Accountability and cooperation in social dilemmas: The influence of others’ reputational concerns

The present study examined the assumption that non-anonymous choices in social dilemmas (i.e., choices for which one is accountable) may influence cooperation, but only to the extent that decision-makers believe that the others will evaluate non-cooperation negatively. Based on a recent review by Kerr (1999), it was expected that under conditions of accountability, decision-makers would cooperate more when they believed that the others within the group were also concerned about their social reputation and therefore were aware of the social norm of cooperation within social dilemmas. As a consequence, it could be expected that non-cooperation by oneself would be evaluated negatively by those others since they seemed to be aware of what ought to be done in a social dilemma (i.e., the norm of cooperation). Results confirmed these predictions and, in addition, also showed that greater willingness to cooperate was associated with stronger feelings of collective concern. The findings are discussed in terms of recent literature on anonymity effects in social dilemmas. This research was part of the second author's master thesis at Maastricht University. The first author was supported by a fellowship of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, no. 016.005.019).     

The decapitation of Slovenia’s Catholic Church: social factors and consequences

This article discusses the financial collapse of Slovenia’s Catholic Church, a scandal which resulted in the deposition of the country’s archbishops, and its impact on religious belief and on the relations within the Slovenian Catholic establishment and community. Trust in the Church and religious participation have dropped markedly in Slovenia over recent years. While there are no significant changes in religious belief, other religious indicators continue to reflect an ongoing moderate trend towards secularisation that is characteristic of Slovenia in the post-socialist era. The public discourse of the Church’s leadership and lay Catholics reveals tensions on the reasons behind the fall of the Church’s financial empire and on the question of responsibility in the removal of Slovenia’s archbishops. Two general types of reactions were identified in a content analysis of texts from a five-month period after the last depositions. Views within the Slovene Catholic Church, which uphold the institution’s traditional stance, tend to explain these developments as part of a conspiracy against the Church. Others that are more open and reflective are critical towards the actions of the Church and demand change from within the institution.     

Children’s judgments of social interactive behaviors with peers: the influence of age and gender

Participants (138 children; 7–12 years of age) rated how often nice and not nice behaviors occurred when (a) participants (boys/girls) were the actor and peers (males/females) were the target and (b) when participants were the target of peers’ actions in a school setting. Children indicated they were nicer to their same-gender peers than to their opposite-gender peers. Also, older boys, in comparison to young boys, indicated that not nice interactions occurred more often among them and male peers. Nice (e.g., helping) and not nice (e.g., verbal aggression) behaviors were also generated, which also differed by age and gender. Finally, this study has important implications for educators in that from children’s point of view these are the types of behaviors that are occurring during their time at school. Although there are programs in schools that are aimed at decreasing physical aggression, more attention should be given to the more indirect or subtle forms of aggression, such as social manipulation and verbal. At the same time, programs that encourage nice behaviors, such as helping and sharing, should be expanded.     

The influence of social networks within sports teams on athletes’ eating and exercise psychopathology: A longitudinal study

Teammates have been found to have an impact on athletes’ eating and exercise psychopathology via multiple influence mechanisms (e.g., modelling, making critical comments). However, far less is known about the role of the team social network (i.e. the pattern and strength of relationships between teammates). This novel longitudinal study aimed to explore how athletes’ eating and exercise psychopathology becomes more (convergence) or less (divergence) similar to their teammates’ over time and to explore how this varies for male and female athletes. A second aim was to identify the role of team social network variables (e.g., popularity) in determining individuals’ levels of eating and exercise psychopathology. Athletes (N = 199, mean age 18 years, n = 123 female) from 20 teams/training groups completed a survey regarding their teammate relationships and eating/exercise psychopathology (Eating Disorder Inventory-2; Athlete Compulsive Exercise Test) at three time points over a 7-month period. Significant interaction effects between time and gender were noted for athlete team variability in eating and exercise psychopathology, where both convergence and divergence of eating and exercise psychopathology was evident. In addition, being well connected to teammates, acting as the bridge between groups of teammates or being part of a cohesive team were longitudinally associated with reduced exercise psychopathology. Disordered eating and exercise prevention strategies should look to harness the behavioural convergence effect demonstrated here, by encouraging healthy eating/exercise practices among teammates. Furthermore, coaches should foster cohesive teammate relationships and be aware of how an athlete’s social positioning within their team may affect their susceptibility to exercise psychopathology.     

The fate of the forgotten: Chamberlain’s work reconsidered

This article discusses the early psychological traditions developed at Clark University under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall. Anthropology and cultural psychology are both rooted in the notion that humans are social beings. That idea constituted a brief moment of theoretical unity between psychology and anthropology in the study of human language in its psychological functions. In that context, the work of Alexander Chamberlain is explored as a major contribution. Chamberlain—if viewed in the jargon of our contemporary social scientists—was deeply “interdisciplinary” in his work. Despite the positive meaning of the term “interdisciplinary” in contemporary discourse about the social sciences, the realities of social organization of any science entail separation rather than integration. Chamberlain’s work took place in parallel in anthropology and in developmental psychology under the interdisciplinary emphasis of “child study” as set up by G. Stanley Hall. Hall made child study the distinctive feature of the “Clark tradition” of psychology. Chamberlain’s work constituted both the beginning and the end of the (miniscule) “Clark tradition” in anthropology.     

The appeal of the devil’s eye: social evaluation affects social attention

Humans typically exhibit a tendency to follow the gaze of conspecifics, a social attention behaviour known as gaze cueing. Here, we addressed whether episodically learned social knowledge about the behaviours performed by the individual bearing the gaze can influence this phenomenon. In a learning phase, different faces were systematically associated with either positive or negative behaviours. The same faces were then used as stimuli in a gaze-cueing task. The results showed that faces associated with antisocial norm-violating behaviours triggered stronger gaze-cueing effects as compared to faces associated with sociable behaviours. Importantly, this was especially evident for participants who perceived the presented norm-violating behaviours as far more negative as compared to positive behaviours. These findings suggest that reflexive attentional responses can be affected by our appraisal of the valence of the behaviours of individuals around us.     

The influence of culture on children’s immediate and delayed retrieval

Culture shapes children’s memories. However, scant attention has been given to the influence of culture on specific memory stages. Thus, we conducted two controlled experiments to examine cultural differences in memory recall at immediate and delayed retrieval phases. In Studies 1 and 2 (n = 217), 7- to 10-year-old Chinese and Euro-Canadian children watched a story involving both social- and individual-focused scenarios. Participants then recalled the story immediately afterwards (Study 1) and 5–7 days later (Studies 1 and 2). Findings reveal that Chinese children accurately reported more details from the social-focused events than did their Euro-Canadian counterparts in the immediate interview, and this result was replicated after a delay in both studies. Moreover, as expected, within-country comparisons showed that Euro-Canadian children had better memory for individual- than for social-focused events in both studies. Chinese children, however, showed better memory for social- than for individual-focused events only in the immediate interview in Study 1; their delayed retrieval was not affected by event focus. These findings reveal that cultural variations in memory are evident in both immediate and delayed retrieval. Implications for future research are discussed.     

A further analysis of Zhu Xi’s theory of mind

Mind was the oneness of form and function. The change from an old theory to a new one about zhong 中 (the mean) and he 和 (harmony) was a shift from the idea of the separate form of nature and function of mind to one about both form and function of mind. Form was both the form of the spirit of the mind and of the substantiality of nature (not the same as substantial realities in substantialism); it was the integration of vacancy and substantiality, the integration of mind and nature. In contrast, function meant both feelings and perceiving action. It was infeasible to interpret function without reference to form; likewise, it was impractical to talk about perception without mentioning nature. On the other hand, a knower represented nature through concrete things and his actions, and a perceiver enlightened himself, realizing the self-consciousness of nature as a whole. Mind, nature, and perception could be interpreted as a whole, and these three could be separated too. Viewed in general, mind, nature, and principles were oneness; observed separately, nature differed with principles: nature meant principles, but perception was the quintessence of qi. The unfolding of perception, however, had its independence, and could be easily influenced by qi; thus, it was necessary to transform and cultivate qi-related temperament. Realistically, a man needs to face up to himself and to transform himself, and this sentiment is inspiring for today.     

“Transformation Tuesday”: Temporal context and post valence influence the provision of social support on social media

Social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have become integral in the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. Users of SNSs seek social support and validation, often using posts that illustrate how they have changed over time. The purpose of the present research is to examine how the valence and temporal context of an SNS post affect the likelihood of other users providing social support. Participants viewed hypothetical SNS posts and reported their intentions to provide social support to the users. Results revealed that participants were more likely to provide social support for posts that were positive and included temporal context (i.e., depicted improvement over time; Study 1). Furthermore, this research suggests that visual representations of change over time are needed to elicit social support (Study 2). Results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for SNS users and theoretical implications for the literature on social support and social media.     

Ability Theories of Practice and Turner’s Criticism of Bourdieu

The aim of this paper is to provide a characterization of ability theories of practice and, in this process, to defend Pierre Bourdieu’s ability theory against Stephen Turner’s objections. In part I, I outline ability theorists’ conception of practices together with their objections to claims about rule following and rule explanations. In part II, I turn to the question of what ability theorists take to be the alternative to rule following and rule explanations. Ability theorists have offered, and been ascribed, somewhat different answers to this question, just as their replies, or positive accounts, have been heavily criticized by Turner. Due to this state of the debate, I focus on the positive account advanced by a single—and highly famous—ability theorist of practice, Pierre Bourdieu. Moreover, I show that despite Turner’s claims to the contrary, his arguments do not refute Bourdieu’s positive account.     

That’s not my place: The interacting effects of faultlines,subgroup size,and social competence on social loafing behaviour in work groups

Taking a social relations approach to team diversity, we propose that faultlines—hypothetical dividing lines that split a team into relatively homogeneous subgroups—impact the team members’ propensity to exhibit social loafing behaviour. We further propose that this individual-level reaction to the faultline structure of the team can differ among team members, depending on the size of their subgroup and on their individual social competence. We tested the assumptions with a sample of real teams working on an intellective task during which social loafing behaviour was video-coded. In partial support of the hypotheses, generalized mixed models revealed that social loafing behaviour was most common for team members who were part of a team with strong faultlines, who belonged to the larger subgroup in their team, and who exhibited low levels of social competence. The results therefore highlight the benefits of taking a multilevel approach to the effects of faultlines.     

The role of social support in women’s health and recovery processes

The aim of this study was to assess the psychological state of women who have undergone surgery for breast cancer or cardiac surgery, including examination of the role of social support in both groups. The study included 48 women (mean age: 66.04?±?8.3 years). They were divided into two groups according to diagnosis: 23 women (mean age: 69.2?±?8.6 years) who underwent heart surgery (cardiac group, CG) and 25 women (mean age: 63.2?±?7.0 years) treated for breast cancer and associated with the Women After Mastectomy Club (oncology group, OG). In addition to the assessment of socio-demographic variables, the following self-report questionnaires were administered: Satisfaction with Life Scale, Acceptance of Illness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory as well as Berlin Social Support Scale. In the CG, the severity of depressive symptoms was two times higher than in OG (p?=?.003). In both groups, there was a high percentage (80%) of women with severe symptoms of anxiety (p?=?.37). In both groups, the level of life satisfaction was similar (p?=?.58), but OG was characterized by a higher level of acceptance of the disease (p?=?.003). The correlation analysis showed that in both groups, social support was related differently to the parameters of emotional state. Women treated for breast cancer were in a better mental condition than women treated for heart disease. The support coming from other women in similar circumstances (Women After Mastectomy Club) seems to be more effective than the support coming from the patient’s immediate environment. The results for social support ought to be interpreted not only through the prism of mean values of received support, but also with regard to the information on the sources of support.     

The effects of physical work,mental work,and quantity on children’s time perception

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of work and quantity cues on children’s time perception. Ninety-seven children in kindergarten...     

Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics: its origin and relevance

This paper offers an exposition of Husserl's mature philosophy of mathematics, expounded for the first time in Logische Untersuchungen and maintained without any essential change throughout the rest of his life. It is shown that Husserl's views on mathematics were strongly influenced by Riemann, and had clear affinities with the much later Bourbaki school.

The push of social pain: Does rejection’s sting motivate subsequent social reconnection?

Physical pain motivates the healing of somatic injuries, yet it remains unknown whether social pain serves a similarly reparative function toward social injuries. Given the substantial overlap between physical and social pain, we predicted that social pain would mediate the effect of rejection on greater motivation for social reconnection and affiliative behavior toward rejecters. In Study 1, the effect of rejection on an increased need to belong was mediated by reports of more intense social pain. In Study 2, three neural signatures of social pain (i.e., activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, left and right anterior insula during social rejection), each predicted greater behavioral proximity to rejecters. Our findings reify the overlap between social and physical pain. Furthermore, these results are some of the first to demonstrate the reparative nature of social pain and lend insight into how this process may be harnessed to promote postrejection reconnection.