Association between stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 and individual differences in behavioral immune system

During the spread of COVID-19, prejudice and discrimination against infected persons, their family members, close contacts, and health care workers have become a problem. In this study, we investigated stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 and examined their association with individual differences in behavioral immune system activation. The results showed that the stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 were low sociality and high activity. Next, we examined the effect of infection vulnerability awareness on stereotypical perceptions. The results showed that the stronger the germ aversion, the stronger the perceived lack of infection prevention behaviors, the lower the perceived sociality of the persons infected with COVID-19, and the higher their own perceived infection prevention behaviors. The content of the stereotypes of the persons infected with COVID-19 and the factors influencing these stereotypes were discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Merely mortal: A quantitative examination of the dehumanization of first responders

Background: While understaffing and work-related stress are not unusual within first responder professions, the past few years have added additional strain. COVID-19, political and civil unrest, and economic downturn have stretched the first responder workforce thinner than ever, contributing to a reduction in the workforce through death, early retirement, attrition, or decreased vocational effectiveness. Unfortunately, public stereotypes coupled with the tenets of first responder culture have done little to support those who serve. Public perception often involves polarized stereotypes about first responders (e.g., good guys or bad guys, heroes or villains), and first responder culture encourages a machine-like demeanor. The imagery of heroes, villains, and machines is indicative of dehumanization, or denial of some aspect(s) of humanity. The purpose of this study was to examine how first responders' perceptions of dehumanization (meta-dehumanization) relate to workforce threats including suicidality, burnout, and decreased self-efficacy. Methodology: A total of 211 first responders from the US and Canada participated in this study by completing two measures of meta-dehumanization, the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised, the Burnout subscale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale, and the General Self-Efficacy Scale. Analyses included Pearson product-moment correlation, ANOVAs, and hierarchical regression analyses. Results: Statistically significant relationships were found between meta-dehumanization for each of the three workforce threats when controlling for time in the profession. Results from ancillary analyses indicated that these relationships continued to be statistically significant even after controlling for country of residence (US or Canada). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The effect of face masks on the stereotype effect in emotion perception

The accurate and swift decoding of emotional expressions from faces is fundamental for social communication. Yet, emotion perception is prone to error. For example, the ease with which emotions are perceived is affected by stereotypes (Bijlstra, Holland, & Wigboldus, 2010). Moreover, the introduction of face masks mandates in response to the Covid-19 pandemic additionally impedes accurate emotion perception by introducing ambiguity to the emotion perception process. Predictive coding frameworks of visual perception predict that in such situations of increased ambiguity of the sensory input (i.e., faces with masks), people increasingly rely on their prior beliefs (i.e., their stereotypes). Using specification curve analysis, we tested this prediction across two experiments, featuring different social categories (Study 1: Gender;Study 2: Ethnicity) and corresponding emotion stereotypes. We found no evidence that face masks increase reliance on prior stereotypes. In contrast, in Study 1 (but not in Study 2), we found preliminary evidence that face masks decrease reliance on prior stereotypes. We discuss these findings in relation to predictive coding frameworks and dual process models and emphasize the need for up-to-date analytic methods in social cognition research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Gender inequalities during COVID-19

The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to progress toward gender equality and, instead, exacerbated existing gender inequalities across domains-from gendered divisions of labour to economic stability. In this paper we document some of the most glaring gender inequalities that have arisen in the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss how social psychological theories and research-including work on gender stereotypes and roles, responses to threat, precarious masculinity, perceptions of risk, and backlash-can help to explain the roots of these inequalities. In doing so, we use a broad definition of gender and consider relevant intersections of identity. Finally, we present three key considerations for research on gender inequalities moving forward. Namely, the need for social psychologists to (a) challenge binary conceptualizations of gender, (b) broaden the focus of research on gender inequalities, and (c) adopt an intersectional lens to address systemic inequalities in the wake of COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Korean immigrant parents' ways and reasons to support their elementary-aged children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic

U.S. society perceived some Asian immigrants as a model minority, even assuming that Asian students would be good at mathematics. However, the narratives and experiences of Korean immigrant parents and their children were not discussed in these perspectives. The purpose of this study is to understand the interactions and reasoning of Korean immigrant parents about their children's mathematical meaning-making at home. The study investigates the following research questions: How do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Why do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the theory of belonging, model minority stereotypes, and meaning-making, this study critically examines Korean immigrant parents and children how and why negotiate the meaning of U.S. mathematics. Narrative inquiry is used to understand the diverse experiences of the five participants' families through interviews, observations, and debrief sessions. The findings report how and why Korean immigrant parents support their children's mathematical meaning-making using code-switching and cultural negotiation that addresses conceptual differences across language and culture. On a personal level, Korean immigrant parents' desire to belong in U.S. society guides them to put effort into their children's education. On a societal level, the parents in this study wish for their children to overcome perpetual foreigner stereotypes, myths, and glass ceilings around them. Yet because of their limited connectedness to mainstream society, they feel they lack the information needed for their children to be successful. Their voices demystify the model minority stereotypes and counter the argument that mathematics education serves as an absolutely inclusive subject. Recommendations from this point on the school districts and educational system are to have explanatory sessions for immigrant parents to help their understanding of the U.S. curriculum, and at the same time, teachers also can take advantage by having listening sessions about multiple ethnic parents to learn the cultural meaning-making to make a connection between school children and their culture in the curriculum. Furthermore, the higher education system could recruit more diverse pre-service teachers to create more belonging for diverse learners. Last but not least, school teachers can learn and practice immigrant experiences and try to demystify racial stereotypes in classrooms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Pandemic and prejudice: Results from a national survey experiment

Do health and economic shocks exacerbate prejudice towards racial/ethnic minority groups? We investigate this question in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by collecting nationally representative survey data with an embedded experiment. Results show that priming COVID-19 salience has an immediate impact: compared to the control group, respondents in the treatment group reported increased prejudice towards East Asian and Hispanic colleagues. East Asians in the treatment group faced higher prejudicial responses from Americans living in counties with higher COVID-19 infections and those who lost jobs due to COVID-19, and fewer prejudicial responses in counties with a higher concentration of Asians. These results point to the salience of COVID-19 fueled health and economic insecurities in shaping prejudicial attitudes, specifically towards East Asians. County-level socioeconomic factors did not moderate the increased prejudicial attitudes toward Hispanics in the workplace. These findings highlight a dimension of prejudice, intensified during the pandemic, which has been largely underreported and therefore missing from the current discourse on this important topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Managing multiple roles during the COVID-19 lockdown: Not men or women, but parents as the emotional "loser in the crisis"

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a global crisis with high demands for the general population. In this research, we conducted a cross-sectional online study (N = 2278), which was diverse regarding age, employment, and family status to examine emotional well-being in times of the lockdown. We focused on inter-role conflict as a central factor associated with well-being. We tested whether individuals with high inter-role conflict (e.g. care-taker and employee) would appraise the lockdown more negatively than those experiencing low role-conflict and whether this would be associated with fatigue. In addition, we looked at gender as moderating this link. Latent modelling only showed small gender specific effects in the non-parent sample. However, in the parent sample, we found that although men experience less inter-role conflict than women on average, they coped significantly less well with it. We discuss the role of gender stereotypes in creating these psychological obstacles for men and women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Heuristics and biases in law and psychology: Examining stereotype bias in racial descriptors and parole revocation decisions

Despite its adversarial nature, the criminal justice system employs decision-makers who must strive for impartiality to impart confidence in the process. The current study outlines the moral, legal, and ethical origins of impartiality that some actors within the criminal justice system (i.e., judges, juries, and forensic psychologists) must uphold. Despite these impartiality requirements, recent research has demonstrated that they are susceptible to heuristics and biases that may lead to systematic errors when implemented in the wake of limited information. The current study examined stereotype bias in 245 law students randomly assigned to receive racial descriptors in a series of vignettes. Results revealed a complex relationship between participants' racial identity, adversarial alignment, and group assignment on their likelihood to recommend parole revocation. This complexity was further impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic and national awakenings to racial injustice, the implications of which are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The thick skin bias

I propose a novel explanation for many of the social class disparities documented across the social and behavioral sciences: the "thick skin bias." Across 33 studies, I show that people of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are systematically perceived to be less harmed by negative events than higher-SES people, even when this is patently false. In Chapter 1, I provide initial demonstrations of this thick skin bias, rule out multiple alternative explanations, and show that the bias extends to judgments about children as young as five and to judgments made by several professional populations and a nationally representative sample of the U.S. In Chapter 2, I investigate one mechanism underlying the thick skin bias: an overgeneralization of the sometimes accurate intuition that perceptions adapt to prior levels of exposure (as in psychophysical adaptation). Chapter 3 extends the thick skin bias to the context of gender-based violence, and Chapter 4 extends it to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 4 also tests the efficacy of providing people with an informational prime as a method of reducing the thick skin bias: information reduces, but does not fully reverse, the perception that people in poverty are less harmed by negative events. A brief conclusion charts future directions for research on the causes and consequences of and potential cures for the thick skin bias. Taken together, the work in this dissertation offers a new direction for research on social class stereotypes and provides a new perspective on how biased beliefs about people in poverty justify, perpetuate, and exacerbate economic inequality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Beyond the norms: Understanding and teaching gender in elementary classrooms

Using a three-article format, this study investigates the potential of integrating social studies instruction with critical literacy practices to challenge and/or expand elementary students' perception of gender. Given that stereotypical gender norms and roles uphold systemic inequity and injustice, challenging these perceptions in elementary classrooms is essential. This dissertation examines how an online instructional unit in social studies and critical literacy practices shapes student thinking about gender norms and roles and women's history and rights and challenges their own implicit beliefs. To investigate the impact of integrating social studies and critical literacy practices, I designed and field tested a unit intended to help students think critically about gender. Although this study was originally designed for in-person learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I taught this unit online to 18 students from across the United States and Canada. This unit included social studies through a focus on history, civics, and justice, and utilized critical literacy practices such as interactive read-alouds, text-pairing, and restorying. Data sources were student pre- and post- interviews, observations of the lessons, and parent surveys. Each study draws from the implementation of this unit in different ways, which I describe below. The first article focuses on student perceptions of gender norms and roles both before and after participation in the unit plan. This study examines both students' implicit and explicit beliefs about gender, especially gender stereotypes. After engaging in the unit, students demonstrated shifts in their explicit thinking about gender. Specifically, students were more able to identify gender stereotypes in both texts and reality, describe consequences of stereotypes, and participate in a student-led activism project intended to challenge stereotypes in others. Students also became more likely to share ways in which they personally challenged gender stereotypes through their interests and/or appearances. Students also demonstrated shifts in their implicit thinking during writing activities by creating more complex characters who were less limited by stereotypical gender norms and roles.The second article investigates the extent to which the unit impacted student perceptions regarding women's history and women's rights. The findings of this study demonstrate that students' initial perceptions of women's contributions tended to be limited to stereotypical roles centered on caretaking. They also demonstrated a general belief that gender-based inequity has existed only in the past. After participating in the intervention, students were far more likely to describe women in counterstereotypical roles related to careers and activism, and to recognize contemporary, on-going gender inequity. Overall, students were more able to identify and critically discuss systems of gender-based oppression and inequity. The third article is practitioner-focused and investigates how teachers can pair critical literacy practices to understand and investigate their own implicit gender stereotypes. Specifically, this article provides a description of a lesson that introduces implicit stereotypes through an interactive read-alouds, the allows students to examine and challenge their own thinking through a restorying activity. Results of this study indicate that pairing critical literacy practices can help students better understand implicit stereotypes, reflect on their own implicit stereotypes, and write narratives that challenge implicit stereotypes. This article describes practical ways for teachers to implement paired critical literacy practices in their own classrooms and offers steps for expanding the described lesson to help students investigate implicit thinking about further marginalized identities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)