Clark McCauley

Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust: A scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors

We describe the development of a reliable measure of individual differences in disgust sensitivity. The 32-item Disgust Scale includes 2 true-false and 2 disgust-rating items for each of 7 domains of disgust elicitors (food, animals, body products, sex, body envelope violations, death, and hygiene) and for a domain of magical thinking (via similarity and contagion) that cuts across the 7 domains of elicitors. Correlations with other scales provide initial evidence of convergent and discriminant validity: the Disgust Scale correlates moderately with Sensation Seeking (r= - 0.46) and with Fear of Death (r= 0.39), correlates weakly with Neuroticism (r = 0.23) and Psychoticism (r= - 0.25), and correlates negligibly with Self-Monitoring and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Extraversion and Lie scales. Females score higher than males on the Disgust Scale. We suggest that the 7 domains of disgust elicitors all have in common that they remind us of our animality and, especially, of our mortality. Thus we see disgust as a defensive emotion that maintains and emphasizes the line between human and animal.

Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward Terrorism

This article conceptualizes political radicalization as a dimension of increasing extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of intergroup conflict and violence. Across individuals, groups, and mass publics, twelve mechanisms of radicalization are distinguished. For ten of these mechanisms, radicalization occurs in a context of group identification and reaction to perceived threat to the ingroup. The variety and strength of reactive mechanisms point to the need to understand radicalization—including the extremes of terrorism—as emerging more from the dynamics of intergroup conflict than from the vicissitudes of individual psychology.

Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences.

This volume presents research related to stereotype accuracy, arguing that understanding stereotype accuracy is crucial to both social psychology and its applications, such as improving intergroup relations. The first chapter traces the history of stereotypes and includes definitions.

Quality of Life in End-Stage Renal Disease: A Reexamination

A self-administered questionnaire assessing both objective and subjective quality of life was completed by 489 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in a representative sample of an entire network. Patients differed in both objective and subjective quality of life when examined as a function of treatment modality. The quality of life is similar for successful transplant and home hemodialysis patients; these patients appear to fare better than other treatment groups on both objective and subjective measures. Patients receiving staff-assisted center hemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) report markedly diminished quality of life; these decrements remained after statistically controlling for nontreatment variables. Diminished quality of life was most pronounced in dialysis patients who had experienced failed transplants. All treatment groups showed some objective losses, especially loss of employment, but patients in the best rehabilitated treatment groups showed near-normal subjective quality of life. The results confirm previous reports that the subjective quality of life of ESRD patients can be nearly normal despite objective losses, but demonstrate that inadequate definition of treatment groups has led to misperceptions about the impact of transplant failure.

Sensitivity to indirect contacts with other persons: AIDS aversion as a composite of aversion to strangers, infection, moral taint, and misfortune.

College students and their parents rated their willingness to wear sweaters previously worn by a target person described as having AIDS, another infectious illness (tuberculosis), a misfortune (maimed in automobile accident), moral taint (convicted murderer), or simply as a healthy but unknown man. Parallel ratings were obtained with respect to beds slept in or automobiles previously owned by the same set of target persons. Results indicated that there are strong individual differences in sensitivity to 4 sources of aversion to indirect interpersonal contagion: infection, misfortune, immorality, and unfamiliarity. Individual sensitivity to any one of these sources predicts sensitivity to the others (rs in the .30s). Aversion to indirect contact with a person with AIDS (by sweater, bed, or car) includes all 4 sources of aversion.

Measuring Political Mobilization: The Distinction Between Activism and Radicalism

In this paper we review and extend measures of political mobilization: the increasing extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of inter-group conflict. Building on previous research, we introduce the Activism and Radicalism Intention Scales (ARIS). The Activism Intention Scale assesses readiness to participate in legal and non-violent political action, whereas the Radicalism Intention Scale assesses readiness to participate in illegal or violent political action. In ad-hoc samples of U.S. and Ukrainian undergraduates, and in an Internet panel survey representative of the U.S. population, Activism and Radicalism intentions formed two correlated but distinguishable dimensions. The popular “conveyor belt” metaphor of radicalization (implying that activism leads easily to radicalism and that most radicals emerge from activism) found only mixed support in our results. Discussion suggests the potential usefulness of the ARIS for learning about how individuals move from political attitudes and beliefs to political action, including political violence and terrorism.

Personality and Person Perception Across Cultures

Contents: Preface. Part I: Introduction. Y-T. Lee, C.R. McCauley, J.G. Draguns, Why Study Personality in Culture? L.A. Pervin, The Cross-Cultural Challenge to Personality. Part II: Basic Personality Differences Between Social and Cultural Groups. J.P. Rushton, Ethnic Differences in Temperament. D. Peabody, Nationality Characteristics: Dimensions for Comparison. C. McCauley, V. Ottati, Y-T. Lee, National Differences in Economic Growth: The Role of Personality and Culture. Part III: Personality Across Cultures. R. Diaz-Loving, J.G. Draguns, Culture, Meaning, and Personality in Mexico and in the United States. K. Zhang, Y-T. Lee, Y. Liu, C. McCauley, Chinese-American Differences: A Chinese View. B.I. Okeke, J.G. Draguns, B. Sheku, W. Allen, Culture, Self, and Personality in Africa. G. Oettingen, H. Maier, Where Political System Meets Culture: Effect on Efficacy Appraisal. P. Laungani, Cultural Influences on Identity and Behavior: India and Britain. L. Miller, Stereotype Legacy: Culture and Person in Japanese/American Business Interactions. Part IV: Implications of Studying Personality and Person Perception in Culture. V. Ottati, H.C. Triandis, C.H. Hui, Subjective Culture and the Workplace: Comparing Hispanic and Mainstream Naval Recruits. R. Brislin, Communicating Information About Culture and Personality in Formal Cross-Cultural Training Programs. C. McCauley, J.G. Draguns, Y-T. Lee, Person Perception Across Cultures.

Toward a Profile of Lone Wolf Terrorists: What Moves an Individual From Radical Opinion to Radical Action

Research has shown that there is no profile of individual characteristics of group-based terrorists, but profiling the characteristics of lone wolf terrorists may yet be possible. In this article, we bring together suggestions about what a lone wolf profile might look like. We describe a two-pyramids model that distinguishes radicalization of opinion from radicalization of action, then use this model to review three case histories of lone wolf terrorists. We also review results comparing two kinds of mostly lone actor violent offenders: assassins and school attackers. Results highlight the gap between radical opinion and radical action, and suggest two profiles of lone wolf terrorists: disconnected-disordered are individuals with a grievance and weapons experience who are social loners and often show signs of psychological disorder; caring-compelled are individuals who strongly feel the suffering of others and feel a personal responsibility to reduce or avenge this suffering.

Threat Perceptions and Feelings as Predictors of Jewish-Israeli Support for Compromise with Palestinians

A representative sample of Israeli Jews (N = 504) completed a survey assessing attitudes towards compromise in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. Support for compromise was well predicted (R = .63) by a combination of four scales: perception of collective threat from Palestinians, perception of zero-sum relations between Palestinians and Israelis, personal fear of Palestinians, and sympathy towards Palestinians. Feelings of hostility towards Palestinians did not make an independent contribution to this prediction. As hypothesized, respondents who perceived high collective threat and zero-sum relations were much less supportive of making concessions to Palestinians. However, respondents who indicated feeling personal fear were in regression analysis slightly more supportive of compromise. Sympathy toward Palestinians was associated with more support for compromise. Additionally, religiosity was strongly associated with decreased support for compromise. However, entering threat perceptions and sympathy into the equation substantially reduced the predictive value of religiosity, indicating that psychological mechanisms underlie, at least in part, the tendency of more religious respondents to show less support for making concessions to Palestinians.

Individual differences in sex stereotyping of occupations and personality traits

Student respondents in Studies 1 and 2, and nonstudent respondents in Study 3, estimated the percentage of females or males in 10 sex-stereotyped occupations. Mean estimates (social stereotypes) were highly stable over a four-week interval and were correlated highly with criterion percentages from the U.S. Census, but, contrary to the kernel of truth hypothesis, tended consistently to underestimate the objective differences between male and female representation in the stereotyped occupations. For each respondent, perceived sex differences were aggregated across the 10 occupations to form a composite scale of strength of sex-occupation stereotyping and perceived sex differences in personality were similarly aggregated to form a scale of strength of sex-personality stereotyping, both with satisfactory reliability. The correlation of these two scales shows that there is some generality in strength of occupational and personality-trait stereotyping as components of sex-stereotyping. Strength of sex-stereotyping of occupations was not related to attitude toward women in nontraditional occupations or to authoritarian attitude.