Prejudice has been studied as a function of personality and situation, but there has been little integration of these 2 domains. Our model suggests that people who are especially open and agreeable are more likely to initiate intergroup contact and interpret contact experiences favorably. Such experiences lead to positive intergroup attitudes. To test this mediation hypothesis, participants ( N = 163) completed a measure of (a) the Big Five personality traits, (b) past contact experiences with African Americans, and (c) pro-Black/ anti-Black attitudes. A second study used Asian Americans as the outgroup. In both studies, the model was supported. The results have implications for integrating personality and situational approaches to prejudice and enhancing our understanding of intergroup relations.Prejudice, which may be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of a social group or its members, remains an important social issue around the world. As a result, numerous theories and programs of research designed to help explain prejudice continue to be advanced. While it is generally agreed that both personality and social forces are important determinants of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (Lewin, 1951), there has been little formal theoretical integration of these two domains with regard to understanding prejudice. While some theoretical and empirical work has linked personality to prejudice, most contemporary approaches to prejudice are rooted in one form or another of situationalism.In this paper, we review some personality approaches to prejudice and introduce a mediation model that integrates a well-established general theory of personality-the Five-Factor model (FFM)-with a well-established situational model of prejudice, intergroup contact theory. We then present and discuss the results of two studies, using different target out-groups, that empirically support the integration of personality and situation forces as predictors of intergroup prejudice.

Ostracism involves two parties: The group doing the exclusion (i.e., sources) and the target of the exclusion. Research on social exclusion has often focused on the targets. The current study, however, considers the experiences of both sources and targets. Members of four-person groups were randomly assigned to the roles of targets or sources of exclusion, and then interacted in a face-to-face setting. Participants' perceptions of themselves and other group members were then evaluated and also compared with control group members. Although targets were negatively affected by exclusion, the sources of exclusion also suffered negative consequences. In addition, these interactions (which were videotaped) were coded by independent judges. The observational data revealed that people use a variety of behaviors to exclude a target, and more stringent forms of exclusion corresponded to more negative outcomes.

There is considerable evidence from the social loafing literature that groups can often undermine task motivation (relative to comparable individual performers). There is less but growing evidence that under the appropriate conditions, working in a group can have the opposite effect and actually produce a motivation gain. Little is known about how such motivation losses and gains are affected by the social relationships among group members. The present experiment examined the effect of being ostracized by one's work partner on the Köhler motivation gain (which occurs when less able team members work harder under conjunctive group task demands than when working individually). Such ostracism attenuated but did not eliminate the Köhler motivation gain. Ostracism only had such a moderating effect when participants worked in a group, not under comparable coactive work conditions. It is argued that social ostracism can undermine group members' concern for group success or for protecting their reputation in the group without affecting the social comparison processes that also contribute to the Köhler effect. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Considerable research has by now documented that members of task performing groups often engage in social loafingthat is, they exert less effort than comparable individual performers (see Williams, 1993 and Shepperd, 1993, for reviews). Empirical demonstrations of the opposite result, where one or more workers actually try harder when performing in a group or team than as individuals have been far less frequent and prominent. Yet there is some evidence of such group motivation gains in the literature, particularly in the last decade or so (e.g., Erev, Bornstein, & Galili, 1993;Hertel, Kerr, & Messé, 2000a;Kerr & MacCoun, 1984;Kerr & Sullaway, 1983;Stroebe, Diehl, & Abakoumkin, 1996;Williams & Karau, 1991;Worchel, Rothgerber, Day, Hart, & Butemeyer, 1998). The present study focuses on one such group motivation-gain phenomenon, the Köhler effect (Köhler, 1926)-a tendency of less able workers to perform better when members of a team working under conjunctive task demands (where the performance of the least capable member defines the group's level of performance; Steiner, 1972) than when working individually. Our immediate focus is on whether and how this motivation gain is affected by the social ties among group members-specifically, how being ostracized by the rest of one's team affects one's willingness to work especially hard for the team.Several studies of the Köhler effect have now established the effect's robustness (e.g., Hertel et al., 2000a;Stroebe et al., 1996), determined a number of boundary conditions and moderators (e.g., Messé, Hertel, Kerr, Lount, & Park, 2002;Kerr, Messé, Park, & Sambolec, 2005;Lount, Messé, & Kerr, 2000), and most importantly, begun to identify the psychological processes that underlie it (e.g., Hertel et al., 2000a, Exp. 2; Hertel, Niemeyer, & Clauss, in press;Kerr, Messé, Seok, Sambolec, Lount, & Park, 2007). In particular, the Köhler...

There are many benefits derived from families, but not all family members are loving and accepting. Family members may act as sources of ostracism (people or groups who ostracize another person/group). We suggest sources engage in family ostracism for extended periods, their motives fit with prior theoretical models, and trait-level forgiveness may help understand source behavior. We analyzed data from 63 narratives and questionnaires to investigate the motives, power dynamics, and psychological correlates of sources of family ostracism. We found sources of ostracism are often of equal status to the targets of ostracism, and termination often occurs informally or is prompted by major changes in the family (e.g., birth, move). Also, sources of ostracism are often targets themselves suggesting family ostracism may be reciprocal in nature. Our findings support existing theory, but suggest ostracism in families has unique dynamics not captured in laboratory designs.

Faculty mentoring across gender, race, and culture is facilitated by formal mentoring programs. Mentoring across the cultural differences associated with social class, however, represents a largely unaddressed gap in the provision of formal faculty mentoring. Based on a pre-program needs survey, we designed and delivered a pilot program that served working-class faculty with mentoring on career self-efficacy. Assessment showed that working-class faculty mentees made gains in this important construct. Our concluding discussion reflects upon the role of mentoring in the experience of working-class faculty.