When contact counts: Intergroup contact on business and intermarriage resistance in the Caucasus region

Intergroup contact theory has been empirically supported in a variety of social contexts, but few samples have been drawn from rapidly developing nations undergoing severe political and sociocultural conflict. Using 2012 Caucasus Barometer data from the three nations of the South Caucasus — Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — we test the effect of interreligious contact on various forms of out-group resistance in a region of the world that is both historically and presently marked with severe religious and ethnic conflict. Additionally, we take into account self-selection effects using propensity score matching. Results overwhelmingly support intergroup contact theory in all three countries, but objections toward intermarriage still remain high for treated groups. In addition, there exist significant differences based on the out-group studied, with the contact effects being the strongest for groups posing little religio-cultural or organized threat. Weaker contact effects, though, appear less related to threat and more contextual/out-group specific.     

Homosexuality and the Military: A Review of the Literature

Homosexual men and women have been subjected to constant discrimination and stigma while trying to do what most heterosexual individuals take for granted, serving their country. It is somewhat paradoxical that gays and lesbians who are treated as second-class citizens by their own country and government, with limited rights, would want to risk their lives and potentially die for that same country. As the literature illustrates, many homosexual men and women have chosen such a profession in order to justify their existence and demonstrate that they are worthy of the same rights as others. Just as women and African Americans eventually earned their status as equal members of society and proved their worthiness to serve in the military, homosexuals are now trying to achieve the same.     

The noncentral bivariate chisquared distribution and extensions

The distribution of certain correlated noncentral chisquared variates P, Q, is termed the noncentral bivariate chisquared distribution. Moment generating functions of the distributions of (P, Q), (P+Q) and other quadratic forms have been obtained. A relationship to the linear case of the noncentral Wishart distribution is indicated. Convolution properties and applications are presented.     

当今社会人脉异化的成因及矫治——基于儒家理想道德人格视角

随着当下流行语"人脉"的广泛运用,人脉异化成为值得关注和不可回避的话题.人脉异化的表现形式是与和谐社会主旋律相悖的不谐音符,是违反人的自我、本意受到扭曲的人际关系,是一种病态的社会现象.与交往异化相比,人脉异化有着自己的特点和表现形式.通过"知、情、意、行"四个方面对人脉异化进行实证剖析,儒家诉求的理想道德人格可以矫治人脉异化所带来的危害,其途径为:道德认知,人脉厚积的前提;道德情感,人脉积蓄的基点;道德意志,人脉维系的中枢.而真正能够防止人脉异化的是人的道德行为,它能够矫治人脉异化,回归人脉的本原.     

Attitudes toward immigrants in Luxembourg. Do contacts matter?

The number of immigrants in Luxembourg is approaching the number of native-born population. This demographic change raises questions concerning social inclusion, social cohesion, and intergroup conflicts. The present paper contributes to this discussion by analyzing attitudes toward immigrants and their determinants. Controlling for key individual characteristics, we examine how the intensity of core contacts between nationals and inhabitants with migratory background affects attitudes toward immigrants among three groups of Luxembourg residents: natives, first-generation immigrants, and second-generation immigrants. The results indicate that attitudes toward immigrants depend significantly on the origins of the residents of Luxembourg. Natives adopt the most negative stance toward immigrants; they are followed by second-generation and first-generation immigrants. Attitudes of second-generation immigrants are closer to those of the native population than to those of first-generation immigrants. Core contacts appear to play the most important role in the case of first-generation immigrants. The more connected the first-generation migrant to the native population, the more negative his/her opinion of immigrants.     

Points of View, Social Positioning and Intercultural Relations

The challenge of intercultural relations has become an important issue in many societies. In spite of the claimed value of intercultural diversity, successful outcomes as predicted by the contact hypothesis are but one possibility; on occasions intercultural contact leads to intolerance and hostility. Research has documented that one key mediator of contact is perspective taking. Differences in perspective are significant in shaping perceptions of contact and reactions to it. The ability to take the perspective of the other and to understand it in its own terms is a necessary condition for successful intergroup outcomes. This paper sheds light on the processes involved in intercultural perspective taking by elaborating the notion of the point of view based on social representations theory. The point of view provides a theory of social positioning that can analyse cultural encounters between social actors, and identify the conditions for positive relations. Insights are drawn from a study of public views on the relative merits of science and religion, following a documentary by Richard Dawkins in which it was suggested that religion is a source of evil. The findings demonstrate that the point of view may be categorised according to a three-way taxonomy according to the extent to which it is open to another perspective. A point of view may be monological—closed to another's perspective entirely, dialogical—open to the possibility of another perspective while maintaining some percepts as unchallengeable, or metalogical—open to another's perspective based on the other's frame of reference.     

Contact Reduces Transprejudice: A Study on Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between Hong Kong Chinese people's contact with transgender/transsexual (TG/TS) people and attitudes toward transgenderism and transgender civil rights, based on Allport's Contact Hypothesis. The term transprejudice is introduced to refer to the negative valuing, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment of TG/TS people. Data are presented from a population-based survey with a random sample of 856 Hong Kong Chinese persons aged between 15 and 64, using the Chinese Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights Scale (CATTCRS). Attitudes, assessed on both personal and institutional dimensions, are examined in relation to participants’ gender, age, educational level, religiosity, and previous contact with transpeople. Results suggest that previous contact with transpeople was significantly associated with attitudes reflected in the scale; decreased social distance, decreased social discrimination, and decreased transprejudice, increased awareness of discrimination against transpeople, increased support for equal opportunities, increased support for post-operative transsexual civil rights, and increased support for anti-discrimination legislation. Our findings support the contact hypothesis, that contact has a positive effect on attitudes towards TG/TS persons. We discuss the implications of these findings for public education interventions and public policy, as well as for research.     

虚拟实践的价值分析

网络时代造就的虚拟实践活动,已广泛渗透于社会的各个领域并产生着重大影响。本文详尽地分析和探讨了虚拟实践在人类生产、交往、生活以及认知等层面的活动表现及其价值,以期使人们以更加理性的态度关注虚拟实践的发展。     

Limits of the Literal: Five Recent Books About Metaphor

Charles Forceville. Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising.
Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding.
Andrew Ortony (ed.). Metaphor and Thought. (2nd edition)
Gerard Steen. Understanding Metaphor in Literature: an Empirical Approach.
Roger M. White. The Structure of Metaphor     

Diffusion, levelling, simplification and reallocation in past tense BE in the English Fens

In the dialect contact framework proposed by Trudgill (1986), relatively little research has investigated the consequences of the mixing of different grammatical systems of English. The apparent time survey of the Fenland dialect of eastern England reported here provides an example of a range of dialect contact processes reconfiguring variable patterns of past tense BE, resulting in a variety with analogical levelling to was in positive contexts –' the farms was '– and to weren't in negative clauses –' the farm weren't '. In focussing this was/weren't pattern, a number of the processes typical of koine´isation can be observed – diffusion (the geographical and/or social spread of a linguistic form from another socio-geographical place), levelling (the eradication of marked or minority forms in situations of dialect competition, where the number of variants in the output is dramatically reduced from the number in the input), simplification (a relative diminution of grammatical irregularity and redundancy) and reallocation (where two (or more) ingredient variants of the dialect mix are refunctionalised to serve new social, stylistic, or, as here, grammatical roles).