Happiness and stereotypic thinking in social judgment.

Four experiments examined the effects of happiness on the tendency to use stereotypes in social judgment. In each experiment, individuals who had been induced to feel happy rendered more stereotypic judgments than did those in a neutral mood. Exp 1 demonstrated this phenomenon with a mood induction procedure that involved recalling life experiences. Exps 2 and 3 suggested that the greater reliance on stereotypes evident in the judgments of happy individuals was not attributable to cognitive capacity deficits created by intrusive happy thoughts or by cognitively disruptive excitement or energetic arousal that may accompany the experience of happiness. In Exp 4, happy individuals again were found to render more stereotypic judgments, except under conditions in which they had been told that they would be held accountable for their judgments. These results suggest that although happy people's tendency to engage in stereotypic thinking may be pervasive, they are quite capable of avoiding the influence of stereotypes in their judgments when situational factors provide a motivational impetus for such effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists' knowledge of their states' laws pertaining to Tarasoff-type situations.

This study examined psychologists' knowledge of their legal and ethical responsibilities with imminently dangerous clients. We randomly surveyed 1,000 psychologists from four states and received 300 useable responses (30%). Most psychologists (76.4%) were misinformed about their state laws, believing that they had a legal duty to warn when they did not, or assuming that warning was their only legal option when other protective actions less harmful to client privacy were allowed. Moreover, in spite of the inaccuracy of their knowledge, many respondents were confident that they understood the duty to protect in their own state. Contrary to expectation, we found no significant association between legal knowledge and continuing education in legal and ethical issues, graduate training in ethics, or clinical experience with dangerous clients. These findings suggest that educational experiences during and after graduate school may not be meeting the needs of professionals to understand the complicated array of state laws and ethical duties regarding dangerous clients. We recommend several changes in the provisions of these experiences to better protect psychologists and clients from unintentional risks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Construct systems and the definition of social situations.

Studied the relationship between 2 construct subsystems, one for construing people and one for defining a concrete social situation. Using a variant of G. Kelly's grid methodology, 20 college students rated 12 personal acquaintances on 12 constructs of bipolar concepts. They were then presented with 1 of 2 problematic social situations and asked to rate the same acquaintances on 10 dimensions relevant to the situation. Principal-components analysis was used to derive 1 central and 2 secondary patterns of construing (centrality being defined by the amount of variance the component accounts for on a grid), as well as 1 central and 2 secondary dimensions defining the social situation. Cross-correlations between the orderings of people on these 2 sets of components were used to determine the extent to which "implicit personality theory" influenced the definition of a situation. Findings show that central construing related strongly to the central definition of a situation, whereas secondary construing related more weakly to secondary definitions. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preschool children's social status and their mothers' behavior and knowledge in the supervisory role.

We report two studies in which mothers of high school status (HSS) children were compared with mothers of low social status (LSS) children. The first examined mother's behavior in assisting her child to join in and play with a dyad of unknown children of the same age and sex. The second focused on the mothers' responses to hypothetical situations. Both studies assessed aspects of the mother in the supervisory role (i.e., where she directly manages or assists her child in peer relationships). On the basis of the notion that children might partly acquire social skills from their mother, we predicted that mother differences in the supervisory role would correspond with comparable social skill differences reported in the literature for HSS and LSS children. Many of the results were consistent with the prediction. We considered possible processes whereby children could acquire aspects of social skills from their parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancies as mediators of the effects of social influences and alcohol knowledge on adolescent alcohol use: A prospective analysis.

Three-year panel data from 789 students in 8th grade and path-analytic techniques were used to test a model positing that social reinforcement expectancies mediate the effects of perceived friends' alcohol use, friends' alcohol attitudes, and knowledge of near-term health effects and alcohol prevalence on both contemporaneous and subsequent alcohol involvement. Evidence of mediation was obtained with both cross-sectional and longitudinal findings. Perceived peer norms had a direct effect on alcohol use, and knowledge of normative alcohol use had a unique long-term protective influence on later alcohol use. Findings are discussed in terms of a 2-pronged prevention model that (a) integrates principles of social learning theory with expectancy-based, cognitive-behavioral change and (b) emphasizes dissemination of age-appropriate alcohol information in programs that aim to reduce alcohol use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of social situations for research purposes.

Discusses the fact that most psychological research must be done in relatively few paradigmatic types of social situations. An investigator's prior commitment to a theory or social problem leads him to prefer situations which embody his variables at the proper levels. Insuring the reliability of experimental control over these variables requires that the situation be plausible to the Ss involved. Such plausibility dictates (a) which intrusions will be tolerable, and (b) what manipulations can be used, and (c) what variables can be validly measured. Only familiarity with Ss' perceptions of situations can properly guide a researcher's intrusions on and selections of situations for research purposes. (33 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing mode causally influences emotional reactivity: Distinct effects of abstract versus concrete construal on emotional response.

Three studies are reported showing that emotional responses to stress can be modified by systematic prior practice in adopting particular processing modes. Participants were induced to think about positive and negative scenarios in a mode either characteristic of or inconsistent with the abstract-evaluative mind-set observed in depressive rumination, via explicit instructions (Experiments 1 and 2) and via implicit induction of interpretative biases (Experiment 3), before being exposed to a failure experience. In all three studies, participants trained into the mode antithetical to depressive rumination demonstrated less emotional reactivity following failure than participants trained into the mode consistent with depressive rumination. These findings provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that processing mode modifies emotional reactivity and support the processing-mode theory of rumination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavior analysis and the social construction of knowledge.

A phenomenon of contemporary interest in social psychology is the social construction of knowledge—knowledge arising out of the interactions of people in communities rather than from interaction with the nonsocial environment. A behavior analysis of such socially constructed knowledge is presented, based on Skinner's (1957) functional types of verbal behavior and the social contingencies that maintain them. Socially constructed knowledge occurs as intraverbals, as tacts with loose discrimination, and when there are powerful social controls determining the verbal behavior in a group. The distinction between rule-governed and contingency-governed behavior shows the limits of socially constructed knowledge, whereas the social contingencies involved in minority influence and innovation show how changes can occur in community representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Surface construal and the mental representation of scenes.

What distinguishes scenes from nonscenes? Photographs of objects on both naturalistic and blank backgrounds yielded boundary extension (BE: memory for unseen spatial expanse outside the picture's boundaries). However, line-drawn objects on blank backgrounds did not (Experiment 1). Perhaps the blank background was construed as depicting a real-world surface in the photograph condition but was construed as depicting nothing in the line-drawn condition. To change background construal, the authors used objects cut out of photographs; these were placed on blank backgrounds while viewers watched (Experiments 2 and 3). BE was eliminated. The authors propose that amodal continuation is a fundamental aspect of scene perception. However, not all pictures are scenes--only pictures construed as depicting a truncated view of a continuous world, (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The communication of social stereotypes: The effects of group discussion and information distribution on stereotypic appraisals.

Stereotypes are fundamentally social constructs, formulated and modified through discussion and interaction with others. The present studies examined the impact of group discussion on stereotypes. In both studies, groups of participants discussed their impressions about a hypothetical target group after having read behaviors performed by target group members. These behaviors included both stereotypic and counterstereotypic examples, and the distribution of these behaviors varied across discussion group members. In some groups only 1 member knew of the counterstereotypic behaviors; in other groups this information was distributed across all group members. In general, discussion led to a polarization of the target group stereotypes, but this effect was lessened when the counterstereotypic behaviors were concentrated in 1 group member. In this case, these counterstereotypic behaviors were discussed more and retained better. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and behavioral coping strategies in the reappraisal of stressful social situations.

Compared cognitive and behavioral coping strategies for eliciting reappraisal of stressful social situations in 22 male and 27 female 7th and 8th graders. In the cognitive coping condition Ss were trained to attend objectively to the aversive cues in the stimulus person and were encouraged to reconsider their aversiveness. In the behavioral coping condition Ss were trained to develop more adequate behaviors for coping with the stressful situation. These 2 strategies were tested alone and in combination against an identification-control condition. The coping strategies were more effective in eliciting positive reappraisal of the stressful situation than was the control condition. The behavioral coping strategy resulted in a greater reduction of cue aversiveness. Findings stress the importance of behavioral coping in the reappraisal of stressful stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential construal and the false consensus effect.

People's own beliefs, values, and habits tend to bias their perceptions of how widely they are shared. The present research examined whether this "false consensus effect" is partly due to people's failure to recognize that their choices are not solely a function of the "objective" response alternatives, but of their subjective construal of those alternatives. Study 1 provided initial support for the importance of differential construal in people's consensus estimates by showing that larger false consensus effects tend to be obtained on items that permit the most latitude for subjective construal. Study 2 replicated this effect experimentally by asking Ss either a general or specific version of the same question. Larger false consensus effects were obtained on the general version that offered more latitude for construal. Studies 3 & 4 provided further support by showing that (a) Ss who made different choices tended to interpret the response alternatives in ways that reflected the choices they made and (b) subjects who were led to construe the alternatives in the same way tended to make the same choices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choosing social situations: Two investigations of self-monitoring processes.

In Study 1, 125 undergraduates chose to enter or not to enter a situation that called for behavioral expressions of extraversion, as measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory. For high-self-monitoring (HSM) Ss, willingness to enter this situation was a direct reflection of the clarity with which the extraverted character of the situation was defined. For low-self-monitoring (LSM) Ss, willingness to enter this situation was related to their personal dispositions within the domain of extraversion and introversion. In Study 2 (234 Ss), Ss were assigned to a situation and were allowed to indicate how the situation might be changed to make them more willing to enter it. The transformed situations of HSM Ss were relatively clearly defined. The transformed situations of LSM Ss were relatively congruent with their own extraverted or introverted dispositions. The processes by which HSM and LSM Ss facilitated the enactment of their characteristic behavioral orientations are discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental and social influences on young girls' early problem behavior.

A developing body of research suggests that there are few sex differences in the rate and severity of problem behavior in early childhood, but clear sex differences emerge at about 4 years of age. The authors explore 2 hypotheses to further the understanding of emerging sex differences in problem behavior across the first 5 years of life. The first posits that the change in girls' problem behavior from infancy to school entry represents a channeling of early problem behavior into predominantly internalizing problems as a result of socialization. The second hypothesis is that the change in girls' early problem behavior during the preschool period results from the more rapid biological, cognitive, and social–emotional development of girls relative to boys. The authors review research on the influence of parents, teachers, and peers on girls' behavior from infancy to preschool regarding the first hypothesis, whereas they review studies of sex differences in developmental processes to test the second. They find moderate support for both hypotheses and present a comprehensive theory of girls' developmental psychopathology that integrates social and developmental influences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex typing and the social perception of gender stereotypic and nonstereotypic behavior: The uniqueness of feminine males.

Examined the social perception of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated males. 251 preadolescent boys were shown a video film portraying a male target playing either a masculine game with boys, a feminine game with girls, a neutral game with boys, or a neutral game with girls and were required to make a variety of inferences about him. All 4 groups made similar cognitive stereotypic inferences that varied in accordance with the gender stereotypic nature of the target's behavior. However, for the affective judgments (e.g., liking the target and wanting to engage in activities with him), the feminine males showed a pattern of inferences that was not only different from other sex role orientations, but often the reverse. The implications of these results for S. L. Bem's gender schema theory (see record 1981-25685-001) and H. Markus's self schema theory (H. Markus et al; 1982) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rebellious teens? Genetic and environmental influences on the social attitudes of adolescents.

Genetic and environmental influences in social attitudes were investigated in adopted and nonadopted children (N = 654) and their biological and adoptive relatives in the Colorado Adoption Project. Conservatism and religious attitudes were measured in the children annually from ages 12 to 15 and in the parents during the 12-year-old visit. Multivariate genetic model fitting indicated that both conservatism and religious attitudes, are strongly influenced by shared-family environmental factors throughout adolescence. In contrast to previous findings from twin studies, which suggest that genetic influence on social attitudes does not emerge until adulthood, the present study detected significant genetic influence in conservatism as early as age 12. There was no evidence of genetic influence, however, on religious attitudes during adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The evolution of cognition and the social construction of knowledge.

Responds to M. Glassman's (see record 1996-03525-020) comments on D. Geary's (see record 1995-16916-001) suggestion regarding the evolution of primary and secondary cognitive abilities and the mechanisms that govern their acquisition. The author concedes that there are several features of Vygotsky's model that are useful and represents one mode of knowledge transmission, but the position that all forms of knowledge are constructed during social discourse is wrong. Social relationships are an important pressure in the evolution of many forms of cognition, thus, understanding how the social community influences the evolution of human cognition will add to our understanding of human cognition. By casting all of cognition in terms of language and social discourse creates the illusion that many aspects of our lives are beyond our control. Accepting these models are psychologically comforting, but this does not mean they are scientifically valid. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory correlation and the maintenance of stereotypic beliefs.

Investigated the role of cognitive processes in the maintenance of social stereotypes in 3 experiments with 73 male and 77 female high school and undergraduate students and adults. Ss read sets of sentences in which the members of different occupational groups were described by pairs of trait adjectives. In 2 experiments, the trait adjectives were either consistent (CT) with stereotypic beliefs about one of the occupational groups or unrelated to the group's stereotype; in the 3rd study, traits were either inconsistent (ICT) with or unrelated to a group's stereotype. Different correlational relationships between the traits and occupational groups were built into the sets of sentences, but, in each case, the CT or ICT traits described the members of each occupational group as often as matched traits unrelated to the groups' stereotypes. Ss estimated how frequently each of the trait adjectives had described members of each of the occupational groups. Each study revealed systematic biases in the Ss' judgments so that the perceived correlation between traits and occupations was more congruent with existing stereotypic beliefs than the actual correlation. Findings indicate a cognitive bias in the processing of new information about social groups that is mediated by existing stereotypes and that provides a basis for explaining the persistence of stereotypes in the absence of confirming evidence. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)