The stereotyping literature within psychology has grown considerably over the past decade. In large part, this growth can be attributed to progress in understanding the individual mechanisms that give rise to stereotypic thinking. In the current review, the recent psychological literature on stereotypes is reviewed, with particular emphasis given to the cognitive and motivational factors that contribute to stereotype formation, maintenance, application, and change. In addition, the context-dependent function of stereotypes is highlighted, as are the representational issues that various models of stereotypes imply.

In this article we argue that self-deception evolved to facilitate interpersonal deception by allowing people to avoid the cues to conscious deception that might reveal deceptive intent. Self-deception has two additional advantages: It eliminates the costly cognitive load that is typically associated with deceiving, and it can minimize retribution if the deception is discovered. Beyond its role in specific acts of deception, self-deceptive self-enhancement also allows people to display more confidence than is warranted, which has a host of social advantages. The question then arises of how the self can be both deceiver and deceived. We propose that this is achieved through dissociations of mental processes, including conscious versus unconscious memories, conscious versus unconscious attitudes, and automatic versus controlled processes. Given the variety of methods for deceiving others, it should come as no surprise that self-deception manifests itself in a number of different psychological processes, and we discuss various types of self-deception. We then discuss the interpersonal versus intrapersonal nature of self-deception before considering the levels of consciousness at which the self can be deceived. Finally, we contrast our evolutionary approach to self-deception with current theories and debates in psychology and consider some of the costs associated with self-deception.

Social cognition broadly refers to the processing of social information in the brain that underlies abilities such as the detection of others' emotions and responding appropriately to these emotions. Social cognitive skills are critical for successful communication and, consequently, mental health and wellbeing. Disturbances of social cognition are early and salient features of many neuropsychiatric, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, and often occur after acute brain injury. Its assessment in the clinic is, therefore, of paramount importance. Indeed, the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) introduced social cognition as one of six core components of neurocognitive function, alongside memory and executive control. Failures of social cognition most often present as poor theory of mind, reduced affective empathy, impaired social perception or abnormal social behaviour. Standard neuropsychological assessments lack the precision and sensitivity needed to adequately inform treatment of these failures. In this Review, we present appropriate methods of assessment for each of the four domains, using an example disorder to illustrate the value of these approaches. We discuss the clinical applications of testing for social cognitive function, and finally suggest a five-step algorithm for the evaluation and treatment of impairments, providing quantitative evidence to guide the selection of social cognitive measures in clinical practice.

How rapidly can animal populations in the wild evolve when faced with sudden environmental shifts? Uplift during the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake abruptly created freshwater ponds on multiple islands in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. In the short time since the earthquake, the phenotypes of resident freshwater threespine stickleback fish on at least three of these islands have changed dramatically from their oceanic ancestors. To test the hypothesis that these freshwater populations were derived from oceanic ancestors only 50 y ago, we generated over 130,000 singlenucleotide polymorphism genotypes from more than 1,000 individuals using restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq). Population genomic analyses of these data support the hypothesis of recent and repeated, independent colonization of freshwater habitats by oceanic ancestors. We find evidence of recurrent gene flow between oceanic and freshwater ecotypes where they co-occur. Our data implicate natural selection in phenotypic diversification and support the hypothesis that the metapopulation organization of this species helps maintain a large pool of genetic variation that can be redeployed rapidly when oceanic stickleback colonize freshwater environments. We find that the freshwater populations, despite population genetic analyses clearly supporting their young age, have diverged phenotypically from oceanic ancestors to nearly the same extent as populations that were likely founded thousands of years ago. Our results support the intriguing hypothesis that most stickleback evolution in fresh water occurs within the first few decades after invasion of a novel environment. 27, 1964, the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America struck the south coast of Alaska (1, 2). This catastrophic event uplifted islands in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska in just a few minutes, creating ponds from formerly marine habitat and setting the stage for the diversification of threespine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in these new freshwater sites. This seismic disturbance provides an excellent opportunity to address long-standing evolutionary questions regarding how often dramatic phenotypic shifts can happen over contemporary timescales (3-7).Despite examples of rapid divergence in wild populations, evolutionary rates may often be constrained by a suite of factors (8). For example, evolution in new habitats may be limited by waiting times for new beneficial mutations (9-11). Even when adaptation occurs from standing genetic variation, evolution via selection of numerous independent loci of small effect may be time consuming (12-16). We know, however, that evolution can occur rapidly, particularly under artificial selection or in human-altered landscapes (17-21). In addition, empirical studies in the wild-particularly in response to significant environmental changes-have demonstrated that strong selection and rapid evolution over decades may be more common than once thought (22-24).A rapid evolutionary response is predict...

Social identity threat is the notion that one of a person's many social identities may be at risk of being devalued in a particular context (C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, 2002). The authors suggest that in domains in which women are already negatively stereotyped, interacting with a sexist man can trigger social identity threat, undermining women's performance. In Study 1, male engineering students who scored highly on a subtle measure of sexism behaved in a dominant and sexually interested way toward an ostensible female classmate. In Studies 2 and 3, female engineering students who interacted with such sexist men, or with confederates trained to behave in the same way, performed worse on an engineering test than did women who interacted with nonsexist men. Study 4 replicated this finding and showed that women's underperformance did not extend to an English test, an area in which women are not negatively stereotyped. Study 5 showed that interacting with sexist men leads women to suppress concerns about gender stereotypes, an established mechanism of stereotype threat. Discussion addresses implications for social identity threat and for women's performance in school and at work.

These findings are consistent with theoretical models that regard cognitive empathy as an essential prerequisite for good interpersonal functioning. However, the cross-sectional nature of the study leaves open the question of causality for future studies.

Open-ended cognitive assessment techniques have helped illuminate the cognitive structures and processes underlying various clinical problems. The authors review a specific open-ended protocol analysis for assessing cognitive structures and processes-the thought-listing technique. They begin with a brief description of this technique and its validity, limitations, and potential clinical use. They then review representative research using the thought-listing technique in studies of psychopathology and psychotherapy. They conclude with a discussion of new and potentially useful methods (e.g., adjusted ratio of clustering scores, multidimensional scaling, implicit memory measures) for mapping cognitive representations and coping processes on the basis of data from thought listings in clinical and counseling psychology.

An experiment examined the hypothesis that elderly people rely on stereotypes more, and are more prejudiced, than younger people because of deficits in the ability to inhibit information. Consistent with predictions, elderly people relied on stereotypes even when instructed not to, whereas young people did not. Elderly people also were more prejudiced than young people, and these differences in stereotyping and prejudice were mediated by age differences in inhibitory ability. Because elderly people reported a stronger desire than young people to control their prejudiced reactions, these results suggest that inhibitory failure can cause people to become more prejudiced than they want to be.