Diane M. Mackie

Processing deficits and the mediation of positive affect in persuasion.

Motivational and cognitive mediators of the reduced processing of persuasive messages shown by recipients in a positive mood were tested. Ss in positive or neutral moods read strong or weak counterattitudinal advocadies for either a limited time or for as long as they wanted. Under limited exposure conditions, neutral mood Ss showed attitude change indicative of systemic processing, whereas positive mood Ss showed no differentiation of strong and weak versions of the message. When message exposure was unlimited, positive mood Ss viewed the message longer than did neutral mood Ss and systematically processed it rather than relying on persuasion heuristics. These findings replicated with 2 manipulations of mood and 2 different attitude issues. We interpret the results as providing evidence that reduced cognitive capacity to process the message contributes to the decrements shown by positive mood Ss.

Can emotions be truly group level? Evidence regarding four conceptual criteria.

Recent advances in understanding prejudice and intergroup behavior have made clear that emotions help explain peoples reactions to social groups and their members. Intergroup emotions theory (D. M. Mackie, T. Devos, & E. R. Smith, 2000; E. R. Smith, 1993) holds that intergroup emotions are experienced by individuals when they identify with a social group, making the group part of the psychological self. What differentiates such group-level emotions from emotions that occur purely at the individual level? The authors argue that 4 key criteria define group-level emotions: Group emotions are distinct from the same persons individual-level emotions, depend on the persons degree of group identification, are socially shared within a group, and contribute to regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Evidence from 2 studies supports all 4 of these predictions and thus points to the meaningfulness, coherence, and functionality of group-level emotions.

Processing of persuasive in-group messages.

Two studies investigated the processes mediating the persuasive impact of messages representing in-group opinions. In the 1st study, subjects read either a strong or a weak message attributed to either an in-group member or to another group. Subjects were more persuaded by a strong message from the in-group than a weak one, suggesting content-focused processing of the in-group message. Subjects were equally unpersuaded by either a strong or a weak message from the other group, and showed little sign of message processing. In the 2nd study, Ss listened to in-group or other-group messages about issues that varied in their relevance to in-group membership. When the issue was relevant to the in-group, subjects were persuaded by a strong message from the in-group, unpersuaded by a weak message from the in-group, and equally unimpressed by strong and weak messages from the other group. When the issue was irrelevant to the in-group, subjects accepted the position advocated by the in-group regardless of message quality, and again ignored messages from the other group. These results suggest that increased message processing, and not merely the impact of source persuasion cues, can underlie in-group-mediated attitude change.

From Prejudice to Intergroup Emotions: Differentiated Reactions to Social Groups

From Prejudice to Intergroup Emotions: Differentiated Reactions to Social Groups Edited by Diane Mackie and Eliot Smith 1: Beyond Prejudice: Moving from Positive and Negative Evaluations to Differentiated Reactions to Social Groups Diane M. Mackie and Eliot Smith 2: Social-Self Discrepencies and Group-Based Emotional Distress Aharon Bizman & Yoel Yinon 3: Promotion and Prevention Forms of Intergroup Bias James Y. Shah, Paige C. Brazy, & E. Tory Higgins 4: Antecedents and Consequences of Collective Guilt Nyla R. Branscombe, Bertjan Doosje, & Craig McGarty 5: Intergroup Emotions and Self-Categorization: The Impact of Perspective-Talking on Reactions to Victims of Harmful Behavior Vincent Yzerbyt, Muriel Dumont, Ernestine Gordijn, & Daniel Wigboldus 6: Intergroup Encounters and Threat: A Multi-Method Approach Jim Blascovich, Wendy Berry Mendes, & Mark D. Sneery 7: Experiencing Intergroup Emotions Theirry Devos, Lisa A. Silver, Diane M. Mackie, & Eliot R. Smith 8: Expressing Emotions and Decoding Them: In-groups and Out-groups do not Share the Same Advantages Jacques-Philippe Leyens, Stephanie Demoulin, Michel Desert, Jeroen Vaes, & Pierre Philippot 9: The Role of Affect in Determining Intergroup Behavior: The Case of Willingness to Engage in Intergroup Contact John F. Dovidio, Victoria M. Esses, Kelly R. Beach, & Samuel L. Gaertner 10: Close Encounters of the Suspicious Kind: Outgoing Paranoia in Hierarchical Trust Dilemmas Roderick M. Kramer and John T. Jost 11: The Role of Threat in Intergroup Relations Walter G. Stephan & C. Lausanne Renfro 12: Intergroup Emotions and Images Marilynn B. Brewer & Michele G. Alexander 13: They System Justification Motive in Intergroup Relations John T. Jost and Roderick M. Kramer 14: Emotions Up and Down: Intergroup Emotions Result from Perceived Status and Competition Susan T. Fiske, Amy J.C. Cuddy, & Peter Glick 15: Intergroup Emotions: A Biocultural Approach Steven L. Neuberg & Catherine A. Cottrell 16: Commentary Eliot R. Smith and Diane M. Mackiej

Intergroup Relations: Insights From a Theoretically Integrative Approach

In social psychology, specific research traditions, which often spring up in response to external events or social problems, tend to perpetuate the theoretical assumptions and methodological approaches with which they began. As a result, theories and methods that have proven powerful in 1 topic area are often not applied in other areas, even to conceptually similar issues. The authors adopt a theoretically integrative approach to the topic of intergroup relations. Theories and empirical approaches from the domains of attitudes, impression formation, the self, personal relationships, and norms offer many new insights into problematic issues, such as repeated findings of dissociations among stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. This integrative approach not only promises new theoretical advances, but also suggests numerous potential practical approaches to limiting or reducing destructive patterns of intergroup relations.

Social identification effects in group polarization

An adjustable cable mechanism for operatively interconnecting an engine throttle with an adjustable accelerator pedal includes a control cable threaded from a fixed location along a first cable run to and serially around a fixed first roller and a pivotable second roller mounted on a pedal actuated control lever, and therefrom to the throttle along a second cable run. Pedal actuation pivots the control lever and the second roller to shift the second cable run and thereby control opening of the throttle. The rollers are mounted on an adjustable bracket for changing the relative lengths of the cable runs without changing the overall length of cable to permit fore and aft adjustment of the control lever for accommodating varying pedal positions.

Of Two Minds: Forming and Changing Valence-Inconsistent Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

Because different processes underlie implicit and explicit attitudes, we hypothesized that they are differentially sensitive to different kinds of information. We measured implicit and explicit attitudes over time, as different types of attitude-relevant information about a single attitude object were presented. As expected, explicit attitudes formed and changed in response to the valence of consciously accessible, verbally presented behavioral information about the target. In contrast, implicit attitudes formed and changed in response to the valence of subliminally presented primes, reflecting the progressive accretion of attitude object-evaluation pairings. As a consequence, when subliminal primes and behavioral information were of opposite valence, people formed implicit and explicit attitudes of conflicting valence.

Mood effects on attitude judgments: independent effects of mood before and after message elaboration.

This study investigated the independent effects of induced mood on the encoding of persuasive messages and on the assessment of attitude judgments. In Experiment 1, positive or negative mood was induced either before the encoding of a counterattitudinal message or before the assessment of attitude judgments. When mood was induced before message presentation, Ss in a bad mood were more persuaded by strong than by weak arguments, whereas Ss in a good mood were equally persuaded by strong and by weak arguments. When Ss encoded the message in a neutral mood, however, the advantage of strong over weak arguments was more pronounced when Ss were in a good rather than in a bad mood at the time of attitude assessment. In Experiment 2, Ss exposed to a counterattitudinal message composed of either strong or weak arguments formed either a global evaluation or a detailed representation of the message. Positive, negative, or neutral mood was then induced. Ss in a good mood were most likely and Ss in a negative mood least likely to base their reported attitudes on global evaluations.

Improving the Dependability of Research in Personality and Social Psychology Recommendations for Research and Educational Practice

In this article, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Task Force on Publication and Research Practices offers a brief statistical primer and recommendations for improving the dependability of research. Recommendations for research practice include (a) describing and addressing the choice of N (sample size) and consequent issues of statistical power, (b) reporting effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), (c) avoiding “questionable research practices” that can inflate the probability of Type I error, (d) making available research materials necessary to replicate reported results, (e) adhering to SPSP’s data sharing policy, (f) encouraging publication of high-quality replication studies, and (g) maintaining flexibility and openness to alternative standards and methods. Recommendations for educational practice include (a) encouraging a culture of “getting it right,” (b) teaching and encouraging transparency of data reporting, (c) improving methodological instruction, and (d) modeling sound science and supporting junior researchers who seek to “get it right.”

Knowledge of the Advocated Position and the Processing of In-Group and Out-Group Persuasive Messages

This study investigated the processing consequences of receiving non-membership-relevant persuasive messages from in-group or out-group members. Students were given two-sided messages ostensibly from an in-group or out-group source. The position advocated in the message was announced either before or after message arguments were presented, and position-consistent arguments were either strong or weak. In-group messages were more likely to receive content-focused processing (as indicated by lager processing times and differential persuasion to strong and weak arguments) when position advocacy followed rather than pre ceded message presentation Prior knowledge of the in-group position produced acceptance of the in-group position regardless of message quality, particularly of the counter attitudinal message. Out-group appeals produced almost no attitude change, even with strong arguments. 7hese results provide further information about the processing mediation of the increased persuasive power of in-groups.