System justification theory (SJT) posits that members of low-status groups are more likely to see their social systems as legitimate than members of high-status groups because members of low-status ...groups experience a sense of dissonance between system motivations and self/group motivations (Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003). The author examined the status-legitimacy hypothesis using data from 3 representative sets of data from the United States (American National Election Studies and General Social Surveys) and throughout the world (World Values Survey; total N across studies = 151,794). Multilevel models revealed that the average effect across years in the United States and countries throughout the world was most often directly contrary to the status-legitimacy hypothesis or was practically zero. In short, the status-legitimacy effect is not a robust phenomenon. Two theoretically relevant moderator variables (inequality and civil liberties) were also tested, revealing weak evidence, null evidence, or contrary evidence to the dissonance-inspired status-legitimacy hypothesis. In sum, the status-legitimacy effect is not robust and is unlikely to be the result of dissonance. These results are used to discuss future directions for research, the current state of SJT, and the interpretation of theoretically relevant but contrary and null results.
A major shortcoming of current models of ideological prejudice is that although they can anticipate the direction of the association between participants' ideology and their prejudice against a range ...of target groups, they cannot predict the size of this association. I developed and tested models that can make specific size predictions for this association. A quantitative model that used the perceived ideology of the target group as the primary predictor of the ideology-prejudice relationship was developed with a representative sample of Americans (N = 4,940) and tested against models using the perceived status of and choice to belong to the target group as predictors. In four studies (total N = 2,093), ideology-prejudice associations were estimated, and these observed estimates were compared with the models' predictions. The model that was based only on perceived ideology was the most parsimonious with the smallest errors.
Theories of belief system structure and dynamics assume that belief systems are a person-level construct. However, measures of belief system structure do not measure the structure of person-level ...belief systems and instead measure aggregated belief system structure (e.g., the belief system in a particular country). In this paper, I show that a measure of conceptual similarity between attitudes and identities of a belief system works as a valid, reliable, flexible, and efficient measure of person-level belief system structure in the United States. In Studies 1 (N = 387), 2 (N = 389), and 3 (N = 598), I show conceptual similarity judgments are reliable and are related to measures of political engagement, political knowledge, attitude consistency, and preference congruence as predicted by computational models of belief system dynamics. In Studies 4 (N = 981) and 5 (N = 983), I show that conceptual similarity judgments are affected by partisan frames and that changes in conceptual similarity judgments are associated with attitude change as predicted by computational models of belief system dynamics. Conceptual similarity judgments can be used with a variety of attitudes and identities in easy to administer studies. It provides a tool to fill an empirical gap identified by theories of belief system dynamics.
Theory predicts that individuals' sexism serves to exacerbate inequality in their society's gender hierarchy. Past research, however, has provided only correlational evidence to support this ...hypothesis. In this study, I analyzed a large longitudinal data set that included representative data from 57 societies. Multilevel modeling showed that sexism directly predicted increases in gender inequality. This study provides the first evidence that sexist ideologies can create gender inequality within societies, and this finding suggests that sexism not only legitimizes the societal status quo, but also actively enhances the severity of the gender hierarchy. Three potential mechanisms for this effect are discussed briefly.
Morality in everyday life Hofmann, Wilhelm; Wisneski, Daniel C.; Brandt, Mark J. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
09/2014, Letnik:
345, Številka:
6202
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The science of morality has drawn heavily on well-controlled but artificial laboratory settings. To study everyday morality, we repeatedly assessed moral or immoral acts and experiences in a large (N ...= 1252) sample using ecological momentary assessment. Moral experiences were surprisingly frequent and manifold. Liberals and conservatives emphasized somewhat different moral dimensions. Religious and nonreligious participants did not differ in the likelihood or quality of committed moral and immoral acts. Being the target of moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on happiness, whereas committing moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on sense of purpose. Analyses of daily dynamics revealed evidence for both moral contagion and moral licensing. In sum, morality science may benefit from a closer look at the antecedents, dynamics, and consequences of everyday moral experience.
A central challenge for identifying core components of a belief system is examining the position of components within the structure of the entire belief system. We test whether operational (i.e., ...positions on issues) or symbolic (i.e., affective attachments to political groups and labels) components are most central by modeling a political belief system as a network of interconnected attitudes and beliefs. Across seven waves of representative panel data from New Zealand, we find that symbolic components are more central than operational components (ds range = 0.78-0.97). Symbolic components were also closer than operational components in the network to self-reported voting (d = −2.43), proenvironmental actions (ds = −1.71 and −1.63), and religious behaviors (d = −0.74). These findings are consistent with perspectives that emphasize the importance of symbolic politics in tying belief systems together and motivating behavior, and further the link between political belief system research and network science.
The composition of dental plaque has been well defined, whereas currently there is limited understanding of the composition of denture plaque and how it directly influences denture related stomatitis ...(DS). The aims of this study were to compare the microbiomes of denture wearers, and to understand the implications of these towards inter-kingdom and host-pathogen interactions within the oral cavity.
Swab samples were obtained from 123 participants wearing either a complete or partial denture; the bacterial composition of each sample was determined using bar-coded illumina MiSeq sequencing of the bacterial hypervariable V4 region of 16S rDNA. Sequencing data processing was undertaken using QIIME, clustered in Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) and assigned to taxonomy. The dentures were sonicated to remove the microbial flora residing on the prosthesis, sonicate was then cultured using diagnostic colorex Candida media. Samples of unstimulated saliva were obtained and antimicrobial peptides (AMP) levels were measured by ELISA.
We have shown that dental and denture plaques are significantly distinct both in composition and diversity and that the oral microbiome composition of a denture wearer is variable and is influenced by the location within the mouth. Dentures and mucosa were predominantly made up of Bacilli and Actinobacteria. Moreover, the presence of natural teeth has a significant impact on the overall microbial composition, when compared to the fully edentulous. Furthermore, increasing levels of Candida spp. positively correlate with Lactobacillus spp. AMPs were quantified, though showed no specific correlations.
This is the first study to provide a detailed understanding of the oral microbiome of denture wearers and has provided evidence that DS development is more complex than simply a candidal infection. Both fungal and bacterial kingdoms clearly play a role in defining the progression of DS, though we were unable to show a defined role for AMPs.
Research linking religion to prejudice suggests that highly religious individuals, and religious fundamentalists specifically, may be especially susceptible to expressing prejudice toward dissimilar ...others, whereas people who are less religious and fundamentalist do not show the same effect. The selective prejudice hypothesis predicts that this pattern of results occurs because the cognitive and motivational styles or particular values associated with fundamentalism exacerbate prejudice. In 3 studies, using 4 data sets (N = 6,047), we test this selective prejudice hypothesis against the religious values conflict hypothesis, which predicts that both people with high and low levels of fundamentalism will be prejudiced toward those with dissimilar beliefs to protect the validity and vitality of people's belief systems. Consistent with the religious values conflict hypothesis, we found that people both high and low in fundamentalism were prejudiced toward dissimilar others (Study 1) and these differences were primarily due to differences in the content of religious belief rather than the style of belief (Study 2). In Study 3, we expanded these findings to additional measures of prejudice, found that multiple measures of threat were potential mediators, and explored the possibility of an integrative perspective. In total, these results suggest that people with both relatively high and low levels of fundamentalism are susceptible to prejudice and in some cases the size of this religious intergroup bias may be higher among people with high levels of fundamentalism.
Research is often guided by maps of elementary dimensions, such as core traits, foundations of morality, and principal stereotype dimensions. Yet, there is no comprehensive map of prejudice ...dimensions. A major limiter of developing a prejudice map is the ad hoc sampling of target groups. We used a broad and largely theory-agnostic selection of groups to derive a map of principal dimensions of expressed prejudice in contemporary American society. Across a series of exploratory and confirmatory studies, we found three principal factors: Prejudice against marginalized groups, prejudice against privileged/conservative groups, and prejudice against unconventional groups (with some inverse loadings for conservative groups). We documented distinct correlates for each factor, in terms of social identifications, perceived threats, personality, and behavioral manifestations. We discuss how the current map integrates several lines of research, and point to novel and underexplored insights about prejudice.
Are attitudes more resistant to change when they are more central to a belief system? Theories of inter‐attitude structure and belief system dynamics both suggest that the answer is yes. We ...demonstrate how to combine belief system network methods with pretest‐posttest experiments to empirically test this idea. We aimed to persuade US conservatives (Experiment 1 N = 890) and US liberals (Experiment 2 N = 1305, Experiment 3 N = 1293) using moral reframing persuasive strategies. Although we find that moral reframing was persuasive (9 of 12 attempts), there was no evidence that central attitudes were more difficult to change than peripheral attitudes. This was the case across all experiments, target attitudes and methods for assessing belief system structure. The results suggest that moral reframing persuades people, but that theories of inter‐attitude structure and belief system dynamics both do not make accurate predictions in this situation.
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