Two studies investigated the effects of cognitive busyness on the activation and application of stereotypes. In Experiment 1, not-busy subjects who were exposed to an Asian target showed evidence of stereotype activation, but busy subjects (who rehearsed an 8-digit number during their exposure) did not. In Experiment 2, cognitive busyness once again inhibited the activation of stereotypes about Asians. However, when stereotype activation was allowed to occur, busy subjects (who performed a visual search task during their exposure) were more likely to apply these activated stereotypes than were not-busy subjects. Together, these findings suggest that cognitive busyness may decrease the likelihood that a particular stereotype will be activated but increase the likelihood that an activated stereotype will be applied. Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the trouble of thinking.

We proposed that married persons would want their spouses to see them as they saw themselves but that dating persons would want their relationship partners to evaluate them favorably. A survey of 176 married and dating couples tested these predictions. Just as married persons were most intimate with spouses whose evaluations verified their self-views, dating persons were most intimate with partners who evaluated them favorably. For married people with negative self-views, then, intimacy increased as their spouses evaluated them more negatively. Marriage apparently precipitates a shift from a desire for positive evaluations to a desire for self-verifying evaluations.

Identity fusion is a feeling of oneness with the group that induces people to tether their feelings of personal agency to the group. We accordingly proposed that increasing the agency of fused persons by elevating autonomic arousal would amplify their tendency to endorse and actually enact pro-ingroup behavior. In 4 experiments, increasing autonomic arousal through physical exercise elevated heart rates and fusion-unrelated activity among all participants. Fused participants, however, uniquely responded to arousal by translating elevated agency into endorsement of pro-group activity. These effects emerged both for endorsement of extreme behaviors for the group and for overt behaviors, specifically helping behavior (donating money to needy in-group members), and the speed with which participants raced a fusion-related avatar. The effects also generalized across 3 different arousal inductions (dodgeball, wind sprints, and Exercycle). Finally, fusion-related agency partially mediated the interactive effects of fusion and arousal on pro-group behavior. Apparently, autonomic arousal increases agency and identity fusion channels increased agency into pro-group behavior.

Chronic ingestion of high concentrations of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] in drinking water induces intestinal tumors in mice. To investigate the mode of action (MOA) underlying these tumors, a 90-day drinking water study was conducted using similar exposure conditions as in a previous cancer bioassay, as well as lower (heretofore unexamined) drinking water concentrations. Tissue samples were collected in mice exposed for 7 or 90 days and subjected to histopathological, biochemical, toxicogenomic, and toxicokinetic analyses. Described herein are the results of toxicokinetic, biochemical, and pathological findings. Following 90 days of exposure to 0.3–520 mg/l of sodium dichromate dihydrate (SDD), total chromium concentrations in the duodenum were significantly elevated at ≥ 14 mg/l. At these concentrations, significant decreases in the reduced-to-oxidized glutathione ratio (GSH/GSSG) were observed. Beginning at 60 mg/l, intestinal lesions were observed including villous cytoplasmic vacuolization. Atrophy, apoptosis, and crypt hyperplasia were evident at ≥ 170 mg/l. Protein carbonyls were elevated at concentrations ≥ 4 mg/l SDD, whereas oxidative DNA damage, as assessed by 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine, was not increased in any treatment group. Significant decreases in the GSH/GSSG ratio and similar histopathological lesions as observed in the duodenum were also observed in the jejunum following 90 days of exposure. Cytokine levels (e.g., interleukin-1β) were generally depressed or unaltered at the termination of the study. Overall, the data suggest that Cr(VI) in drinking water can induce oxidative stress, villous cytotoxicity, and crypt hyperplasia in the mouse intestine and may underlie the MOA of intestinal carcinogenesis in mice.

We propose that because self-concepts allow people to predict (and thus control) the responses of others, people want to find support for their self-concepts. They accordingly gravitate toward relationship partners who see them as they see themselves. For people with negative self-views, this means embracing relationship partners who derogate them. Our findings confirmed this reasoning. Just as persons with positive self-concepts were more committed to spouses who thought well of them than to spouses who thought poorly of them, persons with negative self-concepts were more committed to spouses who thought poorly of them than to spouses who thought well of them.