Browsing by Author "Wood, Wendy"

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    Do Latinos Party All the Time? The Role of Shared Ethnic Group Identity on Political Choice
    (2007-05-04T17:37:15Z) DeFrancesco Soto, Victoria Maria
    The overarching question of this dissertation is do Latinos prefer co-ethnic candidates and if so, to what degree? I examine how Latinos evaluate co-ethnic candidates—both those who share one’s partisanship and who do not. In addressing the former, is the evaluation higher of a candidate who not only shares one’s partisanship but also ethnicity or is the double in-group status redundant? I then address a more complex question, how do Latinos evaluate Latino candidates who do not share their partisan identity. The dilemma of having contradictory social group identities places a voter at an electoral fork in the road. To understand which road the voter ultimately takes I consider individual ethnic social group identification and the substantive meanings of ethnic group categories. I look at how different dimensions of Latino group identity influence the ultimate evaluation of a coethnic candidate. More specifically, I consider how and when a Latino social group identity influences political choice. I begin addressing the questions of when and how a Latino ethnic group identity can influence a political choice through an analysis of extant survey data. I also make use of original survey experiments that allow me to determine if there is a causal relationship and to probe the dimensions of Latino group identity. The results indicate that there is an in-group candidate preference. In some instances, an ethnic in-group match by itself predicts political choice, but not for all Latinos and not all the time. More substantive measures of Latino group identity serve to differentiate who among Latinos are most likely to prefer an ethnic in-group candidate. I find that substantive measures moderate a preference and in some instances a distancing from the Latino candidate. In general, Latinos with higher levels of Latino group identification are those most likely to support a Latino candidate. However, the preference for a Latino candidate depends on whom that Latino candidate is—Republican or Democrat. In short, Latino preferences for co-ethnic candidates are variegated, but significantly and substantively influenced by the individual’s level of ethnic identification and the type of Latino candidate choice at hand.
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    Outgroup Similarity as a Source of Cognitive Dissonance: An Investigation of the Turncoat Effect
    (2010) Hall, Deborah Lee

    A long tradition of social psychological research suggests that perceptions of similarity and common ground can promote more harmonious relations among otherwise diverse social groups. Yet perceived similarity with and empathy for members of an outgroup can also intensify intergroup bias by threatening the positive distinctiveness of one's group. In the present research, cognitive dissonance theory is used as a framework for understanding how people experience and react to similarity with members of a rival outgroup and for clarifying the conditions under which outgroup similarity reduces or intensifies intergroup prejudice. Four studies tested the hypothesis that outgroup similarity elicits subjective feelings of cognitive dissonance, including psychological discomfort and negative self-evaluation. Study 1 was a pilot test in which similarity to an outgroup member was associated with negative self-evaluation but not psychological discomfort. Study 2 strengthened the interpretation of the turncoat effect as cognitive dissonance by demonstrating that the effect varies as a function of a classic dissonance moderator--perceived choice. Participants induced to experience outgroup similarity reported psychological discomfort and negative self-evaluation, but only when they believed their feelings of similarity resulted from a high degree of personal choice. Study 3 identified strength of ingroup identification as another key moderator of the effect: Only participants who were highly identified with their ingroup reported feelings of dissonance after an induction of outgroup similarity. Finally, Study 4 investigated the implications of three dissonance reduction strategies for intergroup prejudice.

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    Stereotypes Can Be Learned through Implicit Associations or Explicit Rules
    (2011) Pascoe, Anthony

    Two studies examined whether stereotypes can be created using different learning paradigms and whether the resulting stereotypes will have different properties that affect their activation, suppression, and explicit knowledge. In the Pilot Study, participants were able to learn to use clothing cues to predict membership using both an explicit paradigm that made declarative statements of group membership and an implicit paradigm based on feedback learning. In Study 1, implicit learners performed worse after a depletion task and better following a control task. Explicit learners did not change based on the depletion task. High trait self-control as measured by the Brief Self-Control Scale was shown to predict better performance in depleted implicit learners and worse performance in depleted explicit learners. In Study 2, participants in both the implicit and explicit learning conditions saw decreases in performance when trying to inhibit a previously learned cue. Trait self-control did not predict the ability to suppress the use of a specific cue. In both studies implicit learners made more accurate estimations of the cue probabilities, suggesting a stronger explicit knowledge of the relationship between the cues and group membership. These results provide initial evidence that the method of stereotype learning can have an impact on later stereotype usage although the mechanisms that lead to these differences require additional research.

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    Toward Robust Assessments of Student Knowledge of Occupation.
    (The American journal of occupational therapy : official publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association, 2021-03) Price, Pollie; Hooper, Barb; Krishnagiri, Sheama; Wood, Wendy; Taff, Stephen D; Bilics, Andrea

    Importance

    Occupational therapy students must master knowledge of occupation, yet how educators assess such knowledge has not been explored. In this study, we elucidate robust assessment practices that can help students master knowledge of occupation.

    Objective

    To examine practices that educators use to assess knowledge of occupation.

    Design

    Basic qualitative research. Using inductive and constant comparative methods, we coded 25 interviews and 82 educational artifacts for assessment practices, categorized practices as direct or indirect, and analyzed their alignments with features of robust assessments.

    Setting

    Twenty-five randomly selected occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant academic programs in the United States, stratified by geographic region and institution type.

    Participants

    Twenty-nine educators who represented selected programs.

    Results

    We found occupation at instruction and program levels primarily in relation to practice using indirect more than direct practices. Assignments were often highly creative and experiential, yet varied in their alignments with established criteria of robust assessments.

    Conclusions and relevance

    Knowledge of occupation was often intertwined with practice-oriented learning experiences and skills; hence, it was not assessed as a distinctly indispensable learning outcome. Educators can build on current practices to design robust assessments that require students to demonstrate knowledge of occupation in practice contexts and everyday life.

    What this article adds

    In this study, we elucidate a continuum of prevalent educational practices used to assess knowledge of occupation; we also review best practices for robust assessments of such knowledge not only related to practice but also as a dynamic instrument of individual and societal well-being more broadly.