“Affective Honesty” as Example and Metaphor: Discussion of Holly Levenkron's “Love (and Hate) With the Proper Stranger: Affective Honesty and Enactment”

Levenkron begins with the thesis that the analyst is never outside of enactments between herself and her patient. The analyst must enage these enactments with affective honesty, and this must be done during the sessions within which the events in question occur (i.e., in the heat of the moment, without necessarily being able to formulate the relevant unconscious meanings). Levenkron's contribution is her recognition of the necessity for the confrontation created by the analyst's affectively honest reaction to the attempt by both the patient and herself to force the relationship along certain paths.     

Affective and normative commitment to organization, supervisor, and coworkers: Do collectivist values matter?

Employees’ commitment to their organization is increasingly recognized as comprising of different bases (affect-, obligation-, or cost-based) and different foci (e.g., supervisor, coworkers). Two studies investigated affective and normative commitment to the organization, supervisor and coworkers in the Turkish context. The results of Study 1 confirmed that employees differentiate between affect versus obligation-based commitment towards the organization, supervisor and coworkers. Study 2 tested the “cultural hypothesis” which argues for the moderating influence of collectivistic values on the relationship between person (local) commitments and organizational-level (global) outcomes. The results failed to support the cultural hypothesis and showed that commitment to organization was predictive of organizational-level outcomes (e.g., turnover intentions), and commitment to supervisor was predictive of supervisor-related outcomes (e.g., citizenship towards supervisor). These findings suggest that the influence of culture may be less straightforward and may require a more sophisticated measurement of the nature of relationships and organizational characteristics in general.     

Personality features and mate retention strategies: Honesty–humility and the willingness to manipulate,deceive, and exploit romantic partners

Personality features are associated with several relationship outcomes. We examined whether specific personality features differed in their associations with “mate retention” strategies. We examined the unique associations that personality features had with mate retention strategies reported by 179 community members in romantic relationships for at least 6 months. Personality features were associated with each of the mate retention strategies such that positive personality features (e.g., high levels of honesty–humility) were associated with less reliance on mate retention strategies that involved manipulating, deceiving, or exploiting romantic partners. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results for understanding the connection between personality features and behaviors intended to preserve and maintain romantic relationships.     

Primary Intersubjectivity: Empathy,Affective Reversibility, ‘Self-Affection’ and the Primordial ‘We’

The arguments advanced in this paper are the following. Firstly, that just as Trevarthen’s three subjective/intersubjective levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary, mapped out different modes of access, so too response is similarly structured, from direct primordial responsiveness, to that informed by shared pragmatic concerns and narrative contexts, to that which demands the distantiation afforded by representation. Secondly, I propose that empathy is an essential mode of intentionality, integral to the primary level of subjectivity/intersubjectivity, which is crucial to our survival as individuals and as a species. Further to this last point, I argue that empathy is not derived on the basis of intersubjectivity, nor does it merely disclose intersubjectivity, rather it is constitutive of intersubjectivity at the primary level. Empathy is a direct, irreducible intentionality separable in thought from the other primary intentional modes of perception, rationality, memory and imagination, but co-arising with these. In regard to the inter-personal level, the concrete relations with others, primary empathy is both the ground for the possibility of the secondary manifestations—pity, sympathy, perspective taking, etc., and motivates them. Thirdly, it is the movement in the core of subjectivity initially generated by shifting attention between the ‘I’ and ‘we’ perspectives and later ‘solidified’ through affect to become shifting identification, which opens up the intersubjective domain. So we can affirm that we are not only born into sociality but our sociality goes to the roots of our being as Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have claimed.     

The Affective Temperaments and Well-Being: Swedish and Iranian Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction and Psychological Well-Being

The aim was to investigate the role of the affective temperament model (AFTs) in distinguishing variations in well-being among adolescents from Sweden (n = 222) and Iran (n = 120). Participants self-reported positive (PA) and negative affect (NA), life satisfaction (LS) and psychological well-being (PWB). The model categorizes participants in four different temperaments using the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS): self-actualizing (high PA and low NA), high affective (high PA and high NA), low affective (low PA and low NA), and self-destructive (low PA and high NA). Across cultures, self-actualizing adolescents reported higher LS and PWB. The PWB sub-scale of self-acceptance was positively related to LS regardless of temperament profile or cultural background. Nevertheless, Iranian adolescents with self-destructive profiles reported higher LS than high affective Iranians. The AFTs model is suggested to offer something unique by taking into account the interaction of PA and NA.     

Honesty–Humility and the HEXACO Structure of Religiosity and Well-Being

Past research has shown that general and intrinsic religiosity is related to higher Big Five Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and, to some extent, Extraversion. With the rise of the six-factor HEXACO (Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness) model of personality, however, a more differentiated look at religiousness and personality is called for. It has been suggested that religiosity is more associated with Honesty–Humility than with Agreeableness. The new personality factor, Honesty–Humility has also been shown to have null or weak relations with happiness. In 5 studies involving 1375 participants from Iran, Poland, and Malaysia, the relations of Honesty–Humility and other HEXACO dimensions to religious orientation and well-being outcomes were investigated. As expected, Honesty–Humility was one of the strongest personality correlate of religiosity. Higher scores on religiousness were also associated with Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and to some extent, Extraversion showing that the main personality characteristics of religiosity are consistent across religious contexts and personality models. Relations of Honesty–Humility to psychological well-being scales were consistently positive and stronger than its relations to subjective well-being measures, suggesting that Honesty–Humility may not be “bad” for pleasure attainment and pain avoidance, but it is definitely “good” for living a virtuous, fully functioning life.     

On the Edge of Reason? Armed Robbery,Affective Transgression,and Bounded Rationality

Based on interviews with convicted armed robbers, this article presents their self-reported motivations. Aside from anticipated monetary reward, some of the distinctive foreground qualities of armed robbery, including hedonic thrills, fear arousal and control are revealed. The concept of “crime as defibrillation” is introduced to account for the sensory surge craved by these men to counter a life of systematic structural exclusion, dysphoria, and lack of prospect. Suffering from sensory asystole, it is only the most extreme and risky behavior, in the form of serious violent crime, that can revive a life otherwise flatlining and out of control.     

Honesty in Theology?

There is risk of intellectual dishonesty in the act of modernizing traditional doctrines. One reason theologians reform traditional doctrines is that the original formulations have become incredible to them. This is seldom honestly admitted. It is further dishonestly claimed that new formulations have a direct conceptual link to the old as if the new were the old retold. However, many times the connection between the new theology and the old is in name only, with radically new understanding for an old term. Can we honestly say so? Theology should resuscitate questions of intellectual honesty that were present at the Liberal theology's origins in the interest of maximizing honest theological inquiry. Can theology construct an ethics of belief for itself?     

College Students’ Affective Distress: The Role of Expectation Discrepancies and Communication

The discrepancy between college students’ performance and parents’ expectations may be related to college students’ affective distress. Further, the role that parent–college student communication reciprocity may play in the context of these discrepancies has not been examined. As a result, this study examined parent–college student expectation discrepancies and communication reciprocity as predictors of college students’ affective distress (i.e., anger, depression, and anxiety). Results of this study suggest that college student–parent expectation discrepancies, communication reciprocity, and college students’ affective distress (i.e., anger, depression, and anxiety) are interrelated significantly. Further, results from the hierarchical regressions conducted for this study suggest that college students’ perception of their communication reciprocity with their parents may be a more important predictor of college students’ depression and anxiety in the context of the expectation discrepancies examined in this study. These findings underscore the importance of teaching communication skills to college students and their parents as a means of diminishing the deleterious effects of perceiving one another inaccurately.     

It takes two: Honesty–Humility and Agreeableness differentially predict active versus reactive cooperation

Recently, similar six-factor solutions have emerged in lexical studies across languages, giving rise to the HEXACO model of personality. As a core extension of its most well-known predecessor, the five-factor model, the HEXACO model distinguishes between two factors predicting complimentary aspects of prosocial behavior or, more specifically, reciprocal altruism: Honesty–Humility (the tendency toward active cooperation, i.e. non-exploitation) and Agreeableness (the tendency toward reactive cooperation, i.e. non-retaliation). However, this dissociation has not yet been tested to its full extent. To this end, we herein present re-analyses of published studies (N = 1090), showing that Honesty–Humility, but not Agreeableness, indeed predicts active cooperation. More importantly, in a new experiment (N = 410), we found a pattern of two concurrent selective associations, supporting the theoretical distinction between the two factors: Honesty–Humility (but not Agreeableness) predicted active cooperation (non-exploitation in the dictator game), whereas Agreeableness (but not Honesty–Humility) was linked to reactive cooperation (non-retaliation in the ultimatum game).     

Cognitive,Affective, and Behavioral Responses to Ingroup’s Devalued Social Status: a Field Study at a Public University

In this study based on an actual event, we examined how group members cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally respond to devaluation of ingroup’s social status. Integrating predictions from Social Identity Theory (SIT; Tajfel and Turner 1986) and Intergroup Emotions Theory (IET; Smith et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 431–446 (2007)), we explored how appraisals about ingroup’s perceived decrease in status (i.e., stability and legitimacy of status change and permeability of group boundaries) are associated with discrete group-level emotions (e.g., anger, shame), and how those emotions in turn predict different coping strategies Blanz et al. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28(5), 697–729 (1998). Analyses of the results showed that: First, preference for each coping strategy varied according to appraisals of ingroup status, and the patterns were largely consistent with what SIT predicts. Second, different group-level emotions were reported according to appraisals of ingroup status. Third, inclusion of group-level emotions as mediators of associations between ingroup status appraisals and coping strategies significantly increased the explanatory power of the path models. In sum, this study demonstrated how the two theories on intergroup relations can be used together to offer a more detailed account of group identity management. For future direction, experimental or longitudinal designs as well as cross-cultural comparisons were suggested.     

Integrity and Honesty Testing: What Do We Know? How Do We Use It?

This selective review of integrity and honesty testing addresses two primary questions: ‘What do we know about honesty testing?’ and ‘How do we use what we know?’ Up-to-date information about test reliability, validity, and construct definition from recent reviews of the research literature in the USA is presented and interpreted. Relationships to other selection devices and personality measures are discussed, as well as how integrity tests fit into a multiple assessment selection system.