Read for MS Discussion - Canada included in crowding beh

Personal space: Where we now stand.

Hayduk, Leslie A.

Psychological Bulletin, Vol 94(2), Sep 1983, 293-335. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.94.2.293

A review of the "personal space" research reveals that an overwhelming accumulation of evidence weighs against the use of projective measurement strategies, while the interrelations between the various real-life measures remain poorly documented. A "nondichotomous carrier mechanism" reconceptualization is proposed to reorient investigation of the confused pattern of sex effects. Other findings show that once data based on projective measures are discarded, it becomes clear that personal space gradually increases in size between 3–21 yrs of age. The evidence regarding cultural and subcultural differences in personal space is considerably weaker than has frequently been assumed. The present review further reveals that formerly implicit links between personal space and crowding have congealed into specific and fruitful theoretical parallels. The use of attribution, expectancy, and equilibrium theories in interpreting the results of personal space research is discussed, and the causes and consequences of personal space preferences are considered in terms of personality, situational effects, and acquaintanceship. (12 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Engebretson, D., & Fullmer, D. (1970). Cross-cultural differences in territoriality: Interaction distances of native Japanese, Hawaii Japanese, and American Caucasians. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1(3), 261-269.

Existing normative studies have focused on backcountry encounter norms reported by North Americans. This study compares encounter norms and perceptions of crowding reported by visitors from five different countries of origin—Canada, United States, Japan, Germany, and England—to a frontcountry day‐use recreation area. Data were obtained from random samples of two types of visitors—those riding in “snocoach” tour vehicles (n = 463) and those on the toe of the glacier (n = 375)—at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Results indicated both similarities and differences among the visitors. In terms of differences, Anglo American respondents were least likely to specify a norm, while the Germans and Japanese were most likely. Among those who reported an encounter norm, however, the average tolerance limit did not vary by country of origin. Few differences were also apparent for perceived crowding levels among the five visitor groups. Irrespective of country of origin, when contacts exceeded the respondent's norm tolerance limit, crowding increased. Similarities and differences between frontcountry and backcountry settings were also evident. For example, consistent with previous research, fewer of our frontcountry respondents reported an encounter norm when compared to backcountry studies. When a norm was specified, the tolerance limits were substantially higher than those observed in backcountry research. The implications of these findings for additional research are discussed.

LaFrance, M., & Mayo, C. (1978). Cultural aspects of nonverbal communication. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2(1), 71-89.

A review of the literature on cultural aspects of nonverbal communication reveals the existence of both similarities and differences in the display of nonverbal behavior. It is argued that similarities are most manifest when analysis is at the level of the individual and the focus is on the objective, formal properties of the behavior; differences are more likely to become manifest when the analysis is at the level of the relationship between individuals and the focus is on the interpersonal import of the behavior. Material on gaze and eye contact, body motion and gesture, interpersonal distance and touch, facial expression, and paralanguage is surveyed and organized into three primary sections. The sections reflect the major functions nonverbal behavior is presumed to perform: (1) the sending of emotional states; (2) the conveying of interpersonal attitudes, particularly intimacy and status; and (3) the management of conversation. Implications are drawn concerning potential miscommunication in intercultural encounters.

Inferential ratings can be valuable in that they

capture complex patterns of behavior in an overall

interpretation (provided that interobserver reliability

is adequate). It is also possible to ask how descriptive

behaviors combine to create a global impression. For

example, speaking in a loud voice, touching the other

person, and engaging in relatively less gazing at the

partner while listening (compared to while speaking)

 

all contribute to the inference of dominance. When

investigators wish to establish the validity of inferences

about nonverbal cues, they must establish a criterion

for deciding what the cues mean. Because nonverbal

cues are often emitted outside of the encoder’s con-

scious awareness, one often cannot rely on the en-

coder’s self-report as a criterion; moreover, in many

research settings (e.g., in public), it is not possible to

ask encoders about the meanings of their behaviors. A

common alternative is the use of the consensus of

observers as the criterion; for example, if observers

agree that an expression looks sad, then ‘sadness’

becomes the operational definition of the expression’s

meaning. Another method is to identify the meaning

of expressions on the basis of situational context; for

example, the facial expression of a person who is

confronted with a dish of rotting meat would be

assumed to reflect ‘disgust.’

As stated earlier, nonverbal cues often do not have

clear meaning in isolation from other cues and

information about the circumstances.


A given nonverbal behavior may have similar

meanings in many places (e.g., smile means happiness,

scowl means threat), but the degree to which that

behavior is emitted may vary across cultures. The term

display rules is used to describe local norms for when,

and to what extent, and by whom, different nonverbal

behaviors are to be used (Ekman 1982). Often ob-

served is the difference between contact and non-

contact cultures, those that encourage physical and

sensory involvement and those that do not (E. T. Hall

1966). An example would be reduced frequency of

interpersonal touch and greater interpersonal dis-

tances in Northern European vs. Mediterranean,

Middle Eastern, or Latin American countries. Ges-

tural emblems, mentioned earlier, which often have

meanings associated with sex or insult, show marked

cultural differences in meaning, producing many

opportunities for embarrassment between communi-

cators from different cultures. Differences in emitted

behavior and in communication accuracy have

also been documented with respect to mental illness,

pain and physical illness, and age.

Wonderful explanation for arguing culture > personality - Use to cite in MS!

In search of culture's role in influencing individual social behaviour - Asian journal of social psychology
While Mendoza-Denton and Mischel (2007) focused on how socio-cultural contexts affect the formation of cognitive-affective units, Hong and Mallorie (2004; see also Hong, Morris, Chiu & Benet-Martínez, 2000) examined how cultures condition the availability and accessibility of different implicit theories that individuals use to interpret their social world. In comparison to these attempts, Bond separated the situation from personality, contending situations as socially shared affordances.

Culture may also play a role at a meta-level in affecting the ‘beta weights’ (i.e. how determining a component is in predicting the behaviour outcomes) of the four components and their interactions across contexts. On the one hand, cultures can promote or limit the experiences an individual may have. Bond argued that personality (P) may manifest in the situations an individual chooses to enter or avoid. However, an over-emphasis on the role of choice in the situations an individual is in may be a commitment of the fundamental attribution error. On the other hand, Weber (from Gerth & Mills, 1948) introduced the concept of ‘life chances’ in how economic-political factors constrain and limit the kinds of outcomes an individual can have. Similarly, cultures can funnel individual's life chances through the emphasis or rejection of certain practices, interpretations, and values (Kitayama & Markus, 1999). Values promoted by a community will be given more opportunities to be expressed (Mendoza-Denton & Mischel, 2007), consequently resulting in particular situations being more prevalent in some cultural contexts than others (Kitayama, Mesquita & Karasawa, 2006). In other words, cultures restrict the choices that are available to the individuals embedded within and provide the rules by which people are to make choices in their lives (Schwartz, 2000).

In addition, Bond discussed that the overlaps between P(S) and O(S) are likely to be greater in settings where pressure toward conformity is greater. This is interesting and can be related to recent advancements in research on inter-subjectivity and tight versus loose cultures. For example, Wan and colleagues (Wan et al., 2007; Wan, Torelli & Chiu, 2010) have shown that, at an individual level, the stronger the participants identify with the group, the more they would be affected by the consensual values of the group (vs their own personal values). At a cultural level, Gelfand and her colleagues (2011) have shown that some nations have clearer norms (consensus) and enhanced pressure for conformity to norms (i.e. tight cultures), whereas other nations are less so (i.e. loose cultures). In general, Chinese, in comparison to Americans, tend to have a higher identification with the national group (Hong, 2009). Likewise, Asian cultures are tighter than Western cultures (Gelfand et al., 2011). This implies that theories mainly emphasizing P would not be as applicable in understanding Asian psychology.

Furthermore, in this globalized era where cultures' juxtapose in the same social and temporal space (Chiu, Mallorie, Hean Tat Keh & Law,2009), individuals often possess multiple cultural knowledge systems (Hong et al., 2000). This adds a dynamic aspect to the traditional notion of cultural influence, as individuals' cultural knowledge systems can be differentially activated by their immediate social contexts. Depending on the particular context or situation, individuals vary in their use of specific cultural knowledge to understand, interpret, and behave (Chiu, Gries, Torelli & Cheng, 2011; Hong et al., 2000). As such, cultural influences can no longer be regarded as static, but dynamic.

he includes both the norms, O(S), and perception of the consensus of the norms, CO(S), as social factors affecting the individual's behaviours. Secondly, interestingly, he also proposes that the beta weight of O(S) and CO(S) would also be affected by the culture, such that the beta weight for O(S) and CO(S) to affect behaviour is stronger in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures. Bond's proposal is a timely addition, as the recent discourses of intersubjectivity and tight versus loose cultures have shed light on the normative influences of culture. Culture provides individuals with shared representations, that individuals, subsequently, use to impart meanings.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.chain.kent.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/ajsp.12016/full


ALSO see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.chain.kent.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/ajsp.12018/full

Research on Nostalgia

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/nostalgia/publications/

Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Routledge, C. R, Arndt, J., & Zhou, X. (2009). Buffering acculturative stress and facilitating cultural adaptation: Nostalgias as a psychological resource. In R. S. Wyer, Jr., C.-y. Chiu, & Y.-y. Hong (Eds.), Understanding culture: Theory, research, and application (pp. 361-378). New York, NY: Psychology Press.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/what-is-nostalgia-good-for-quite-a-bit-research-shows.html - interesting, as they say feelings of nostalgia is universal. But I'm sure for Russians or more complain-lover cultures, making people become nostalgic won't have positive effects, at least not when instantly asked. I am ready for science to fail me!

Prof at Tilburg - some interesting research

http://publications.uvt.nl/repository/vingerhoets/publications.html

• Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M., Sanders, N., & Kuper, W. (1997). Health issues in international tourism: The role of health behavior, stress, and adaptation. In M. van Tilburg & A.J.J.M. Vingerhoets (Eds.), Psychological aspects of geographical moves: Homesickness and acculturation stress. (pp. 201-216). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
   (Free access)
   
  (More)

• Becht, M.C., & Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M. (2002). Crying and Mood Change: a Cross-Cultural Study. Cognition and Emotion, 16(1), 87-101.
   (Free access)
   
  (More)
• Hemert, D.A. van, Vijver, F.J.R. van de, & Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M. (2011). Country and crying: Prevalences and gender differences. Cross-Cultural Research, 45, 399-431.
   (Free access)
   
  (More)
  

another study idea

perception of attractiveness of girls according to their major.

Possible Thesis Titles

Challenging the Gendered and Ethnicized Organization: The Role of Group Affirmation In Counteracting Ingroup Distancing among Muslim Women

A Consequence of Systemic Bias in the Workplace: Exploring the Role of Group Affirmation in Thwarting "Ingroup Distancing" among Minority Women

When You Distance Yourself from Your Own Comrades?: A Consequence of the Biased Organizational Culture

When Minority Members Distance Themselves from Their Own Group: A Consequence of the Biased Organizational Culture and the Role of Group Affirmation In Counteracting Ingroup Distancing

Since the 1980s, feminist critique of essentialist assumptions
about gender increasingly has employed an intersectionality
perspective to understand gender in relation to
other social identities, such as race, class, ethnicity and
sexual orientation. In contrast to models that suggest for
each minority status there is a simple accumulation of
disadvantage, such that the Black woman is doubly
disadvantaged compared to the Black man, the intersectionality
framework emphasizes the qualitative differences
among different intersectional positions. For example, “the
very meaning of manhood may vary when applied to one’s
own racial group as compared to another group; similarly
the meaning of a given racial category may vary for men
and women” (Mullings and Schulz 2006, p. 5).


In sum, the construct of intersectionality has assumed a
significant position in thinking about gender. As the
foundation for theory it promised a more accurate and
tractable way of dealing with two issues. First, it promised
a solution, or at least a language for the glaring fact that it is

impossible to talk about gender without considering other
dimensions of social structure/social identity that play a
formative role in gender’s operation and meaning. In the
U.S., the most obvious, pervasive, and seemingly unalterable
are race and social class. Second, intersectionality
seemed a generally applicable descriptive solution to the
multiplying features that create and define social identities.
It is not race-class-gender, but also age, ableness, sexual

orientation, to name the most salient.


In Europe, religion and ethnicity are the most obvious, pervasive and seemingly unalterable social dimensions which play a role in gender's operation and meaning.

The very meaning of Muslim varies for women and men.

Identity is experienced by the individual themself. -> ingroup distancing is a mechanism that Muslim women associate personal meaning to their disadvantaged categories and 

Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women

Engaging with a figure that came to operate as a powerful cultural signifier of otherness in debates over migrant/Muslim integration across the West, the ‘veiled woman’; the paper questions the idea of agency that inheres in the contemporary feminist discourses on Muslim veil. After showing the shortcomings and adverse effects of two dominant readings of the Muslim veil, as a symbol of women's subordination to men, or as an act of resistance to Western hegemony, it explores an alternative avenue drawing on both the poststructuralist critique of the humanist subject and feminist intersectional theorising to answer the question of what kind of conception of agency can help us to think about the agency of the veiled woman without binding a priori the meaning of her veiling to the teleology of emancipation, whether feminist or anti-imperialist.

Gender: An Intersectionality Perspective

This paper serves as a “best practices guide” for researchers interested in applying intersectionality theory to psychological research. Intersectionality, the mutually constitutive relations among social identities, presents several issues to researchers interested in applying it to research. I highlight three central issues and provide guidelines for how to address them. First, I discuss the constraints in the number of identities that researchers are able to test in an empirical study, and highlight relevant decision rules. Second, I discuss when to focus on “master” identities (e.g., gender) versus “emergent” identities (i.e., White lesbian). Third, I argue that treating identity as a process situated within social structural contexts facilitates the research process. I end with a brief discussion of the implications for the study of intersectionality.

nice choice of words

Diaspora, as a venerated concept, has a strong placement in our political and intellectual discourses. My article questions the deployment of diaspora as an analytical category in explaining the contemporary immigration experience. Focusing peculiarly on the ethnic axis of homelands and abroad, theories of diaspora overlook the transgressions of the national and lose sight of the new dynamics and topography of membership. I suggest that a more productive perspective is achieved by focusing our analytical providence on the proliferating sites of making and enacting citizenship. I do this by elaborating two paradoxes underlying the contemporary formations of citizenship: a) the increasing decoupling of rights and identities, the two main components of citizenship; b) the tendency towards particularistic claims in public spheres and their legitimation through universalistic discourses of personhood. These paradoxes warrant that we have new forms of making claims, mobilizing identity and practising citizenship, which lie beyond the limiting dominion of ethnically informed diasporic arrangements, transactions and belongings.

study on career decision-making

Career Decision-Making Skills of High School Students in The Bahamas

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the confidence level in career decision-making of Bahamian adolescents in the high schools in Nassau, Bahamas, investigating factors that influence one's level of confidence in career decision-making. The Career Decision Scale along with a demographic survey were administered to 385 11th and 12th graders to examine six factors which measured the effects and/or interaction effects of influences on confidence in career decision-making. Two MANOVAs and the appropriate follow-up statistics (Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference post hoc tests) were used to determine differences and interaction effects among the variables measuring the level of career decision-making skills. Based on the findings of the study the researcher concluded that for Bahamian adolescents, the type of school, the grade level, and a visit to the school guidance office were significant factors that influenced one's level of confidence in career decision-making.

Nice PhD offers in EU!

http://www.easp.eu/themes/job_offers.htm

https://www.jacobs-university.de/directory/ccohrs

Nice - This is exactly it:

Collective Action in the Digital Age: Social identities and the influence of online and offline behaviour
The College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter is pleased to offer a PhD studentship funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) under their National UK PhD programme scheme (https://www.dstl.gov.uk/pages/204). The student will be based at University of Exeter's Streatham Campus in Psychology, and will be supervised by Professor Mark Levine.

Project description:
The protest movements in Egypt, the summer 2011 riots in English towns and cities and the events of the London student fee protests show the importance of understanding synchronised collective actions driven by online interactions. The question of how people from various walks of life, with a range of social networks, can emerge onto the street and engage in coordinated action is a complex but important one. Any understanding of this phenomenon requires analysis of both the psychological processes that allow people to embrace a common identity such that they become willing to face great risk or danger - and the emergent technologies that facilitate such connectedness and coordination.

This PhD will explore the interactions of social identity processes and cyber technologies in understanding contemporary collective action. It will conduct empirical work on the role of multiple identities in online and offline behaviour; on whether and how collective behaviour online can be similar to that carried out by co-present collectivities; on group regulation of pro and anti-social behaviour. The empirical work in this thesis will combine quantitative and qualitative methods - and triangulate research findings as appropriate. Much of the research work will involve laboratory experiments that manipulate identities in online and offline environments and measure different dependent variables. However, it will also analyse interactions in online digital media for evidence of social identity processes in the promotion or inhibition of antisocial or anti-normative behaviour.
The PhD project will benefit from - and add value to - the recent EPSRC award to the supervisor (Professor Mark Levine, Psychology, Exeter) entitled "Identi-Scope: Multiple identities as a resource for understanding and impacting behaviours in the digital world". The EPSRC grant was a one-year scoping study that brought together expertise in computer science (Professor Awais Rashid, Lancaster University) and social psychology (Dr Ilka Gleibs, LSE).

http://www.iarr.org/

Some more abstracts

de Munck, V. C., Korotayev, A., de Munck, J., & Khaltourina, D. (2011). Cross-Cultural Analysis of Models of Romantic Love Among US Residents, Russians, and Lithuanians. Cross-Cultural Research, 45(2), 128-154.

Our goal was to detect and describe a common “core” structure of romantic love and to also discover and explain variations due to cultural or gender differences between three national cultures: the United States, Russia, and Lithuania. Our sample consisted of 262 American males, 362 American females, 166 Russian males, 130 females, 102 Lithuanian males, and 135 Lithuanian females—a total of 1,157 people. Our analysis was derived from (a) a 14-item questionnaire; (b) freelist responses to the question “What do you associate with romantic love?” and (c) interview and focus group data. The questionnaire was devised by employing well-known quotations about romantic love that cover a range of feelings and perceptions of love. Our results showed that there is no overall consensus but there was cross-cultural consensus on five variables: intrusive thinking, happiness; passion; altruism; and improve well-being of partner. In the freelist portion, we also found some significant similarities—particularly the desire to be together was ranked first across all three cultures. However key cultural differences were found. Friendship and comfort love were critical features of romantic love for the U.S. sample, but nonexistent for the Lithuanian and Russian samples. Conversely, the latter two samples saw love as “unreal,” “temporary,” and “a fairytale.” These cultural differences were explored through interviews and shown to serve as different cultural frames used to interpret similar emotional complexes. We suggest that the differences do not affect the evolutionary functions of romantic love and are adaptations to different types of social organizations. The etic-emic approach used in this cross-cultural research provides for a more nuanced, ethnographically sound, and cross-culturally valid description and analysis of the form and function of romantic love cross culturally than does either approach by itself.

Kirschenbaum, R. J., & Reis, S. M. (1997). Conflicts in creativity: Talented female artists. Creativity Research Journal, 10(2-3), 251-263.
A comparative case study approach was used to investigate the development of artistic talent among female artists who also raise families. intensive interviews with 10 female artists who had children were conducted. The artists revealed that their priority in life was their family but that their art also was essential for creative self-expression. Artistic productivity was dependent on a number of factors, including self-discipline; financial support and security; spousal encouragement and support; childrearing responsibilities; job demands; access to artistic materiddequipment; and workspace availability. The female artists in this study indicated they often faced dtficult choices related to
creative expression and development because their relationships
with their husbands and, especially, their
children open diverted their attention from their art.
However, they all persevered and continued with their
art. Ironically, the obstacles they encountered-such as
the absence of supportfrom spouses andparents, financial
difiulties, and time necessary to raise their children-
were perceived by these women as contributing
in some ways to their creative process and the development

of their identities as artists.

New PhD Research Area for Me: Love & Politics Combined!

http://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/henrietta-l-moore/protest-politics-and-ethical-imagination

what an inspiring person:
http://www.henriettalmoore.com/

also look:
Tchalova, K. & MacDonald, G. (in press). The interpersonal is the political: The role of social belongingness in emotional experience and political orientation. In R. Kingston (Ed.), Emotions in Context. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press.

uh.

The thing is I don't even look back at what I write here, so why do I have a blog? Each time I open a page to write something here, I realize that I never want to write. I just want to live sometimes, without the internet, my camera, cellphone, blog, facebook, everything. Why do I have to check my emails every 10 minutes?!?!

blah again.

the role of individual, social, and cultural factors on entering or maintaining long-distance relationships, preference for online-dating, the role of honour and social media in collective mobilization, etc.

look at own observations in your daily life and travels. you need to take some time away from the internet, and get a piece of pen and paper, and write. read novels too, enough of scientific articles, they cause brain-freezing, and creativity-loss, even loss of flexible thinking-ability.

what "feminism" is all about.

I really love this BA student's definition of what feminism is all about:

"I don’t think that any definition I can give here would do the concept of feminism justice, but I do think a key part of it is to understand the power structures that society creates and thrusts people into based on its ideas of how things “should” be. Of course understanding them is only the first step, one must also acknowledge the ways they affect everyone, own up to their privileges and do their best not to take advantage of their place in the social hierarchy to exploit others. This will happen, whether it be intentional or accidental, but being able to admit to it and attempt to rectify it will go a long way in the goal of tolerance."

Keep on searching!

I dedicate this to all my beloved friends who are researchers, want to be a researcher or just like research:

"There is really no such thing as research. There is only search, more search, keep on searching." (Bowering, 1988, p.5)

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culture contact - own experiences more than enough for sources of research ideas. look at your psychology sketches.

Muy Interesting Abstracts !!!

Yogeeswaran, K., N. Dasgupta, et al. (2011). "To be or not to be (ethnic): Public vs. Private expressions of ethnic identification differentially impact national inclusion of White and non-White groups." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47(5): 908-914.

Many pluralistic nations are witnessing vigorous debate about multiculturalism. In the U.S., Americans generally embrace principles of ethnic diversity but dislike minorities who express strong ethnic identification. Two experiments examined this seeming contradiction by differentiating between ethnic identity expressed in private vs. public by non-White and White individuals. Then we tested whether individuals' identity expressions differentially affected perceivers' construal of their entire ethnic group as legitimately American. Results indicated that at a conscious level, White and non-White ethnic groups were held to the same standard and construed as significantly less American when members expressed their ethnic identity publicly vs. privately. However, at an unconscious level, a double standard emerged: non-White ethnic groups were implicitly rejected as less American if members expressed ethnic identity publicly, while White ethnics were implicitly accepted as legitimate Americans regardless of where they expressed ethnic identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Pennekamp, S. F., B. Doosje, et al. (2009). "In matters of opinion, what matters is the group: Minority group members' emotional reactions to messages about identity expression." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45(4): 778-787.

Two studies investigated the reactions of minority group members to messages about identity expression by ingroup and outgroup sources. Our main hypothesis was that compared to ingroup sources, outgroup sources arouse more anger when they argue for identity suppression. In the first study homosexuals evaluated an outgroup source arguing for identity suppression more negatively than an ingroup source, felt more threatened by this source and as a result, experienced stronger feelings of anger towards this source. The second study among members of a language-based minority replicated and extended these findings. Furthermore we showed that the anger that is experienced towards an outgroup source causes a willingness to change the opinion of this source. When ingroup or outgroup sources supported identity expression, evaluations and experience of anger did not differ in both studies. The importance of a source's group membership in reactions to opinions about one's group is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Thomsen, L., E. G. T. Green, et al. (2008). "We will hunt them down: How social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism fuel ethnic persecution of immigrants in fundamentally different ways." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44(6): 1455-1464.

Despite the fact that SDO and RWA are correlated with one another and both predict support for ethnic persecution of immigrants, it is argued that this aggression is provoked for very different reasons. For authoritarians, outgroup aggression against immigrants should primarily be provoked by immigrant refusal to assimilate into the dominant culture because this violates ingroup conformity. In contrast, SDO should be associated with aggression against immigrants who do assimilate into the dominant culture because this blurs existing status boundaries between groups. Using samples of American and Swiss college students, the data were consistent with this status boundary enforcement hypothesis regarding social dominators and largely consistent with the ingroup conformity hypothesis regarding authoritarians. National and ethnic identification did not account for these results. The results further support the argument that outgroup prejudice and discrimination is most fruitfully seen as an interactive function of individual differences and situational constraints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) (from the journal abstract)

Outten, H. R., M. T. Schmitt, et al. (2009). "Coping options: Missing links between minority group identification and psychological well-being." Applied Psychology: An International Review 58(1): 146-170.

Using concepts from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) cognitive theory of stress and coping we tested the capacity for group identification to foster beliefs in one's ability to cope successfully and in turn predict psychological well-being. Black American participants appraised the availability of coping options that varied by level of identity (individual, intragroup, and intergroup) as well as function of coping (problem-focused and emotion-focused). Replicating prior work, participants who were higher in racial group identification reported more positive well-being. Appraisals of individual emotion-focused and intergroup problem-focused options mediated the relationship of group identification with both self-esteem and life satisfaction. Appraisals of intergroup emotion-focused options also partially mediated the relationship between group identification and life satisfaction. Findings suggest that the relationship between minority group identification and well-being may partly be due to its influence over a person's sense that they and their group can respond effectively to disadvantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

communication - in the plane

I enjoy meeting people naturally very much, and creating a bound with them naturally, coincidentally.  I think life has this power, to bring  the utmost joy to one’s life in the most unexpected times. When good things happen unexpectedly, they mean more to us, they occupy our minds longer because of the surprise we feel along with the happiness which the unexpected evokes.