The present research examines the ambivalence of achievement goal promotion at university, and more specifically in the psychology curriculum. On the one hand, psychology teachers explicitly encourage mastery but not performance (neither approach nor avoidance) goals. On the other hand, the selection process encourages the endorsement of not only mastery but also performance-approach goals. In fact, it would seem that both performance-approach and mastery goals are valued in a university context. Two pilot studies verified the above assumptions. Subsequently, Experiments 1, 2, and 3 showed that each of these goals corresponds to different aspects of social value. Indeed, high endorsement of mastery goals was associated with being judged as both likable (social desirability) and likely to succeed (social utility). High endorsement of performance-approach goals enhanced social utility judgments but reduced perceived likability. Performance-avoidance goals only enhanced perceived likability. The discussion focuses on the 2 functions of university, namely education (apparent in the official discourse of teachers) and selection (apparent in the university structure), and on the perceived value of achievement goals.

Numerous studies have shown that alcohol increases aggression. In this article it is proposed that the link between alcohol and aggression is so strong that mere exposure to alcohol-related cues will automatically activate aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Two experiments tested this automaticity theory of alcohol-related aggression. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to alcohol- or weapon-related primes made faster lexical decisions about aggression-related words than did participants exposed to neutral primes. In Experiment 2, participants exposed to alcohol- or aggression-related subliminal primes were more aggressive toward the experimenter than were participants exposed to neutral subliminal primes. In both experiments, the effects of alcohol-related cues were as strong as the effect of aggression-related cues on aggressive thoughts and behaviors. People do not need to drink a drop of alcohol to become aggressive; exposure to alcohol cues is enough to automatically increase aggression.

Recent epidemiological observations suggest that clinical evolution of Plasmodium falciparum infections might be influenced by the concurrent presence of another Plasmodium species, and such mixed-species infections are now known to occur frequently in residents of most areas of endemicity. We used mice infected with P. berghei ANKA (PbA), a model for cerebral malaria (CM), to investigate the influence of experimental mixed-species infections on the expression of this pathology. Remarkably, the development of CM was completely inhibited by the simultaneous presence of P. yoelii yoelii but not that of P. vinckei or another line of P. berghei. In the protected coinfected mice, the accumulation of CD8 ؉ T cells in the brain vasculature, a pivotal step in CM pathogenesis, was found to be abolished. Protection from CM was further found to be associated with species-specific suppression of PbA multiplication. These observations establish the concept of mixed Plasmodium species infections as potential modulators of pathology and open novel avenues to investigate mechanisms implicated in the pathogenesis of malaria.

Outgroup perpetrators of discrimination are perceived as more biased than ingroup perpetrators, potentially because perpetrator group membership drives inferences regarding their motivation to discriminate. Consequently, when outgroup perpetrators provide hostile justification, greater discrimination and illegitimacy will be perceived compared to when ingroup perpetrators do so. In contrast, benevolent justifications reduce differences in discrimination and illegitimacy perception for outgroup versus ingroup perpetrators. In two experiments (Ns = 243; 382) dealing with sexism and racism, results supported our reasoning that the perpetrator’s explicit justification moderates the influence of the perpetrator’s group membership on discrimination and illegitimacy perception. Results of a third experiment (N = 489) show that when no justifications are provided, the prototype effect on discrimination perception mirrors the prototype effect under hostile justification, but not under benevolent justification. The results are more mixed concerning perceived illegitimacy. We discuss the implications of these findings regarding the processes underlying the prototype effect.

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Self-concept is accessible information that can be used when facing a demanding task. Based on findings suggesting that effects observed in Implicit Association Tests (IATs) could be partially explained by the procedural features of the task, we investigated the role of participants’ self-inclusion in target categories for group IATs. We propose that IAT constraints lead participants to use self-relevant heuristics related to their membership of target categories in order to respond rapidly, which contributes to IAT group preferences. Thus positive IAT effects should dramatically diminish if participants were induced not to use self-related heuristics. Study 1 showed that when mapping outgroup names and idiosyncratic characteristics of participants onto the same category during the IAT task, the IAT effect no longer occurs. Study 2 replicated these findings when associating outgroup-participants’ idiosyncratic characteristics prior to the completion of the standard IAT. Therefore inhibiting the use of self-related heuristics reduces IAT effects. The implications of our results for the construct validity of prejudice IATs are discussed.

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