Can the absence of prejudice be more threatening than its presence? It depends on one's worldview

Factors that contribute to accurately perceiving anti-black racism and sexism overlap

Past research demonstrates that prejudice toward women and Black Americans often co-occur in individuals. The present studies examine factors related to accuracy in estimating the co-occurrence, or overlap, of prejudice toward women and Black Americans. Across two studies, criterion overlap percentages were computed using national datasets and separate participant samples estimated prejudice overlap. Results indicate that beliefs about the generalized nature of prejudice can improve accuracy by reducing faulty underestimation of the overlap in anti-Black racism and sexism. In addition to greater displayed accuracy in perceptions of prototypical perpetrators of prejudice (i.e., estimates of White men compared to White women), the present work suggests that accuracy is improved when estimating sexist attitudes from racist attitudes, rather than vice versa. Together, this work documents the accuracy of prejudice overlap perceptions, for the first time, and factors that facilitate accuracy (i.e., perpetrator prototypicality, known prejudicial attitude), with implications for intergroup dynamics research.

Association of relative deprivation with loneliness and its underlying mechanisms: Evidence from Chinese migrant children

Given the increase in the number of internal migrant children, the mental health problems (e.g., loneliness) of this population have received widespread attention. Relative deprivation is considered to be related to migrant children’s loneliness. However, the underlying mechanisms of this relationship remain unclear. Therefore, the present study tested the possible mediating role of self-esteem and the moderating role of belief in a just world in the association between relative deprivation and loneliness of migrant children. A total of 1,261 Chinese rural-to-urban migrant children (10–15 years old, Mage = 12.34 years, SD = 1.67; 52.0% males, 48.0% females; 23.55% fourth grade students, 16.49% fifth grade students, 19.59% sixth grade students, 15.54% seventh grade students, 13.80% eighth grade students, and 10.86% ninth grade students) were recruited to complete measures of relative deprivation, self-esteem, belief in a just world, loneliness, and demographic variables. Relative deprivation was significantly and positively correlated with migrant children’s loneliness, and this connection could be mediated by self-esteem. Moreover, the first part of the indirect effect of self-esteem on this link was moderated by belief in a just world. These effects were stronger for migrant children with higher levels of belief in a just world. This study reveals the potential mechanisms of relative deprivation affecting loneliness, while also providing insights into how to better help migrant children alleviate loneliness and improve their mental health.

Prejudicial reactions to the removal of Native American mascots

As Native American mascots are discontinued, research is needed to understand the impact on intergroup relations. Such discontinuations may be threatening to some and increase prejudice against Native Americans. In Study 1 ( N = 389), exposure to information about a Native American mascot removal increased punitive judgments against a Native American in a hypothetical legal scenario, particularly among those high in racial colorblindness and those residing in the implicated geographical location. Study 2 ( N = 358,644) conceptually replicated and extended these findings, using population-level implicit bias data to perform a natural quasi-experiment. Prejudice against Native Americans increased in the year following the removal of two Native American mascots: “Chief Illiniwek” and “Chief Wahoo.” However, in the case of Chief Illiniwek, the effect diminished after 6 years. Together, the studies contribute to understanding the psychological impact of Native American mascots, offering a first look at how their removal influence intergroup relations.

Race, social pain minimization, and mental health

People often believe Black individuals experience less social pain and require less social support to cope with distress than White individuals (e.g., Deska, Kunstman, Lloyd, et al., 2020). However, researchers have not tested whether biases in third-person pain judgments translate to first-person experiences with social pain minimization. For example, do Black individuals feel their social pain is underrecognized to a greater extent than White individuals? The current work tested whether Black individuals felt their social pain was minimized more than White individuals and if the experience of social pain minimization was related to worse mental health and greater life stress. Data from two cross-sectional, correlational studies provide initial support for these predictions ( Ntotal = 1,501). Black participants felt their social pain was minimized more than White participants and this race difference in social pain minimization was associated with worse mental health and greater life stress. These results suggest that Black individuals feel their pain is underrecognized and this experience of social pain minimization is related to worse mental health outcomes.

Confirmation bias and misconceptions: Pupillometric evidence for a confirmation bias in misconceptions feedback

It has long been supposed that the confirmation bias plays a role in the prevalence and maintenance of misconceptions. However, this has been supported more by argument than by empirical evidence. In the present paper, we show how different types of belief-feedback evoke physiological responses consistent with the presence of a confirmation bias. Participants were presented with misconceptions and indicated whether they believed each misconception to be true or false, as well as how committed they were to the misconception. Each response was followed by feedback that was either clear (i.e., "correct" or "incorrect") or ambiguous (i.e., "partly correct" or "partly incorrect"). Pupillary response to each feedback condition was assessed. The results show an interaction between feedback accuracy and feedback clarity on pupil size. The largest pupil size was found in response to clear disconfirmatory feedback. The smallest pupil size was found in response to both clear and ambiguous confirmatory feedback. Crucially, the pupil responded to ambiguous confirmatory feedback as though it were wholly confirmatory. Moreover, pupil size in response to ambiguous disconfirmatory feedback was significantly smaller than response to clear disconfirmatory feedback, showing an overall trend towards confirmatory processing in the absence of clear disconfirmation. Additionally, we show a moderation by commitment towards the misconception. The greater the commitment, the larger the effect of belief-violating feedback on pupil size. These findings support recent theorizing in the field of misconceptions and, more generally, the field of inconsistency-compensation.

Heart Rate Variability Moderates Challenge and Threat Reactivity to Sexism Among Women in STEM

Abstract. Using a biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat, we tested resting heart rate variability (HRV) as a moderator of physiological reactivity after experiencing sexism. Women science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors participated in a mock interview in which the male interviewer made a sexist or neutral comment. Resting HRV moderated physiological stress reactivity among women in the sexism condition, but not control, indicating lower resting HRV predicted greater physiological threat than challenge and higher resting HRV predicted greater physiological challenge than threat during the interview. These findings support the emotion regulation properties of HRV as applied to a biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. Higher resting HRV may be adaptive for women experiencing sexism in male-dominated contexts like STEM.

Telomere length and procedural justice predict stress reactivity responses to unfair outcomes in African Americans

This experiment demonstrates that chromosomal telomere length (TL) moderates response to injustice among African Americans. Based on worldview verification theory - an emerging psychosocial framework for understanding stress - we predicted that acute stress responses would be most pronounced when individual-level expectancies for justice were discordant with justice experiences. Healthy African Americans (N=118; 30% male; M age=31.63years) provided dried blood spot samples that were assayed for TL, and completed a social-evaluative stressor task during which high versus low levels of distributive (outcome) and procedural (decision process) justice were simultaneously manipulated. African Americans with longer telomeres appeared more resilient (in emotional and neuroendocrine response-higher DHEAs:cortisol) to receiving an unfair outcome when a fair decision process was used, whereas African Americans with shorter telomeres appeared more resilient when an unfair decision process was used. TL may indicate personal histories of adversity and associated stress-related expectancies that influence responses to injustice.

Ideology and the maintenance of group inequality

This article discusses the role that ideology plays in justifying and perpetuating group-based inequality. We begin by defining and describing status ideologies and their characteristics. We then review research illustrating how endorsing or rejecting status-legitimizing ideologies influences group stereotyping, group differences in perceived entitlement, and perceptions of discrimination. We next discuss how people respond to threats to their status ideology, affectively, cognitively, physiologically, and behaviorally. We close by considering the role of ideology in how high status groups respond to changes in the status hierarchy.

Individual Differences in the Resistance to Social Change and Acceptance of Inequality Predict System Legitimacy Differently Depending on the Social Structure

We propose that individual differences in the resistance to social change and the acceptance of inequality can have divergent effects on legitimacy depending on the context. This possibility was tested in a sample of 27 European countries (N = 144 367) and across four experiments (total N = 475). Individual differences in the resistance to social change were related to higher levels of perceived legitimacy no matter the level of inequality of the society. Conversely, individual differences in the acceptance of inequality were related to higher levels of perceived legitimacy in unequal societies, but either a relationship near zero or the opposite relationship was found in more equal societies. These studies highlight the importance of distinguishing between individual differences that make up political ideology, especially when making predictions in diverse settings. © 2017 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology

Threat sensitivity in bipolar disorder

Life stress is a major predictor of the course of bipolar disorder. Few studies have used laboratory paradigms to examine stress reactivity in bipolar disorder, and none have assessed autonomic reactivity to laboratory stressors. In the present investigation we sought to address this gap in the literature. Participants, 27 diagnosed with bipolar I disorder and 24 controls with no history of mood disorder, were asked to complete a complex working memory task presented as "a test of general intelligence." Self-reported emotions were assessed at baseline and after participants were given task instructions; autonomic physiology was assessed at baseline and continuously during the stressor task. Compared to controls, individuals with bipolar disorder reported greater increases in pretask anxiety from baseline and showed greater cardiovascular threat reactivity during the task. Group differences in cardiovascular threat reactivity were significantly correlated with comorbid anxiety in the bipolar group. Our results suggest that a multimethod approach to assessing stress reactivity-including the use of physiological parameters that differentiate between maladaptive and adaptive profiles of stress responding-can yield valuable information regarding stress sensitivity and its associations with negative affectivity in bipolar disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

A preliminary experimental examination of worldview verification, perceived racism, and stress reactivity in African Americans

OBJECTIVE

According to worldview verification theory, inconsistencies between lived experiences and worldviews are psychologically threatening. These inconsistencies may be key determinants of stress processes that influence cardiovascular health disparities. This preliminary examination considers how experiencing injustice can affect perceived racism and biological stress reactivity among African Americans. Guided by worldview verification theory, it was hypothesized that responses to receiving an unfair outcome would be moderated by fairness of the accompanying decision process, and that this effect would further depend on the consistency of the decision process with preexisting justice beliefs.

METHOD

A sample of 118 healthy African American adults completed baseline measures of justice beliefs, followed by a laboratory-based social-evaluative stressor task. Two randomized fairness manipulations were implemented during the task: participants were given either high or low levels of distributive (outcome) and procedural (decision process) justice. Glucocorticoid (cortisol) and inflammatory (C-reactive protein) biological responses were measured in oral fluids, and attributions of racism were also measured.

RESULTS

The hypothesized 3-way interaction was generally obtained. Among African Americans with a strong belief in justice, perceived racism, cortisol, and C-reactive protein responses to low distributive justice were higher when procedural justice was low. Among African Americans with a weak belief in justice however, these responses were higher when a low level of distributive justice was coupled with high procedural justice.

CONCLUSIONS

Biological and psychological processes that contribute to cardiovascular health disparities are affected by consistency between individual-level and contextual justice factors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Intergroup status differences as challenge or threat: The role of legitimacy

Based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) we examined the motivational consequences of intergroup status differences as a function of the legitimacy of these differences. Motivational responses were conceptualized in terms of challenge and threat and operationalized by their cardiovascular markers, as described by the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat (BPS-CT; Blascovich & Mendes, 2010). Participants ( N = 104) were categorized in minimal groups. Group status and status legitimacy were manipulated in the context of an intergroup competition. High status elicited relatively more challenge (less threat) when status differences were legitimate than when they were illegitimate. Low status elicited relatively less threat (more challenge) when status differences were illegitimate than when they were legitimate. Cardiovascular reactivity in line with challenge mediated performance during the competition. Results are discussed in terms of the relationship between social status and stress, and the BPS-CT as novel and useful motivational framework for studying social identity processes.

Just World Beliefs Are Associated With Lower Levels of Metabolic Risk and Inflammation and Better Sleep After an Unfair Event

This study's goal was to conduct a preliminary test of the theory that just world beliefs can buffer against negative physiological outcomes after people experience certain types of negative life events by testing associations between just world beliefs and physiological outcomes among people with different life event histories. In a sample of 247 adults (M_age  = 46.01; 24.31% men; 60.78% White), this research investigated the relationship between just world beliefs and metabolic symptoms, inflammation, and sleep among people who had recently experienced an unfair event, another type of negative event, or no negative event. Stronger just world beliefs correlated with lower metabolic risk, lower inflammation, and better sleep among people who had recently experienced an unfair event, but not among those in the other two event groups. These findings suggest that people's beliefs about the world may interact with their life experiences in ways that have implications for health-relevant outcomes.

Suspicion of Motives Predicts Minorities' Responses to Positive Feedback in Interracial Interactions

Strong social and legal norms in the United States discourage the overt expression of bias against ethnic and racial minorities, increasing the attributional ambiguity of Whites' positive behavior to ethnic minorities. Minorities who suspect that Whites' positive overtures toward minorities are motivated more by their fear of appearing racist than by egalitarian attitudes may regard positive feedback they receive from Whites as disingenuous. This may lead them to react to such feedback with feelings of uncertainty and threat. Three studies examined how suspicion of motives relates to ethnic minorities' responses to receiving positive feedback from a White peer or same-ethnicity peer (Experiment 1), to receiving feedback from a White peer that was positive or negative (Experiment 2), and to receiving positive feedback from a White peer who did or did not know their ethnicity (Experiment 3). As predicted, the more suspicious Latinas were of Whites' motives for behaving positively toward minorities in general, the more they regarded positive feedback from a White peer who knew their ethnicity as disingenuous and the more they reacted with cardiovascular reactivity characteristic of threat/avoidance, increased feelings of stress, heightened uncertainty, and decreased self-esteem. We discuss the implications for intergroup interactions of perceptions of Whites' motives for nonprejudiced behavior.

In the name of God: How children and adults judge agents who act for religious versus secular reasons

Many people are guided by religious beliefs, but judgments of religiously and secularly motivated individuals remain unclear. We investigated reasoning about religiously versus secularly motivated characters among 5- to 10-year-olds and adults. In Study 1, theist and non-theist children reported similar attitudes toward theists; however, large differences emerged between theist and non-theist adults. Study 2 obtained similar results using a continuous, rather than forced choice, measure of preference. Additionally, Studies 2-3 tested two explanations for the stronger influence of religious background on adults' versus children's responses. Study 2 did not find strong evidence for the theistic majority account, which posits that the greater perceived prevalence of theists as compared with non-theists influenced children's responses more than adults' responses. The results of Study 3 were consistent with the intuition account, which argues that non-theist adults had effortfully overridden the teleological intuitions that may have influenced children's responses in Studies 1-2 and potentially led children to prefer characters whose beliefs were in line with children's own intuitions. The degree to which teleological intuitions persisted implicitly among adults predicted those adults' pro-theist preferences. These findings offer connections between religious judgments and other areas of social cognition, such as social preferences and teleology.

Toward an Integrative Theory of Psychological Defense

According to theories of "psychological defense," humans are motivated to protect themselves against various types of psychological threat, including death awareness, uncertainty, and other inherently anxiety-provoking experiences. Protective mechanisms include strengthening close relationships; maintaining appraisals of self-worth, accomplishment, and agency; and cultivating meaningful views of the world. Thus, defensiveness theories incorporate research from many areas of psychology (e.g., information-processing biases, attitudes, and interpersonal and intergroup relations), to help explain why people think, feel, and act in the diverse ways that they do. Currently, the study of psychological defense is hindered by contradictory empirical results and a proliferation of theories that make very similar predictions. This article examines a cross-section of defensiveness theories and research, highlighting conclusions that can be drawn and areas where conceptual and research problems linger. It suggests that the field needs methodological innovation (e.g., more reliable and valid manipulations and measures of unconscious constructs, more diverse methodological approaches), a more complete and reliable body of data, and some fresh new ideas from psychological scientists across disciplines.

"We get what we deserve": the belief in a just world and its health consequences for Blacks

This study explored whether individual differences in the endorsement of the belief that the world is a just place (i.e., the just world belief) would predict individual differences in resilience/vulnerability to the negative health consequences of discrimination. One-hundred and thirty Blacks participated in a vital check and completed a computer-based questionnaire that included measures of the just world belief, perceived discrimination, physical and mental health, and the presence/absence of chronic illnesses. Endorsement of the just world belief was not associated with self-reported physical/mental health; however, it moderated the effects of perceived discrimination on the number of chronic illnesses and systolic blood pressure. These findings suggest that Blacks who believe that the world is a just place where they get what they deserve may be at a particularly higher risk for the negative health consequences of discrimination. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Learning anxiety in interactions with the outgroup: Towards a learning model of anxiety and stress in intergroup contact

While “knowledge learning” about the outgroup has been regarded as one of the key mechanisms for the contact–prejudice relation since the contact hypothesis’ first inception (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008), “learning,” more broadly, has rarely been used as an explanatory framework to investigate the consequences of intergroup contact. In this article, we lay the foundation of a learning model of anxiety and stress in ingroup–outgroup interactions. We distinguish between episodic and chronic anxiety responses to the outgroup and recommend investigations on the complexities of their dynamic interplay, as individuals accumulate and dynamically integrate their experiences with the outgroup over time. Through a review of established and emerging psychophysiological and behavioral research of anxiety during ingroup–outgroup interactions, we identify evidence consistent with this dynamic outlook of intergroup contact effects. In this context, we also advance novel and untested predictions for future investigations onto the temporal integration of contact effects during an individual’s lifespan.

Moderators of the association between discrimination and alcohol consumption: findings from a representative sample of Brazilian university students

INTRODUCTION

Few studies about discrimination and patterns of alcohol consumption among youth populations have been conducted outside the United States addressing different types of discriminatory experiences, in addition to racially motivated events. This study investigated moderators of the association between discrimination attributed to single and multiple reasons and patterns of alcohol consumption.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study enrolled a representative sample (n = 1,264) of undergraduate students from Florianópolis, southern Brazil, in 2013. Analyses included adjustment of associations for covariates in ordinal logistic regression models and the examination of effect modification by common mental disorders, year of study and age.

RESULTS

Discrimination was reported by 65.8% of the students, and alcohol consumption, by 80.0%. Over half of the students reported being discriminated against for two or more reasons. The odds of alcohol-related problems were higher among lastyear students that reported discrimination (odds ratio [OR] = 1.9, 95% confidence interval [95%CI] 1.0-3.4) or multiple reasons for being discriminated against (OR = 2.3, 95%CI 1.3- 4.3), when compared to first-year students that did not report discrimination. For the whole sample, there were no associations between discrimination, discrimination attributed to multiple reasons and patterns of alcohol consumption (OR = 1.0, 95%CI 0.8-1.4; and OR = 0.9, 95%CI 0.5-1.6).

CONCLUSIONS

The effects of discrimination on the patterns of alcohol consumption are seen at a critical period in university life, specifically during the completion of undergraduate studies.

Understanding Diversity

Two studies investigated how people define and perceive diversity in the historically majority-group dominated contexts of business and academia. We hypothesized that individuals construe diversity as both the numeric representation of racial minorities and the social acceptance of racial minorities within a group. In Study 1, undergraduates’ (especially minorities’) perceptions of campus diversity were predicted by perceived social acceptance on a college campus, above and beyond perceived minority representation. Study 2 showed that increases in a company’s representation and social acceptance independently led to increases in perceived diversity of the company among Whites. Among non-Whites, representation and social acceptance only increased perceived diversity of the company when both qualities were high. Together these findings demonstrate the importance of both representation and social acceptance to the achievement of diversity in groups and that perceiver race influences the relative importance of these two components of diversity.

Dimensions of Black Identity Predict System Justification

What explains variability in African Americans’ sociopolitical attitudes? System justification theory implicates both high- and low-status groups in the maintenance of the socioeconomic and political system, postulating that individuals are motivated to justify the system. Self-interest offers a simple explanation for system justification among high-status groups. However, system justification among African Americans is less well-understood. Using a socioeconomically diverse sample of 275 Black undergraduates, including traditional as well as older students, the current survey and quantitative analyses further understanding of attitudes toward the system and institutions by linking attitudes with Black identity. Findings revealed that highly identifying as Black negatively predicted system justification but not if one rejects a Black nationalist ideology. Endorsing an assimilation ideology positively predicted system justification. An oppressed minority ideology did not predict system justification but positively predicted trust across institutions (police and local and national government). Finally, the Black nationalist ideology negatively predicted trust in police. These findings reveal the utility of a multidimensional model of Black identity in shedding light on attitudes toward the system and institutions.

Emotional reactions to unequal payment: The impact of meritocratic ideology and salary negotiability

People respond to low-status inequality with feelings of anger and shame. This work investigates the impact of meritocracy beliefs and implied salary negotiability on individuals’ emotional reactions within a stable status hierarchy. When an unequal system appears negotiable, believing that hard work pays off may decrease anger felt in response to inequality. However, learning that a system is non-negotiable violates expectations associated with meritocratic beliefs, and may therefore increase negative emotion. In two experiments investigating participants’ emotional reactions to payment systems, the more participants endorsed meritocratic ideologies, the less anger they felt when unequal treatment appeared negotiable. Experiment 2 showed that endorsement of meritocracy beliefs increased negative emotions when individuals learned that the unequal payment was non-negotiable. Taken together, this work suggests that it is important to consider beliefs about individual agency alongside system parameters establishing opportunities for individual mobility to understand emotional reactions to unequal treatment.

Are You Feeling What I’m Feeling? Emotional Similarity Buffers Stress

We examine the idea that it is beneficial for people in threatening situations to affiliate with others who are experiencing similar, relative to dissimilar, emotions. Pairs of participants waited together and then engaged in a laboratory stressor (i.e., giving a speech). We created an index of each pair’s emotional similarity using participants’ emotional states. We also measured how threatening participants perceived the speech task to be (i.e., whether they had high vs. low dispositional fear of public speaking). We hypothesized that perceiving greater threat in the situation would be associated with greater stress, but interacting with someone who is emotionally similar would buffer individuals from this heightened stress. Confirming our hypotheses, greater initial dyadic emotional similarity was associated with a reduced cortisol response and lower reported stress among participants who feared public speaking.

Influencing the World Versus Adjusting to Constraints

Although higher social class carries mental and physical health benefits, these advantages are less robust among members of racial and ethnic minority groups than among European Americans. We explore whether differential reactions to discrimination may be a factor in explaining why. Working-class and middle-class Latino American women engaged in an evaluative interaction with a European American woman who rejected them and held either prejudiced or unprejudiced attitudes. We examined how participants responded to this rejection by measuring neuroendocrine reactivity, executive functioning, and the affective content of their verbal responses during the interaction. Among middle-class Latinas, rejection from a prejudiced, compared to unprejudiced, out-group member was associated with less adaptive stress responses, greater cognitive depletion, and more feelings of uncertainty. In contrast, among working-class Latinas, neuroendocrine, cognitive, and affective responses were similar across the two sources of rejection. Results suggest that social class is an important moderator of responses to discrimination.

Consistency Over Flattery

Negative social feedback is often a source of distress. However, self-verification theory provides the counterintuitive explanation that negative feedback leads to less distress when it is consistent with chronic self-views. Drawing from this work, the present study examined the impact of receiving self-verifying feedback on outcomes largely neglected in prior research: implicit responses (i.e., physiological reactivity, facial expressions) that are difficult to consciously regulate and downstream behavioral outcomes. In two experiments, participants received either positive or negative feedback from interviewers during a speech task. Regardless of self-views, positive compared to negative feedback elicited lower self-reported negative affect. Implicit responses to negative feedback, however, depended on chronic self-views with more negative self-views associated with lower blood pressure reactivity, lower facial negativity, and enhanced creativity. These findings point at the role self-verification may play in long-term coping and stress regulation.

Cognitive costs of contemporary prejudice

Two studies examined the cognitive costs of blatant and subtle racial bias during interracial interactions. In Study 1, Black participants engaged in a 10-minute, face-to-face interaction with a White confederate who expressed attitudes and behaviors consistent with blatant, subtle, or no racial bias. Consistent with contemporary theories of modern racism, interacting with a subtly biased, compared with a blatantly biased, White partner impaired the cognitive functioning of Blacks. Study 2 revealed that Latino participants suffered similar cognitive impairments when exposed to a White partner who displayed subtle, compared with blatant, racial bias. The theoretical and practical implications for understanding the dynamics of interracial interactions in the context of contemporary bias are discussed.

Not All Nonlabelers Are Created Equal

Past research regarding feminist identity has revealed that a significant number of women endorse feminist attitudes yet reject a feminist identity. In the current study, we sought to examine whether these nonlabeling women fall into two distinct groups: (a) one that falls on the same ideological continuum of their feminist peers and (b) the other that represents an attitudinally unique group of women characterized by their neoliberal beliefs that prioritize individual merit as the sole determinant of success. Two samples of undergraduate women self-reported their feminist identity and political and sexist attitudes. In our first sample ( N = 231), we used k-means cluster analysis to identify two types of nonlabelers: quasi-feminists and neoliberals. Results revealed that, despite both groups’ shared belief in gender equality, quasi-feminists reported relatively lower levels of meritocratic, just world, and modern sexist beliefs, all of which were similar to those of their feminist-identified peers, whereas neoliberals indicated stronger meritocratic, just world, and modern sexist beliefs. In our second sample ( N = 351), we replicated findings from our first sample and subsequently validated these groupings. Specifically, multivariate analysis of variance results demonstrated that, separate from the differences found in relation to the measures used for cluster analysis, quasi-feminists scored lower than neoliberals on measures of ambivalent sexism, social dominance, and equal opportunity beliefs. Women’s individual and collective welfare often hinges on their endorsement of neoliberal and feminist beliefs, especially in the face of unfair treatment. We suggest that activists and policy makers tailor strategies for engaging nonlabelers in the movement toward gender equality to the subtype of nonlabeler in question.

Understanding all inconsistency compensation as a palliative response to violated expectations

It has been repeatedly shown that, when people have experiences that are inconsistent with their expectations, they engage in a variety of compensatory efforts. Although there have been many superficially different accounts for these behaviors, a potentially unifying inconsistency compensation perspective is currently coalescing. Following from a common prediction error/conflict monitoring mechanism, any given inconsistency is understood as evoking a common syndrome of aversive arousal. In turn, this aversive arousal is understood to motivate palliative efforts, which manifest as the analogous compensation behaviors reported within different psychological literatures. Based on this perspective, compensation efforts following both 'high-level' (e.g., attitudinal dissonance) and 'low-level' (e.g., Stroop task color/word mismatches) inconsistencies can now be understood in terms of a common motivational account.

Discrimination and the stress response: psychological and physiological consequences of anticipating prejudice in interethnic interactions

OBJECTIVES

We sought to demonstrate that individuals who anticipate interacting with a prejudiced cross-race/ethnicity partner show an exacerbated stress response, as measured through both self-report and hemodynamic and vascular responses, compared with individuals anticipating interacting with a nonprejudiced cross-race/ethnicity partner.

METHODS

Through a questionnaire exchange with a White interaction partner (a confederate) Latina participants learned that their partner had racial/ethnic biased or egalitarian attitudes. Latina participants reported their cognitive and emotional states, and cardiovascular responses were measured while participants prepared and delivered a speech to the White confederate.

RESULTS

Participants who believed that their interaction partner held prejudiced attitudes reported greater concern and more threat emotions before the interaction, and more stress after the interaction, and showed greater cardiovascular response than did participants who believed that their partner had egalitarian attitudes.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that merely anticipating prejudice leads to both psychological and cardiovascular stress responses. These results are consistent with the conceptualization of anticipated discrimination as a stressor and suggest that vigilance for prejudice may be a contributing factor to racial/ethnic health disparities in the United States.

From "in the air" to "under the skin": cortisol responses to social identity threat

The authors examined women's neuroendocrine stress responses associated with sexism. They predicted that, when being evaluated by a man, women who chronically perceive more sexism would experience more stress unless the situation contained overt cues that sexism would not occur. The authors measured stress as the end product of the primary stress system linked to social evaluative threat-the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cortical axis. In Study 1, female participants were rejected by a male confederate in favor of another male for sexist reasons or in favor of another female for merit-based reasons. In Study 2, female participants interacted with a male confederate who they learned held sexist attitudes or whose attitudes were unknown. Participants with higher chronic perceptions of sexism had higher cortisol, unless the situation contained cues that sexism was not possible. These results illustrate the powerful interactive effects of chronic perceptions of sexism and situational cues on women's stress reactivity.