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Recent events have shown no abatement in the increasingly common anti-Muslim attitudes and aggression. Anti-Muslim incidents have steadily risen over the last few years. One contributing factor in anti-Muslim harassment may be Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). RWA can lead to aggressive behavior towards minorities, as individuals high in RWA tend to act aggressively towards individuals who do not share their cultural values or norms. We argue that the authority figures that people admire play a role in shaping the attitudes and behaviors individuals endorse. As such, perceptions of political authority figures’ approval may dictate whether authoritarian individuals act on their aggressive impulses towards minority group members. Across two studies, we posit that for people high in RWA these perceptions of authority figure approval act as a mechanism to influence the personal endorsement of aggression towards Muslims. Our results support this hypothesis, as high RWA participants perceive their authority figures as approving of prejudice towards Muslims which in turn contributes to their own endorsement of aggressive policies. Perceptions of authority figure approval are an important contributor to anti-Muslim aggression. Authoritarian individuals become more likely to aggress against Muslims due to their perceptions that their political authority figures would support such actions. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / July 17, 2017. / Islam, Prejudice, Religion, Right-wing Authoritarianism / Includes bibliographical references. / E. Ashby Plant, Professor Directing Dissertation; Albert Stiegman, University Representative; James McNulty, Committee Member; Walter Boot, Committee Member; Paul Conway, Committee Member.

7 v. + / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (D.Litt.)--Dept. of Psychology, University of Adelaide, 1982

<p> The present study examined whether an individual&rsquo;s own implicit theory of relationships predicts how s/he perceives his/her friend&rsquo;s romantic relationship. Implicit theories of relationships are based on destiny beliefs (DB), the belief that a relationship is meant to be, and growth beliefs (GB), the belief that relationships require work. Each participant was randomly exposed to one of three relationship scenarios where the participant&rsquo;s hypothetical friend discusses a partner displaying negative, mixed, or positive relationship behaviors. We found the participants high in DB were less approving of the relationship, and those high in GB were more approving. Those high in DB also made more relationship-damaging attributions when asked to select reasons why the partner engaged in said behaviors but surprisingly perceived the couple as more satisfied overall. Anticipated interactions between DB and GB were not found.</p>

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The ability to infer the contents of other minds--i.e., to mentalize--is a foundation of human social functioning, allowing individuals to respond to to the hidden thoughts, beliefs, intentions, desires, and feelings underlying others' overt behavior (e.g., forgiving an offender who didn't intend to cause harm; surmising that a friend who says he is fine might really be feeling blue). Given that no one can actually see into the mind of another person, a central goal of ongoing research is to understand how the brain accomplishes mentalizing and how different mentalizing strategies affect behavior toward others. The present work unites three sets of experiments in order to critically consider a particular idea about how mentalizing is accomplished, which is that perceivers use their own minds as models for "simulating" the minds of other people. A prediction of this account is that shared processes should be associated with thinking about one's own mind (i.e., introspection) and mentalizing about others. Using fMRI, Parts 1 and 2 reveal that a brain region associated with introspection (the medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC) is engaged during mentalizing, and that it is especially engaged under particular circumstances: when the target of mentalizing is similar to the perceiver (Part 1) and when inferences about others' mental states are uncertain (i.e., when there are several plausible alternatives; Part 2). In turn, Part 3 explores the consequences of the relationship between introspection and mentalizing, revealing that greater use of introspective processes during mentalizing about a suffering person is associated with greater preference for behaviors that extinguish the person's suffering in the short term, even if they have adverse consequences for the person's longer-term welfare. In the context of other recent research, the discussion considers two alternative interpretations of the current findings with implications for whether, and in what sense, perceivers simulate the minds of others. Ultimately, these findings constrain theory about the processes by which humans reason about the contents of other minds, offering new insight into what goes on in situations--and people--in which mentalizing succeeds and fails. / Psychology

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<p> Aun cuando la pr&aacute;ctica de jugar videojuegos ha ido en aumento en los &uacute;ltimos a&ntilde;os no exist&iacute;a, hasta este momento en Puerto Rico, informaci&oacute;n sobre cu&aacute;nto tiempo invierten los/as videojugadores/as en jugar, con cuanta frecuencia juegan, que tipo de juegos prefieren as&iacute; como las pr&aacute;cticas sociales relacionadas al uso de este tipo de tecnolog&iacute;a. Los objetivos principales de este trabajo fueron obtener informaci&oacute;n sobre las pr&aacute;cticas, preferencias y h&aacute;bitos de los/as videojugadores/as en Puerto Rico y examinar si en Puerto Rico los/as videojugadores/as sienten que forman parte de una subcultura social. Como parte de este &uacute;ltimo objetivo revisamos el concepto de tribu esbozado por el soci&oacute;logo Michele Maffesoli as&iacute; como los conceptos de campo y <i>habitus,</i> elaborados por el tambi&eacute;n soci&oacute;logo Pierre Bourdieu. Seg&uacute;n Maffesoli (2004), las tribus, en t&eacute;rminos contempor&aacute;neos, son aquellos microgrupos que han ido emergiendo en todos los campos de la sociedad, cuya finalidad es simplemente ofrecer la posibilidad de compartir. De igual forma, siguiendo a Bourdieu (2005), nos interesa establecer a los videojuegos como un campo social, se&ntilde;alando las pr&aacute;cticas (<i>habitus</i>) que se producen al interior de este campo, contribuyendo a constituirlo y exponer cu&aacute;les son las imposiciones a los/as videojugadores/as para que puedan considerar que forman parte de este campo social. Para cumplir con nuestros objetivos, utilizamos un marco metodol&oacute;gico mixto, el cual cont&oacute; con tres t&eacute;cnicas de recolecci&oacute;n de datos: observaciones etnogr&aacute;ficas, encuesta en l&iacute;nea y entrevistas semi estruturadas. Al triangular la informaci&oacute;n recopilada pudimos establecer que el/la video jugador/a t&iacute;pico/a puertorrique&ntilde;o/a tiene una edad promedio de 33 a&ntilde;os y comenz&oacute; a jugar alrededor de los 6-10 a&ntilde;os (46%), se considera a s&iacute; mismo como un/a jugador/a regular de videojuegos (40.8%), prefiere jugar con personas conectadas en l&iacute;nea (50.1%), particularmente con sus amistades (29.9 %), y asiste a eventos relacionados a los videojuegos, como por ejemplo las ventas de medianoche (28.9%) y los torneos de videojuegos (17.6%). Estos dos &uacute;ltimos escenarios se&ntilde;alados, forman parte de un complejo campo social en el que los/as jugadores/as encuentran un espacio de aceptaci&oacute;n en el cual logran establecer una cohesi&oacute;n social que les permite constituirse como una comunidad.</p>