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The actor-partner interdependence model was used to examine how one's own ethnic identification - and one's interaction partners' ethnic identification - predicted reactions to mixed-group discussions. The 104 participants interacted in groups of four, with half from the ethnic majority (European Americans) and half from an ethnic minority (African-, Asian-, or Latino Americans) in each group. Analyses revealed that ethnic identification had generally positive relationships with one's own outcomes, including greater attraction to one's fellow ingroup member. However, higher ethnic identification resulted in negative outcomes for one's cross-group interaction partners, with different patterns for majority and minority members. When interacting with highly-identified members of the outgroup, minority members responded with lower self-esteem whereas majority members responded with lower group attraction.

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Two studies examined immediate (Study 1) and long-term (Study 2) behavioral consequences of previously documented asymmetries in cognitive and evaluative reactions to change in majority and minority positions within a group. Study 1 found an overall decrease in preferences for group membership immediately following change, which was preceded by decategorization and devaluation of the group in response to loss, together with lack of categorization and positive evaluation in response to gain of the majority position. Study 2 found a gradual increase in preference to stay with (vs. exit) the group among former minorities with prolonged interactions that confirmed their gained majority position. A gradual increase in preference for group membership was paralleled with gradual increases in perception of both inclusion within and differentiation from the group.

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This study used Kenny's social relations model to examine the relationship between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-related impairment and interpersonal perceptions. Participants were 124 students who had previously completed the Post-traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale as part of a larger study. After engaging in brief dyadic conversations with 3 other students, participants recorded perceptions of personality traits for themselves, their interaction partners and how they believed their partners saw them (metaperceptions). Results indicated that those with more severe post-traumatic stress disorder-related impairment saw themselves negatively and believed their interaction partners also viewed them negatively. However, these individuals were not seen differently by others, except that they were rated as less dependable. Our findings suggest that post-traumatic stress disorder is associated with negative beliefs about the self that may influence self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.

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Two studies demonstrated that greater identification with a group was associated with more positive emotions for members who conformed with versus violated the group's norms. These effects were found with injunctive norms, which specify what members should do or what they ideally would do, but emerged less consistently with descriptive norms, which specify what members typically do. Descriptive norms affected emotional responses when they acquired identity-relevance by differentiating an important ingroup from a rival outgroup. For these descriptive norms, much like injunctive norms, greater identification yielded more positive emotions following conformity than violation. The authors suggest that positive emotions and self-evaluations underlie conformity with the norms of self-defining groups.

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An event-contingent diary methodology was used to study the impact of intergroup and intragroup factors on self-evaluations in naturally occurring groups. Participants reported their contextual group status, group identification, and self-evaluations each time they self-categorized as a group member throughout a 1-week period. Indicators of global group status, interdependence, and permeability of group boundaries also were obtained. Multilevel modeling revealed that contextual status and global status interacted to predict self-evaluations. Contextual status had a stronger relationship with self-evaluations for members of global low-status groups than for members of high-status groups. Analyses of intragroup factors revealed that greater group interdependence but not permeability of group boundaries also was associated with higher self-evaluations. The effects of both contextual status and group interdependence were mediated by group identification.

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Women prefer both the scent of symmetrical men and masculine male faces more during the fertile (late follicular and ovulatory) phases of their menstrual cycles than during their infertile (e.g., luteal) phases. Men's behavioral displays in social settings may convey signals that affect women's attraction to men even more strongly. This study examined shifts in women's preferences for these behavioral displays. A sample of 237 normally ovulating women viewed 36 or 40 videotaped men who were competing for a potential lunch date and then rated each man's attractiveness as a short-term and a long-term mate. As predicted, women's preference for men who displayed social presence and direct intrasexual competitiveness increased on high-fertility days relative to low-fertility days, but only in a short-term, not a long-term, mating context. These findings add to the growing literature indicating that women's mate preferences systematically vary across the reproductive cycle.

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This study examined reactions to minority and majority positions that were either stable or reversed through group conversion that transformed opponents (supporters) of the minority (majority) into supporters (opponents) or through group expansion that brought new supporters (opponents) for the minority (majority) into the group. Minorities who became majorities through group expansion, compared with those who changed through group conversion, perceived their supporters and the overall group as significantly more similar to the self, and had significantly higher expectations for future positive interactions within the group. Perception of similarity with the supporters mediated the effect of the experimental conditions on perception of the overall group-self similarity. Implications of changes through conversion and expansion for the functioning of social groups are discussed.

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