scholarly journals The Social Neuroscience of Prejudice

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 439-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Amodio ◽  
Mina Cikara

The social neuroscience approach to prejudice investigates the psychology of intergroup bias by integrating models and methods of neuroscience with the social psychology of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Here, we review major contemporary lines of inquiry, including current accounts of group-based categorization; formation and updating of prejudice and stereotypes; effects of prejudice on perception, emotion, and decision making; and the self-regulation of prejudice. In each section, we discuss key social neuroscience findings, consider interpretational challenges and connections with the behavioral literature, and highlight how they advance psychological theories of prejudice. We conclude by discussing the next-generation questions that will continue to guide the social neuroscience approach toward addressing major societal issues of prejudice and discrimination.

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Chiara Imperato ◽  
Tiziana Mancini

The effects of intergroup dialogues on intercultural relations in digital societies and the growing conflict, inflammatory and hate speech phenomena characterizing these environments are receiving increasing attention in socio-psychological studies. Based on Allport’s contact theory, scholars have shown that online intercultural contact reduces ethnic prejudice and discrimination, although it is not yet clear when and how this occurs. By analyzing the role of the Dialogical Self in online intercultural dialogues, we aim to understand how individuals position themselves and others at three levels of inclusiveness—personal, social, and human—and how this process is associated with attitudes towards the interlocutor, intergroup bias and prejudice, whilst also considering the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity. An experimental procedure was administered via the Qualtrics platform, and data were collected among 118 undergraduate Italian students through an anonymous questionnaire. From ANOVA and moderation analysis, it emerged that the social level of inclusiveness was positively associated with ethnic/racial identity and intergroup bias. Furthermore, the human level of inclusiveness was associated with the inclusion of the Other in the Self and ethnic/racial identity, and unexpectedly, also with intergroup bias. We conclude that when people interact online as “human beings”, the positive effect of online dialogue fails, hindering the differentiation processes necessary to define one’s own and the interlocutor’s identities. We discuss the effects of intercultural dialogue in the landscape of digital societies and the relevance of our findings for theory, research and practice.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh McGovern ◽  
Marte Otten

Bayesian processing has become a popular framework by which to understand cognitive processes. However, relatively little has been done to understand how Bayesian processing in the brain can be applied to understanding intergroup cognition. We assess how categorization and evaluation processes unfold based on priors about the ethnic outgroup being perceived. We then consider how the precision of prior knowledge about groups differentially influence perception depending on how the information about that group was learned affects the way in which it is recalled. Finally, we evaluate the mechanisms of how humans learn information about other ethnic groups and assess how the method of learning influences future intergroup perception. We suggest that a predictive processing framework for assessing prejudice could help accounting for seemingly disparate findings on intergroup bias from social neuroscience, social psychology, and evolutionary psychology. Such an integration has important implications for future research on prejudice at the interpersonal, intergroup, and societal levels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 877-886
Author(s):  
İsa Kaya

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between children's prosocial behavior and self-regulation skills. To collect the data of the study, demographic information form developed by the researcher was used for the demographic information of children, the prosocial behavior sub-dimension of the social behavior scale was used for the prosocial behavior, and the self-regulation skills scale was used for the self-regulation skills of the children. The collected data were analyzed by independent sample t-test, Pearson’s product moment correlation analysis and simple linear regression analysis in a computer package software. As a result of the research, while the self-regulation and prosocial behaviors of children differed according to gender and age of children, the situation of the children whether they have siblings and duration of the pre-school education did not make any significant difference. According to these results, girls' self-regulation and prosocial behavior scores were higher than that of boys and 6 years of age children’s scores were higher than that of 5 years of age children. While there was a moderate positive significant relationship between self-regulation skills and prosocial behavior, it was concluded that the prosocial behavior of children predicted self-regulation skills at the level of 11%.   Keywords: Prosocial behavior, self-regulation skills, early childhood, preschool


Author(s):  
Oscar J. Romero ◽  
Ran Zhao ◽  
Justine Cassell

In this work we propose a novel module for a dialogue system that allows a conversational agent to utter phrases that do not just meet the system's task intentions, but also work towards achieving the system's social intentions. The module - a Social Reasoner - takes the task goals the system must achieve and decides the appropriate conversational style and strategy with which the dialogue system describes the information the user desires so as to boost the strength of the relationship between the user and system (rapport), and therefore the user's engagement and willingness to divulge the information the agent needs to efficiently and effectively achieve the user's goals. Our Social Reasoner is inspired both by analysis of empirical data of friends and stranger dyads engaged in a task, and by prior literature in fields as diverse as reasoning processes in cognitive and social psychology, decision-making, sociolinguistics and conversational analysis. Our experiments demonstrated that, when using the Social Reasoner in a Dialogue System, the rapport level between the user and system increases in more than 35% in comparison with those cases where no Social Reasoner is used.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Guy Davidov ◽  
Maayan Davidov

Research on compliance has shown that people can be induced to comply with various requests by using techniques that capitalise on the human tendencies to act consistently and to reciprocate. Thus far this line of research has been applied to interactions between individuals, not to relations between institutions. We argue, however, that similar techniques are applied by courts vis-à-vis the government, the legislature and the public at large, when courts try to secure legitimacy and acceptance of their decisions. We discuss a number of known influence techniques – including ‘foot in the door’, ‘low-balling’, ‘giving a reputation to uphold’ and ‘door in the face’ – and provide examples from Israeli case law of the use of such techniques by courts. This analysis offers new insights that can further the understanding of judicial decision-making processes.


2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Ford ◽  
Mark A. Ferguson

In this article we introduce a “prejudiced norm theory” that specifies the social-psychological processes by which exposure to disparagement humor uniquely affects tolerance of discrimination against members of groups targeted by the humor. Our theory posits that a norm of tolerance of discrimination implied by disparagement humor functions as a source of self-regulation for people high in prejudice. For people high in prejudice, this norm regulates the effect of exposure to disparagement humor on tolerance of subsequently encountered discriminatory events. Our theory contributes to the literature on prejudice and discrimination by delineating the processes by which disparagement humor creates a normative climate of tolerance of discrimination, as well as variables that accentuate and attenuate its effects.


2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaacov Trope

The phenomena social psychology seeks to explain–how people think, feel, and act in response to social situations–are rich and diverse. Therefore, explanatory power, the simplicity of a model relative to its empirical scope, is an important desideratum for social psychological theories. A model achieves high explanatory power to the extent that it integrates narrower models within a unified conceptualization, reconciles conflicting findings, and makes novel predictions regarding specific phenomena. This article first relates explanatory power to the various facets of scientific inquiry (modeling, derivation, observation, evaluation, and decision) and then discusses this criterion as a guide for 2 theory-based lines of research my colleagues and I have conducted in the area of social judgment and decision making.


1996 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Kraenzle Schneider

The self-regulation of exercise maintenance model was used to study the episode-specific interpretations of exercise of older women immediately after an exercise episode. Seventeen women, mean age 69.7 ± 4.9 years, were recruited to represent a variety of exercise patterns. A semistructured episode-specific interview was administered after an exercise episode. The questions asked related to physiological/somatic and cognitive/emotional sensations associated with exercise and the social/environmental context of the exercise experience. Data analysis revealed five themes—somatic sensations, affirmations, connectedness, explanations, and reflections—each of which contained distinct categories. The proposed self-regulation of exercise maintenance model was clarified to better represent the data grounded in the women’s descriptions. The women’s qualitative descriptors will be used to develop a quantitative instrument to measure older women’s interpretations of exercise. Future research should involve testing the self-regulation of exercise maintenance model and examining interventions that affect episode-specific interpretations and thereby exercise maintenance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-131
Author(s):  
D.V. Bondarev ◽  
K.A. Bochaver ◽  
V. Barkoukis

Anti-doping represents a global system where an athlete is in the center of a control and regulations. The perception of legitimacy is important for compliance with rules and regulation within the anti-doping system. However, the concept of legitimacy in anti-doping is not sufficiently defined, which makes it difficult to develop psychodiagnostic tools for its assessment within the framework of relevant psychological theories. The aim of this study is to review psychological literature on legitimacy perception and identify a framework within which legitimacy can be studied in anti-doping area. Reviewed data were structured by three categories of legitimacy: “proper”, “just” and “appropriate” and a respective matrix for a focus group interview had been developed. Four focus-group interviews had been conducted among Russian competitive athletes (N=22). The focus-group interviews revealed three main themes: trust to anti-doping organizations, equal and transparent anti-doping rules and possibility for athletes to influence anti-doping policy. Legitimacy of anti-doping is an important psychological construct that may be operationalized through the perception that anti-doping is functioning proper, just and appropriate. In addition, athletes voiced their concerns on the transparent and equal implementation of the anti-doping rules and possibility to influence anti-doping policy.


Author(s):  
Анастасия Эдуардовна Пилипенко ◽  
Вадим Геннадьевич Пантелеев

В статье рассматривается социальная активность молодежи в контексте смысловых представлений студентов вузов. На основании материалов регионального эмпирического исследования были проанализированы смыслы, которыми наделяется активность и которые имеют высокую значимость в саморегуляции общественно направленной и индивидуализированной активности студентов. Выявлено, что смысл социальной активности в восприятии вузовской молодежи соотносится с приоритетами органов исполнительной власти, занимающихся реализацией молодежной политики; определена зависимость между частотой участия студентов в практиках социальной активности и готовностью воспринимать данную деятельность посредством институционально организованных форм. Определены доминирующие мировоззренческие установки среди вузовской молодежи и описана их связь с мотивацией социальной активности в исследуемой группе. Выявлено противоречие между смысловым представлением о социальной активности и проявляемой деятельностью: образ определяется студентами через доминирование альтруистических ценностей, а в основе реальной активности молодых людей находятся гедонистические и инструментальные ценности. The article attempts to analyze the social activity of youth in the context of semantic representations of university students. Based on the materials of a regional empirical study, the meanings of activity are analyzed, as well as those meanings that are significant in the self-regulation of socially directed and individualized activity of students. The research shows that the meaning of social activity in the perception of university youth correlates with the priorities of executive authorities involved in the implementation of youth policy; the dependence between the frequency of students' participation in social activity practices and the willingness to perceive this activity through institutionally organized forms is determined. The dominant ideological attitudes among university youth are analyzed and their connection with the motivation of social activity is described. The contradiction between the semantic idea of social activity and the activity manifested is revealed: the students determine this activity basing on the altruistic values, but in practice, hedonistic and instrumental values are at the heart of the activities of young people.


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