The prevalence of despair in intractable conflicts: Direct messages of hope and despair affect leftists,but not rightists

In contexts of long-term conflict, it often seems easier to spread despair than to instill hope. The prevalence of despair, an emotion that promotes apathy, in contexts that so desperately need hope, an emotion that promotes conciliation, calls for further investigation. One possibility is that messages of hope and despair have different effects on people based on their political ideology. In the present research we examined the effect of direct despair- and hope-inducing messages (compared to a control condition involving a neutral message) on participants' experience of hope for peace, their sense of urgency to resolve the conflict, and subsequently their support for concession-making as a function of political orientation. Two samples of Jewish-Israelis were collected. Study 1 was collected using snowball methods, while Study 2 replicated and enhanced findings with a more representative sample of Jewish-Israeli society collected using an online survey platform. In both studies, messages of hope or despair yielded no influence on Rightists, whose baseline of hope is inherently low. However, for Leftists (experiencing higher levels of hope for peace) the despair manipulation significantly decreased support for concession-making through decreased hope for peace and sense of urgency to resolve the conflict, providing an explanation to the prevalence of despair over hope in conflict.     

Why and for whom does the pressure to help hurt others? Affective and cognitive mechanisms linking helping pressure to workplace deviance

Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms that potentially explain why helping pressure, counterintuitively, may lead employees to engage in deviant behavior instead. Beyond examining these possible mechanisms, we also answer calls to identify a potential buffer to these effects. Drawing from self-determination theory, we examine how an employee's intrinsic motivation for citizenship may lessen the deleterious consequences of helping pressure at work. In two studies (a within-individual experience-sampling study and a two-wave between-individual study), we find consistent evidence that helping pressure has a positive indirect relationship with deviant behavior through increased negative affect. Further, we find evidence that intrinsic motivation for citizenship weakens the positive relationship of helping pressure with negative affect, buffering the indirect effect on subsequent deviant behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the study of helping pressure at work are discussed.     

Insincerity and disloyalty

Insincerity is the intentional conflict between a state of mind and a synchronic linguistic act. Three cases have to be distinguished: lying, as the opposition of belief and assertion (the act is untruthful); dishonesty, as the opposition of will and declaration of will (act empty); and simulation, as the opposition of emotion and exclamation (act ungenuine). One of the problems arising is: Are there insincere commands, and if not, why?

Disloyalty, on the other hand, is a diachronic inconsequence, the breach of a linguistic action (act unredeemed) which was binding for the future (such as, e.g. a promise). There is a cross-connection to dishonesty, which can be seen as the will to be disloyal.

     

Existence and the existential quantifier

This paper draws a distinction between the existential quantifier and the symbol ‘∃’ used to express it, on the one hand, and existence and ‘exists’, on the other. It argues that some popular arguments in metaphysics, including arguments against vague existence and arguments against deflationary metaontology (which views ontological disputes as lacking substance), are guilty of fudging this distinction. The paper draws some lessons for metaphysical debate about existence and highlights some heretofore ignored and attractive positions in logical space.     

Finding voice in a year of collective trauma: Case study of an online photovoice project with youth

In this article, we share findings from a qualitative case study of a virtual youth photovoice program implemented across three regions of the United States. The purpose of the program was to engage youth in research on a social issue relevant to them during an unprecedented year marked by two public health crises, COVID-19 and anti-Black racial violence. Results of an analysis of curriculum and archival program materials lend support for online strategies for youth engagement including individualized support and online audiovisual presentations with avatars. Racial justice and trauma-informed adaptations were designed to be responsive to youth needs for flexible programming and safe spaces. Themes captured in the first online gallery of youth photos include (1) tools for mental health, (2) meaningful connection, and (3) community advocacy, bringing attention to structural issues as well as family and community strengths. Findings suggest photovoice can be thoughtfully adapted for youth researchers and support individual and group storytelling in response to collective trauma.     

On the logic of informational independence and its applications

We shall introduce in this paper a language whose formulas will be interpreted by games of imperfect information. Such games will be defined in the same way as the games for first-order formulas except that the players do not have complete information of the earlier course of the game. Some simple logical properties of these games will be stated together with the relation of such games of imperfect information to higher-order logic. Finally, a set of applications will be outlined.     

Conflict between incompetences and influence of a low-expertise source in hypothesis testing

In a 2–4–4–like reasoning task, 69 subjects tested hypotheses following exposure to a low-expertise source proposing an alternative hypothesis. Subjects compared self- and source's competence either independently or interdependently. Results show that interdependence leads subjects to assert self-validity and the source's invalidity, and to test hypotheses through confirmation. Independence produces a conflict between incompetences, i.e. doubt concerning self- and source's validity, leading to disconfirmatory testing.     

Uncertainty in estimating distances from memory

Magnitude estimations involving spatial characteristics, such as distance, typically show a compressive function when estimates are made from memory. In particular, as the magnitude of a property grows larger and larger, estimates become more and more inaccurate, with increasing underestimates of the actual magnitude. Previous theories have attempted to explain this difference by supposing that magnitude estimation was accomplished through a reperceptual process, in which the errors of perception are magnified, or a transformation process, in which the memory trace undergoes a consistent alteration toward a more schematic form. The present experiments present evidence in support of an uncertainty hypothesis. When subjects are uncertain of the actual value of a distance, they are forced to guess on the basis of the mean distance they encountered, because they are unable to retrieve the information accurately. When they can retrieve the information, they are more certain and their estimates are more accurate. This hypothesis was also extended to integrative conditions in which the subjects were presented with the stimulus display in a piecemeal fashion. In these cases, distance estimates were derived by combining spatial representations. This method of presentation caused distance estimates to become less accurate.