Helping Across Group Boundaries: Intercultural Dissimilarity, interpersonal Attractiveness and Empathy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Lotz-Schmitt ◽  
Stefan Sturmer
Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Dunmore

AbstractThis article considers the case of Cornish, a Celtic language that was in decline in the south-west of Great Britain from the early medieval era until the end of the eighteenth century, when its last recorded native speakers died out. At the point when a language under pressure eventually succumbs to forces of language shift, its role in representations of a distinct sociocultural identity might be expected to die with the medium itself. Yet a sense of cohesion at the group level has been observed to endure long after a shift to another language has occurred, with the obsolescent variety retaining a role in the maintenance of group boundaries. In situations of language shift, the meanings of such social constructions can change considerably, and the obsolescent variety may retain ideological associations with the group as an iconized symbol of identity. The analysis presented in this paper is based on an examination of the historical record as well as a synthesis of recent sociological research on Cornish. Attention will be drawn specifically to the manner in which the language has functioned as an icon of identity since the nadir of its decline as a spoken vernacular, through the ‘Cornish Revival’ of the twentieth century to the present day.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110439
Author(s):  
Byung-Ho Lee

This study analyzes, from a comparative and historical perspective, the clash between state statutory law and native customary law and the consequential effects of that rivalry on ethno-legal categories. It adopts a long-term perspective on Chinese society, with a particular focus on its history over the last three centuries. Although the imperial Chinese state had a centralized legal code, many non-Han subjects followed different legal standards and systems. Such conditions became the basis of legal pluralism and the structural constraint for full-fledged legal uniformity. It is argued that state-imposed ethnic categories in China have been institutionalized to determine those who should be protected, or even privileged, by their own native law. This is especially true during the alien dynasties of conquest, which purposely emphasized the principle of personal law to preserve legal prerogatives of ruling ethnicity. Similarly, indigenes on the frontier carried a variety of legal exemptions on grounds of the principle of territorial law. Such conditions could leave room for individual agency and provide incentives for both acculturated Han settlers and sinicized indigenes to claim native status. Several examples, including an 18th-century homicide case in China’s southwestern frontier, substantiate how individuals manipulated their ethnicity for their self-advantage and how these behaviors complicated the personality and territoriality principles of imperial law. In this sense, ethnic law served as an institutionalized distillation of ethnic group boundaries, which were realigned by shifts in self-identity. The legacy of China’s imperial practices of particularistic jural relations continues today.


2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1067-1073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Serena Chen ◽  
Victoria A. Lee ◽  
Laura D. Straus
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sa-kiera Tiarra Jolynn Hudson ◽  
Mina Cikara ◽  
Jim Sidanius

The capacity to empathize with others facilitates prosocial behavior. People’s willingness and capacity to empathize, however, is often contingent upon the target’s group membership – people are less empathic towards those they categorize as out-group members. In competitive or threatening intergroup contexts, people may even feel pleasure (counter-empathy) in response to out-group members’ misfortunes. Social dominance orientation (SDO), or the extent to which people prefer and promote group-based inequalities, is an ideological variable that is associated with a competitive view of the world, increased prejudicial attitudes, and decreased empathy. Thus, higher levels of SDO should be associated with reduced empathy and increased counter-empathy in general, but especially towards those whose subjugation maintains group inequalities. Across three studies we show that among White individuals, higher SDO levels are associated with less empathy, and more counter-empathy in response to others’ good and bad fortunes. More importantly, these reductions in empathy and increases in schadenfreude as a function of SDO were significantly stronger for Asian and Black targets than for in-group White targets when group boundaries were made salient prior to the empathy ratings. Finally, in a fourth study we show that this phenomenon is not dependent upon a history of status differences: higher SDO scores were associated with decreased empathy and increased counter-empathy for competitive out-group (relative to in-group) targets in a novel group setting. We discuss implications of these effects for hierarchy maintenance.


2018 ◽  
pp. 193-272
Author(s):  
Michèle Lamont ◽  
Graziella Moraes Silva ◽  
Jessica S. Welburn ◽  
Joshua Guetzkow ◽  
Nissim Mizrachi ◽  
...  

This chapter examines the experiences and responses of Arab Palestinians, Ethiopian Jews, and Mizrahi Jews in Israel to stigmatization and discrimination. It first explains the historical and socioeconomic context for the three groups, taking into account the legacy of Zionism that shapes their experiences, the status of Arab Palestinians in the Jewish polity, and questions of ethno-national identity, exclusion, and inclusion affecting Mizrahim and Ethiopians in Israel. It then provides an overview of the Tel Aviv–Jaffa metropolitan area, the research site, before discussing the role of national belonging, race, and ethnicity in the formation of groupness among the respondents, with emphasis on self-identification and group boundaries. It also analyzes the groups' experiences of stigmatization and discrimination, and especially assault on worth, before concluding with an assessment of their reactions to such incidents as well as their views about the best ways to deal with social exclusion.


Author(s):  
Huiyan Zhang ◽  
Marshall Scott Poole

This chapter reports the results of a multiple case study which investigated how virtual teams appropriated multiple media to facilitate the construction of group identity and manage group boundaries. It focuses on relationships within and between virtual teams. The study found five processes that shaped group identity, including clarification of goals and mission, developing regularized pattern of interaction, group norms for media use, and negotiation of task jurisdiction with interlocking groups. The study discovered that groups managed boundaries in terms of clarity distinctness, and permeability. It indicated that group boundaries were blurred and maintained simultaneously through purposeful use of communication technologies.


Author(s):  
Niv Allon

Tomb owners, who may be assumed to be literate, hardly ever show themselves reading or writing in their tombs. The second chapter critically examines the two main prevailing answers in the Egyptological literature and offers a different angle to the problem. It collects the few men who did choose to portray themselves associated with reading and writing, and explores their emphasis on literacy in relation to group boundaries and self-representation. The chapter focuses in its analysis on the emphasis on images of literacy among individuals who, like Haremhab, were engaged with the military in their career.


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