Relative Deprivation and Intergroup Prejudice

Using three diverse European surveys, we test the relationship between relative deprivation (RD) and anti-immigrant prejudice. We find that both group relative deprivation (GRD) and individual relative deprivation (IRD) are found primarily among working-class respondents who are politically alienated. We also find that GRD, but not IRD, serves as a proximal correlate of prejudice. IRD's effects on prejudice are largely mediated through GRD. In addition, GRD partially mediates the effects of such distal predictors of prejudice as education and family income. Finally, blaming the victim mediates in part the GRD link with prejudice. These results lead to a socially situated path model of RD's effects on prejudice with public policy implications.     

On the Nature of Contemporary Prejudice: The Third Wave

This article examines how social and historical developments have influenced the intellectual climate surrounding the study of prejudice and illustrates how these advances are reflected in the study of one type of racial bias, aversive racism. Three waves of research are identified. In the first wave, prejudice was assumed to reflect psychopathology. In the second, it was viewed as rooted in normal processes. The third wave emphasizes the multidimensional aspect of prejudice and takes advantage of new technologies to study processes that were earlier hypothesized but not directly measurable. Research on aversive racism is presented to demonstrate the transition of research across the second and third waves and to show how unconscious biases can significantly influence race relations.     

The Role of Lay Perceptions of Ethnic Prejudice in the Maintenance and Perpetuation of Ethnic Bias

This article discusses the role of lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice in the maintenance and perpetuation of prejudicial attitudes. We first discuss the importance of lay beliefs about ethnic prejudice for understanding processes underlying prejudice and its reduction. We also discuss the potential relations between two individual differences—social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism—and these beliefs. Next, we describe the research that we have conducted on lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice, including perceptions of causes of prejudice, solutions to prejudice, and the inevitability and justifiability of prejudice. This research demonstrates that individuals who are high in social dominance orientation and, to a lesser extent, right-wing authoritarianism, hold beliefs which may serve to maintain and perpetuate prejudicial attitudes. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for developing effective intervention strategies.     

Teachers' and Ppils' Educational Experiences and School-Based Responses to the Conflict in Northern Ireland

This article describes a study which examined (a) the impact of the political conflict on teachers' and ppils' experiences of education in Northern Ireland and (b) the impact of curricular-based interventions designed to support the ppils and reduce prejudice. The focus of the second part of the article is on the prejudice reduction initiatives identified. A total of 44 staff and 78 ppils spread across 8 schools participated and both teachers' and ppils' perspectives were identified, the latter being an extremely important dimension which has rarely been addressed in previous studies of this area. The findings, which highlight the complexity of the impact of the political conflict, are considered to have both practical and theoretical implications for prejudice reduction programs.

"Young people are asked to 'voice' their views not only because it is seen as beneficial to them personally, but because people believe they can learn from what they are saying."

                    — Hadfield and Hawe, 2001 , p. 94

     

Risk Factors for Ethnic Prejudice During Early Adolescence

This study examines risk factors for ethnic prejudice during early adolescence in a sample of Italian middle school students (N=187). It was predicted that low peer status would be associated with negative ratings of ethnic out‐groups, but that this relation would be moderated by self‐esteem. It was further hypothesized that individuals and their self‐nominated groups would be similar with regard to ethnic prejudice, and that antisocial behavior would be positively related to ethnic prejudice. Consistent with our prediction, results revealed that when self‐esteem was low, low peer status was associated with high prejudice against out‐groups. On the contrary, when self‐esteem was high, this relation was non‐existent. Moreover, individuals and their self‐nominated groups were similar with regard to ethnic prejudice, but only for stigmatized out‐groups. A relation was found between antisocial behavior and ethnic prejudice, but only for non‐stigmatized out‐groups. The present study emphasizes the importance (1) of studying individual differences in risk factors and levels of prejudice and (2) of investigating the influence that peers may have on the development of ethnic prejudice.     

Moral distress among social workers: The role of insufficient resources

The present study examined moral distress among Finnish social workers and the role of perceived resource insufficiencies in explaining it. The aim was to shed light on this understudied phenomenon in the field of social welfare. The study focused on work‐related moral distress, defined as impaired wellbeing that is connected to the continual inability to implement actions that one considers morally appropriate. The survey data were collected with an electronic questionnaire between the years 2011 and 2012. The respondents (n = 817) were social workers in the public social welfare services and the overall response rate was 46.5 per cent. Nearly 11 per cent of the respondents reported experiencing moral distress and perceived resource insufficiencies strongly explained this experience. Moreover, social workers with moral distress reported that they were less willing to continue in their post, were more frequently on sick leave and had positive work‐related experiences less often than their colleagues who did not experience moral distress. Key Practitioner Message: ● The concept of moral distress is useful in describing the experiences of social welfare workers when they are unable to practise their profession according to their moral code and the emotional burden related to this inability; ● Perceived resource insufficiencies are strongly associated with experiences of moral distress among frontline social workers; ● Social workers experiencing moral distress are less willing to continue in their work, take sick leave more often and less frequently have positive experiences related to their work.     

Prejudice and Group-Related Behavior in Germany

This article analyses the relationship of ethnic prejudice and discriminatory behavioral intentions in Germany. We utilize two representative surveys conducted in 2002 and 2004 ( N = 2,722 and 1,383, respectively) as well as a longitudinal study with three annual measurement points (2002–2004; N = 825). Results show that prejudice is substantially correlated with the respondents' reports of their own discriminatory intentions ( R = .33 to .49). Controlling for additional psychological variables, the cross-lagged, longitudinal analyses support the causal hypothesis that prejudice leads to discriminatory intentions. Additional influences on discriminatory intentions—intergroup threat and intergroup contact—are substantially mediated by ethnic prejudice. Thus, a practical implication of these results is that the reduction of intergroup threat and increment of intergroup contact may well lead to both reduced intergroup prejudice and to less discriminatory behavior .     

The Advantages of Multilevel Approaches

Editors' introduction: Thomas F. Pettigrew was born and raised in tightlysegregated Richmond, Virginia in 1931. But his Scottish-immigrant family did not subscribe to the South's racist norms, and he identified with and had early positive contact with African Americans. As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, he discovered that there was a discipline that studied and resisted racism. These formative experiences forged his career path in social psychology to study intergroup relations. As a student of Allport's, Pettigrew is widely recognized as having expanded personality-oriented perspectives on prejudice to include a more social, contextualized orientation ( Kimmel, 1986 ). In that same vein, he focuses his commentary on incorporating multiple levels of analysis as we integrate theory, research and practice on intergroup relations. He emphasizes the importance of macro-level—institutional and societal—contextualization of social psychological work. Pettigrew thoughtfully considers each article in the issue and contends that multiple level analyses, and incorporating the macro-level, are critical for theoretical and empirical progress as well as maximizing effectiveness of interventions .     

The Role of Empathy in Improving Intergroup Relations

This article analyzes the role that empathy can play in improving intergroup relations. Three types of empathy are defined: cognitive empathy and twotypes of emotional empathy, reactive and parallel. Research indicating that empathy causes prosocial behavior is reviewed, along with studies indicating that training can be used to increase levels of empathic skills. Intergroup relations programs that employ empathy are also reviewed. Studies of the effects of empathizing with outgroup members on prejudice are discussed, andseveral processes by which empathy may mediate changes in prejudice are presented (e.g., reducing perceived dissimilarity and anxiety concerning the outgroup) and cognitive dissonance. The ways in which empathy can be introduced into intergroup relations programs are discussed, along with a series of recommendations for its implementation.     

Reflections on the Statistical Analysis of Personality and Norms in War, Peace, and Prejudice: Are Deviant Minorities the Problem?

The compelling quality of the Global Change simulation study ( Altemeyer, 2003 ), in which high RWA (right-wing authoritarianism)/high SDO (social dominance orientation) individuals produced poor outcomes for the planet, rests on the inference that the link between high RWA/SDO scores and disaster in the simulation can be generalized to real environmental and social situations. However, we argue that studies of the Person × Situation interaction are biased to overestimate the role of the individual variability. When variables are operationalized, strongly normative items are excluded because they are skewed and kurtotic. This occurs both in the measurement of predictor constructs, such as RWA, and in the outcome constructs, such as prejudice and war. Analyses of normal linear statistics highlight personality variables such as RWA, which produce variance, and overlook the role of norms, which produce invariance. Where both normative and personality forces are operating, as in intergroup contexts, the linear analysis generates statistics for the sample that disproportionately reflect the behavior of the deviant, antinormative minority and direct attention away from the baseline, normative position. The implications of these findings for the link between high RWA and disaster are discussed.     

Prejudice as Group Position: Microfoundations of a Sociological Approach to Racism and Race Relations

This research integrates and elaborates the basic premises of Blumer's group position theory of prejudice. It does so in order to make explicit, more fully integrated, and empirically pliable the theoretical foundations of a sociological analysis of the nature of racial prejudice. In so doing, the research identifies important areas of agreement between Gordon Allport's approach to prejudice and that of Blumer. Blumer neither provided a full synthetic statement of his several major pieces on prejudice nor pursued sustained empirical research in the area. Hence, the present article (1) identifies the core assumptions of the group position model, (2) summarizes a recent line of empirical work examining claims embedded in the group position approach, (3) specifies how this approach differs from other closely related approaches, and (4) identifies major tasks for future theoretical and empirical work.     

Viewing Intergroup Relations in Europe through Allport's Lens Model of Prejudice

This article employs Allport's (1954) lens model of the causes of prejudice to analyze the articles in this issue of the Journal of Social Issues . The lens model specifies that historical, socio cultural, personality, and situational factors contribute to prejudice. The articles in this issue examine a number of variables at each of these levels of analysis, and many employ multilevel designs in which variables at more than one level are examined within the same study. Suggestions for future research on intergroup relations in Europe are offered including conducting more comparative and multilevel studies and creating comprehensive theories that integrate different levels of analysis. Some implications of the findings of these studies for intergroup relations programs are also discussed.     

The Three Monotheistic World Religions and International Human Rights

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the human rights movement lay claim to much of the same moral territory, notably concepts of human dignity, equality, and social justice. In practice there are many tensions. This article argues that common standards are necessary to govern relationships among religions and that international human rights standards best play that role. To achieve greater consensus and mutual understanding, the religious and human rights communities must examine how their meaning systems can and have changed over time, and differ across regions. Recognition of these variations and empirical evidence that religiosity is not necessarily inherently linked to prejudice can enable both the religious and human rights meaning systems to evolve toward greater consensus on common social norms.     

The Ethics of Human Reproductive Cloning: When World Views Collide

Two camps in bioethics with seemingly opposing world views have staked out conflicting positions regarding the ethics of human reproductive cloning. These camps do not appear to share common concepts or ways of reasoning through which to exchange views and come to a meeting of minds about uses of this technology. Yet analysis of their respective approaches to several issues surrounding reproductive cloning, such as where the ethical limits of individual reproductive choice lie, whether the use of this technology would violate human dignity, whether it would create risks to the resulting fetuses and children that would make its use intolerable, and whether it would challenge certain core social values, reveals that they are not wholly opposed to one another. Indeed, it displays that they hold certain beliefs, values, and concerns in common. Moreover, it indicates that the different world views that they each presuppose, while flawed in certain respects, do not collide in every respect, but can be reconciled in significant ways that provide fertile ground for agreement about several issues related to human reproductive cloning.