Elizabeth Page-Gould has published an article entitled, "To whom can I turn? Maintenance of positive intergroup relations in the face of intergroup conflict" in the July issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science. A mixed sample of students and community members from the Scarborough neighbourhood of Toronto provided demographic information about their 6 closest friends and the quality of each friendship, which were later used to estimate cross-ethnic friendships. Next, participants reported on every social interaction they had with another person over a ten day period, including whether they experienced any conflict during the interaction. Cross-ethnic friendship predicted very different reactions to conflict with people of other ethnicities. Participants who had no cross-ethnic friends avoided interethnic interactions the day after they had experienced a conflict with someone of another ethnicity. However, people who had close cross-ethnic friends did not avoid future interethnic interactions after an interethnic conflict; rather, they approached people of other ethnicities more after an interethnic conflict, specifically because they responded to interethnic conflict by seeking more social support from outgroup members. This cross-ethnic support seeking behaviour buffered them from the process of post-conflict interethnic avoidance. This research sheds light on how people with positive intergroup orientations (i.e., close cross-ethnic friends) are able to maintain their positive attitudes in the face of negative intergroup experiences.

Click here to view a PDF of the article.

Posted on Jul 12, 2012 by admin

Jessica Maxwell and Sabrina Thai have both received a IARR Conference Student Submission Award from the International Association of Relationship Research. Award recipients are selected based on the perceived overall contribution of their conference submission to relationship science. Jessica and Sabrina will both receive a travel stipend to attend the 2012 IARR Conference.  

Posted on Jun 28, 2012 by admin

Chad Danyluck (supervised by Elizabeth Page-Gould) has won a SSHRC doctoral award. In addition, Sabrina Thai (supervised by Penelope Lockwood) has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship. The CGS is awarded to graduate students who demonstrate an especially high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and humanities. Congratulations to Chad and Sabrina.

Posted on Jun 28, 2012 by admin

Jessica Remedios and Alison Chasteen, along with University of Toronto HBSc graduate, Elvina Oey, have published an article in the current issue of Basic and Applied Social Psychology. The article, entitled "'Unskilled' Workers: Social Skills Stereotypes Affect Evaluations of Biracial Job Applicants," examines individuals' explanations for why interviewers may reject biracial (as compared to Black) job applicants. The study shows that, regardless of whether job candidates are rejected for external reasons or whether candidates act in undesirable ways, participants rate biracial applicants as less socially skilled and as more likely to have demonstrated poor interview skills than Black applicants. Overall, the results suggest that biracial job applicants must contend with stereotypes suggesting
that biracial people are socially unskilled.

Click here to view a PDF of the article.

Posted on Jun 06, 2012 by admin

We are pleased to announce that PhD Candidate Jessica Remedios has received the fourth annual Ken Dion Graduate Student Award. The award, which is named after prominent social psychologist and former University of Toronto faculty member, Ken Dion, is given each year to recognize both the research accomplishments and area citizenship of a graduate student in the Social, Personality, and Abnormal area. Jessica received the award this year in recognition of her research achievements and contributions to the SPA area, including authoring 5 peer-reviewed publications and coordinating SPA area meetings. This year Jessica was also awarded a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, which she declined in order to begin a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Tufts University in the fall. Congratulations, Jessica!

Posted on May 22, 2012 by admin