Self-Regulation of Prejudiced Responses. Excerpts.

"Experiment 1 examined subjects' reactions to rejecting a lawschool applicant because of his sexual orientation. This was a discrepant response for both low and high prejudiced subjects. However, the response violated low prejudiced, well-internalized standards for low prejudiced subjects only, so that the discrepancy was larger and more personally significant for low than for high prejudiced subjects. The central question was whether low prejudiced subjects experiencing such a discrepancy would manifest evidence of the engagement of self-regulatory mechanisms that, theoretically, should facilitate the subsequent inhibition of discrepant responses. The results provided clear, converging evidence that the discrepancy experience did engage these self-regulatory mechanisms."



"First, the discrepancy experience produced negative self-directed affect among low but not high prejudiced subjects. Theoretically, such guilty feelings should motivate discrepancy reduction (e.g., Rokeach, 1973) and should serve to establishstrong cues for punishment (cf. Gray, 1982). Second, the discrepancy experience heightened low but not high prejudiced subjects' self-focus. This finding is consistent with Pyszczynskiand Greenberg's (1986,1987) contention that ego-relevant discrepancies increase self-focus, which promotes subsequent regulation of behavior. Further examination of the self-thoughts provided a third indicator of the activation of self-regulatory mechanisms: Low prejudiced subjects in the discrepancy-activated condition were uniquely preoccupied with their personal prejudice-related discrepancy experiences. In fact, over half of their self-thoughts were focused on such discrepancies. Finally,the low prejudiced, discrepancy-activated subjects appeared to attend carefully to discrepancy-relevant information. They spent significantly more time reading the essay than their not-activated counterparts, whereas this difference was not significant for the high prejudiced subjects. The low prejudiced, discrepancy-activated subjects also showed superior recall for the portion of the essay concerning why prejudice-related discrepancies arise. Theoretically, the enhanced attention to discrepancy-relevant information and the heightened attention to personal discrepancy experiences should help low prejudiced individuals eventually gain control over their discrepant responses(see Gray, 1982)."

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- Monteith, M. (1993). Self-Regulation of Prejudiced Responses: Implications for Progress in Prejudice-Reduction Efforts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(3), 469-485.
- photograph by Bruce Gilden via

Prejudice. A Tripartite Conception.

Three components of prejudice are often mentioned: ignorance (arriving at a conclusion before considering facts), hostility (derogatory and hostile attitudes), externalisation (directed at others). Akhtar (2007) proposes an expanded definition since "this conventional tripod" is found "a bit wobbly".



Ignorance and ignoring are the centrepiece of prejudice's definition, however, the author argues, what constitutes a fact remains unclear "in these days of post-modern relativism" asking the question whether we should "restrict ourselves to external reality" or if "the facts in the internal, psychic reality matter as well". Limiting oneself to the former, though, does not mean that we are kept from using revisionist strategies and that sociopolitical interests "readily put a spin on available information to create suitable facts".
Hostility is true of most prejudices but they do not necessarily have to be negative and "naïve idealization is as much a manifestation of prejudice as is ignorant devaluation".
Externalisation of badness are projective mechanisms but they can also involve attitudes about oneself, i.e. turning the target of prejudice into the self (Akhtar, 2007).

Then there are the characterologically narcissistic situations of self-glorification in which a fatal denial of one's blemishes, hostility, and exploitativeness is evident. This too constitutes judgment withouth knowing the facts, though the facts here are mostly intrapsychic ones. On a large group level too, self-glorification occurs as a result of "robbing" a hated group of its good qualities and claiming them for oneself. Also involved here is a negation of the problematic aspects of one's own history. (...) One thing becomes clear in the end. Prejudice can be as easily directed at oneself as it is against others. This pertains to beoth its positive and negative forms, and is applicable to both individuals and groups.
This brief epistemological excursion demonstrates that prejudice can (1) occur in the presence of knowledge, (2) involve good feelings, and (3) be direced at oneself. 

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- Akhtar, S. (2007). From Unmentalized Xenophobia to Messianic Sadism: Some Reflections on the Phenomenology of Prejudice. In H. Parens, A. Mahfouz, S. W. Twemlow, & D. E. Scharff (eds.). The future of prejudice. Psychoanalysis and the prevention of prejudice (7-19). Lanham & Plymouth: Jason Aronson.
- photograph by Bruce Gilden (New Orleans Mardi Gras, 1982) via

Being an Elder in this Pandemic

"If you're not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can't be of very much use to yourself."
George Bernard Shaw



photograph of George Bernard Shaw via

Men and Women, Sexual and Emotional Jealousy

While I'm away
You can let the mouse go down on you
Let the mouse do what I'd do
If I was there
But you'd better explain
That I have a vendetta in my narrow bones
And a vindictive eye
Of my jealousy I have no control
No control



::: Franz Ferdinand "Bullet": LISTEN/WATCH

The evolution-based approach:

"A potentially rich framework for analyzing many aspects of interpersonal relationships has been provided by Evolutionary Psychology (Buss, 1994, Buss et al., 1999). With increasing frequency, jealousy as an aspect of relationship has been the focus of both empirical research and theoretical formulation.
It is often speculated that there are important gender differences with regard to the elicitation of jealousy. Women may be more threatened by the potential loss of attention and other emotional resources in a romantic relationship, whereas men may be more concerned about potential sexual infidelity. Based on the evolutionary model (Symons, 1979) it has been proposed that because males can never be completely confident about the paternity of any offspring they would be more concerned by sexual infidelity. Sexual infidelity would raise questions about paternity and the risk of investing resources, both human and economic, in another person's offspring. On the other hand, females would be more upset by emotional infidelity that might indicate a lack of long-term commitment and success of the relationship by the male. Females know that their offspring will have their genetic legacy, but need assurance that the partner will provide resources for the survival of the offspring (Cann et al., 2001)." (Bhowon, Ah-Kion & Tseung-Wong, 2004)

Doubting the evolutionary explanation and placing jealousy within an attachment theoretical perspective:

"Studies have found that more men than women endorse sexual infidelity as more distressing than emotional infidelity, whereas more women than men endorse emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. Some evolutionary psychologists have proposed that this sex difference can be best conceptualized as reflecting evolution-based differences in parental investment that produce a need for paternity certainty among men and a need for male investment in offspring among women. Nonetheless, a conspicuous subset of men report emotional infidelity as more distressing than sexual infidelity. Current theorizing explains between-sex differences but not within-sex differences. We hypothesized that attachment-style differences may help to explain both between- and within-sex differences in jealousy. As hypothesized, dismissing avoidant participants reported more jealousy regarding sexual than emotional infidelity (64.8%), and secure participants, including secure men, reported more jealousy regarding emotional than sexual infidelity (77.3%), chi(2)(3, N = 411) = 45.03, p < .001. A series of sequential logistic regression analyses indicated significant moderation of the sex-jealousy relationship by attachment style. Implications of an attachment perspective are discussed." (Levy & Kelly, 2010)

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- Bhowon, U., Ah-Kion, J. & Tseung-Wong, C. N. (2004). Jealousy in Sexual and Emotional Infidelity: A Study of Sex Differences. Gender and Behaviour,2,225-239.
- Levy, K. & Kelly, K. M. (2010). Sex Differences in Jealousy: A Contribution From Attachment Theory, Psychological Science, 21(2), 168-73
- image via

Female Singers + Album Covers

"This study investigates the image of popular female singers in different musical styles as conveyed through their album cover photographs. Slides were made of ninety-one albums recorded by women between 1973 and 1981. They were shown in subgroups to panels of judges who rated them on thirty-one traits. These traits represent either (a) aspects of the “traditional” feminine stereotype, (b) qualities of sexual attractiveness, or (c) positive, but not specifically feminine, traits. The results indicate that female singers were rated positively, regardless of musical style. Country singers were rated relatively high on the traditional traits, while rhythm and blues artists were high on sex appeal and positive traits. Rock singers were rated as aloof and high on positive traits but low on traditionalism and sex appeal. Pop singers were not rated high or low on any dimension. Some differences in male and female raters’evaluations were found. It was concluded that female recording artists generally are not presented in the same stereotyped manner as women are usually portrayed in other forms of media advertising." (Thaxton & Jaret, 2007)



- Thaxton, L. & Jaret, C. (2007). Singers and Stereotypes: The Image of Female Recording Artists. Sociological Inquiry, 55(3), 239-263.
- photograph of Diana Ross via

The Crazy Cat Lady

"Negative characterizations for those with an affinity for cats are not a recent phenomenon. One New York Times editorial from 1872, headlined ‘Cats and Craziness’, lays out a portrait of an infatuated cat-lover, differentiated from the more rationally behaved dog-lover." (Parsons et al., 2019)



Cat owners are regarded as more emotional, lonely and depressed than dog-owners (Parsons et al., 2019). According to a survey conducted by PetSmart (n = 1.000, USA, 2015), the stereotype of the "cat lady" is the most pervasive one when it comes to cats. Almost 50% of the survey participants bought into the idea that "most cat lovers are female, often spinsters, and that their homes are crawling with felines" although most cats live with families (via).

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- Pasons, C. E., LeBeau, R. T., Kringelbach, M. L. & Young, K. S. (2019). Pawsitively sad: pet-owners are more sensitive to negative emotion in animal distress vocalizations. The Royal Society Publishing, LINK
- photograph by Bruce Davidson via

"I am looking forward to be in ten years time when all of this will be just history."

"I wish Brexit would get the f*ck out of my life. No, wait, I wish Brexit had never appeared in my life. Brexit is an artificial problem. Before the referendum in 2016 nobody talked about this shit. Of course there were a few people that had problems, but I’m talking about the general population, nobody gave a flying f*ck about breaking relationships within the European Union. And now it has completely consumed every wicked minute of conversation in the UK. Not the UK, the whole f*cking world! Like here, you and I talking about this shit, it’s so boring, so destructive, I wish it could just f*ck off. And it is the same with Trump in the US: why is this madman in my f*cking life?! Why do I have to listen to this c*nt on the f*cking news every day?! I am looking forward to be in ten years time when all of this will be just history."
Alex Kapranos



Franz Ferdinand, gods of music, on YouTube:

::: Bullet: LISTEN/WATCH
::: This Fffire: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Auf Achse: LISTEN
::: Darts of Pleasure: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Lois Lane: LISTEN
::: Fresh Strawberries: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Lazy Boy: LISTEN
::: The Dark of the Matinée: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Slow Don't Kill Me Slow: LISTEN
::: Always Ascending: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Right Action: LISTEN/WATCH
::: No You Girls: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Stand on the Horizon: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Can't Stop Feeling: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Take Me Out: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Glimpse of Love: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Ulysses: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Do You Want To: LISTEN/WATCH

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photograph via

Female Hysteria and Uterine Melancholy: When Honouring the Phallus Becomes the Cure

Without doubt, hysteria is the first mental disorder exclusively attributed to women. It was first described by ancient Egyptians who said the condition derived from a spontaneous uterus movement. In Greek mythology, Argonaut Melampus cured Argo's virgins who exhibited madness by fleeing to the mountains instead of honouring the phallus. Their madness was caused by their uterus being poisoned due to a lack of orgasms leading to "uterine melancholy". The first step of his cure was having the mad virgins take hellebore and then "join carnally with young and strong men". A link between female madness and a lack of "normal" sexual life was established. According to Plato, Aristotle, and Hippocrates, the uterus suffers, is sad and unfortunate when it cannot join with the male body (Tasca et al., 2012).

The Euripidy’s myth says that a collective way of curing (or, if we prefer, preventing) melancholy of the uterus is represented by the Dionysian experience of the Maenads, who reached catharsis through wine and orgies. Women suffering from hysteria could be released from the anxiety that characterizes this condition by participating in the Maenad experience. Trance status guided and cured by the Satyr, the priest of Dionysus, contributed to solving the conflict related to sexuality, typical of hysteria disease.

Hippocrates believed hysteria was caused by abnormal movements of the restless, migratory uterus due to an inadequate sex life:

He asserts that a woman’s body is physiologically cold and wet and hence prone to putrefaction of the humors (as opposed to the dry and warm male body). For this reason, the uterus is prone to get sick, especially if it is deprived of the benefits arising from sex and procreation, which, widening a woman’s canals, promote the cleansing of the body. And he goes further; especially in virgins, widows, single, or sterile women, this “bad” uterus – since it is not satisfied - not only produces toxic fumes but also takes to wandering around the body, causing various kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. For this reason, he suggests that even widows and unmarried women should get married and live a satisfactory sexual life within the bounds of marriage.

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- Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G. & Fadda, B. (2012). Women And Hysteria In The History Of Mental Health. Clinical Practice & Epidemiology in Mental Health, 8, 110-119.
- photograph by Harvey Stein via

Quoting Elias Canetti

"There is nothing more base than a certain loathing for the oppressed that goes to great lengths to justify their downtrodden state by pointing to their shortcomings. Not even great and lofty philosophers are entirely free of this failing."
Elias Canetti, The Agony of Flies: Notes and Notations



photograph via

How Hot are Women with Rectovaginal Endometriosis? Yes, This Study Has Been Published.

The official objective of this study? "To evaluate physical attractiveness in women with and without endometriosis". Implications? Clinical utility? Contribution to medical science? None. Interventions? "Assessment of attractiveness by four independent female and male observers." Conclusions? "Women with rectovaginal endometriosis were judged to be more attractive than those in the two control groups. Moreover, they had a leaner silhouette, larger breasts, and an earlier coitarche."



Yes, this bunch of sexists seriously started judging female patients's attractiveness based on vulgar criteria, asked them about their first intercourse, checked their body mass index, waist-to-hip-ratio and breast-to-underbreast-ratio. Inclusion criteria were e.g. age between 20 and 40 and Caucasian origin. The subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire investigating general information in the first part and sexual history and sexual habits in the second part (62 refused to compile the sexual part of the questionnaire). Since this was not awkward enough, women afterwards "underwent a physical examination by the two trained physicians, including weight and height assessment, measurement of hip, waist, breast and underbreast circumferences. Once this overall evaluation was completed, other four different physicians (...) gave a judgment, based on direct evaluation, on patient attractiveness on a 5-point rating scale (5 = very attractive; 4 = rather attractive; 3 = averagely attractive; 2 = little attractive; 1 = not at all attractive)". On the basis of the mean scores, three categories were defined: very/rather attractive, averagely attractive, little/not at all attractive (29 were unwilling to undergo physical assessment). The would-be scientists "found out" that women with rectovaginal endometriosis had a significantly higher breast-to-underbreast ratio, leaner silhouette, larger breasts, earlier coitarche, and appeared more attractive than those with peritoneal and/or ovarian endometriosis, as well as those without endometriosis. And yes, this "study" is truly gross.

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- Vercellini, P., Buggio, L, Somigliana, E., Barbara G., Viganò, P. & Fedele, L. (2013). Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study. Fertility and Sterility, 99(1), 212-218.
- photograph by the amazing Vivian Maier (Chicago, 1961) via