Is depression taxonic,dimensional, or both?

The current investigation examines the potential importance of item selection in the ongoing discussion regarding the taxonicity of depression. Following J. C. Coyne (1994), we contrast the taxonicity of "distress" with the taxonicity of a syndrome more focused on somatic symptoms (i.e., the involuntary defeat syndrome). Using 4 samples of 984 undergraduates, we first replicate the J. Ruscio and A. M. Ruscio (2000) results by showing that distress item indicators are dimensional. We then demonstrate taxonicity using items focused on somatic symptoms and reflective of disruption of multiple homeostatic mechanisms. Results suggest that item selection is central to the determination of taxonicity in depression.     

Who are you and what do you want? Life aspirations,personality, and well-being

In two studies with undergraduate samples, we investigated the relations between life aspirations and personality and evaluated whether aspirations added to the prediction of psychological well-being and sexuality. Within the HEXACO framework, aspirations were highly related to Honesty–Humility. Within the Big Five framework, intrinsic aspirations were related to high Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, and extrinsic aspirations were most related to low Openness and Agreeableness. Aspirations did not add to the HEXACO’s prediction of well-being in study one, but in study two, aspirations added to the prediction of sexuality variables beyond the two personality frameworks. These results suggest that aspirations may account for beyond personality in explaining specific types of well-being.     

Is revenge about retributive justice,deterring harm,or both?

This paper explores the vast literature on revenge and retributive punishment to ascertain whether revenge seekers are primarily seeking retribution or to deter future harm. This review considers research findings from social, consumer, evolutionary, and industrial/organizational psychology. Revenge is defined as an action in response to some perceived wrongdoing by another party that is intended to inflict damage, injury, discomfort, or punishment on the party judged responsible. In support of the perspective that revenge is about retribution, vengeance is typically triggered only by unjust harms, revenge‐seekers report a moral imperative, justice beliefs predict revenge, and justice‐related information has the greatest influence on punishment calculations. On the other hand, a plethora of findings in economic games such as serial prisoner dilemmas reveal that tit‐for‐tat style revenge is an effective means of deterring future harm. Overall, the evidence seems to support a retribution model of revenge over a deterrence model; however, as this review describes in its conclusion, the psychology of revenge is in need of further investigation along several key dimensions.     

Gain face,but lose happiness? It depends on how much money you have

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of face consciousness on happiness and the moderating role of financial situation on this relationship. We first examined our hypotheses in study 1 in a particular setting of consumption, and replicated our findings in study 2 in a more generalized setting of interpersonal situations. The two studies produced essentially consistent results. We found individuals high on face consciousness tend to be less happy, and the negative association between face consciousness and happiness is ameliorated by their financial situation. These results revealed the importance of face consciousness as an individual difference in predicting happiness. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Universal Grammar, statistics or both?

Recent demonstrations of statistical learning in infants have reinvigorated the innateness versus learning debate in language acquisition. This article addresses these issues from both computational and developmental perspectives. First, I argue that statistical learning using transitional probabilities cannot reliably segment words when scaled to a realistic setting (e.g. child-directed English). To be successful, it must be constrained by knowledge of phonological structure. Then, turning to the bona fide theory of innateness--the Principles and Parameters framework--I argue that a full explanation of children's grammar development must abandon the domain-specific learning model of triggering, in favor of probabilistic learning mechanisms that might be domain-general but nevertheless operate in the domain-specific space of syntactic parameters.     

Self-presentations of happiness: sincere, polite, or cautious?

Two studies addressed the meaning of expressed happiness in social relationships. In the first study, men expected to interact with a socially desirable or a socially undesirable woman. It was predicted that (a) when about to meet a socially undesirable woman, men would display more happiness publicly than is felt privately and (b) when about to meet a socially desirable woman, men would display less happiness publicly than felt privately. Results supported the former and tended to support the latter prediction. In the second study, the authors predicted that women would mistrust men's expressions of happiness upon meeting them such that (a) unattractive women would suspect men of inflating happiness and (b) attractive women would suspect men of suppressing happiness. Results supported the former but not the latter hypothesis. Taking relationship-specific goals into account appears to be important in determining whether emotion will be accurately conveyed and can be trusted.     

For God's sake,what do those women want?

“Of course, you were just trying to make sure she was being 'realistic' in her choice—this was what she really wanted to do—but she got the message.“     

The more you have,the more you want? Higher social class predicts a greater desire for wealth and status

Traditional theories have focused on the intentions of lower-class individuals to climb on the social ladder, yet they have paid relatively little attention to the motivations of upper-class individuals to ascend even higher. Addressing this issue, Studies 1 and 2 provided cross-national evidence that higher social class is associated with a greater desire for wealth and status. Moreover, by manipulating perceived social class, Studies 3 and 5 experimentally confirmed that compared to people in the lower-class group, those in the upper-class group express a stronger desire for wealth and status. Furthermore, in line with self-categorization theory predictions, Studies 3–5 showed that upper-class individuals tend to see and use wealth and status as important attributes in defining and categorizing self, and this tendency explains the effect of social class on desire for wealth and status. Together, our findings demonstrate a “having more—wanting more” relationship, and its consequences are further discussed.     

Who expressed what emotion? Men grab anger,women grab happiness

When anger or happiness flashes on a face in the crowd, do we misperceive that emotion as belonging to someone else? Two studies found that misperception of apparent emotional expressions—“illusory conjunctions”—depended on the gender of the target: male faces tended to “grab” anger from neighboring faces, and female faces tended to grab happiness. Importantly, the evidence did not suggest that this effect was due to the general tendency to misperceive male or female faces as angry or happy, but instead indicated a more subtle interaction of expectations and early visual processes. This suggests a novel aspect of affordance-management in human perception, whereby cues to threat, when they appear, are attributed to those with the greatest capability of doing harm, whereas cues to friendship are attributed to those with the greatest likelihood of providing affiliation opportunities.     

Verbal probabilities: Ambiguous, context-dependent, or both?

To investigate the communication value of verbal probabilistic phrases, like “possibly,” “probably,” and “perhaps,” three experiments were conducted. Subjects were asked to judge the degree of probability expressed by such phrases in different contexts: in sentences reflecting opinions on current events, in a medical discussion of treatment effectiveness, and in videotaped news reports. Judgments of degree of probability were performed in the first study on a 0–100% probability scale and in the other two on 7-point rating scales. Results indicated that different contexts influence the interpretation of probability terms and in many cases, but not always, lead to higher between-subject variability than when the terms are judged in isolation, presumably because the interpretation of probability terms tends to be correlated with the judges' personal opinions on the topics. Special communication problems arise from the fact that most people are not fully aware of the ambiguity of these phrases and underestimate the variability of such ratings in the general population. Miscommunication between experts and the general public was illustrated by answers to a questionnaire given to general medical practitioners and to parents of small children. The latter preferred numerical probabilities to words, but thinking from an individual-oriented perspective, they often misunderstood the intended statistical meanings.     

Who wants privacy protection,and what do they want?

As privacy controversies have become more salient since the early 1980s, one response by policy makers has been to try to encourage consumers to demand privacy protection, by expecting goods and services to be designed with privacy‐enhancing technologies (PETs) embedded in them. But what scope is there for this? Conventional approaches to understanding consumer demand for privacy protection have not been very helpful in providing robust accounts of when consumers will want which kinds of protection. This paper offers a neo‐Durkheimian institutionalist theoretical account of the roots of consumer preferences for privacy and services with PETs in particular, which yields testable hypotheses for future research. It grounds preferences in risk perceptions, shows how distinct styles of risk perceptions are the result of distinct types of situation in social organisation, and derives typical demand curves for each of these types, before exploring the extent of mobility of preferences predicted by the theory, which in turn provides the basis for understanding the scope for persuading consumers to demand privacy‐respecting services of different types. Rooted in the sociology of knowledge and in anthropological approaches, the argument represents a challenge to psychometric, naïve empiricist and postmodernist accounts, and it offers a distinct research agenda. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

Do you believe happiness can change? An investigation of the relationship between happiness mindsets,well-being,and satisfaction

Three studies (N = 794) examined if beliefs about the malleable nature of happiness (growth mindsets) are associated with well-being and if this well-being had downstream implications for satisfaction with one’s relationships (Studies 1–3), health (Study 3), and job (Study 3). In Study 1 (N = 277), happiness growth mindsets were associated with greater well-being and greater relationship satisfaction. In Study 2 (N = 337), using an experimental paradigm and serial mediation, encouraging growth mindsets led to stronger beliefs in the changeable nature of happiness, which in turn was associated with subjective well-being, and, finally, relationship satisfaction. In Study 3 (N = 180), we replicated the downstream effects of growth mindsets of happiness on well-being and subsequently on relationship satisfaction and extended these serial mediation effects to health and job satisfaction. We discuss the implications of happiness mindsets.     

Human reasoning: Deduction rules or mental models, or both?

A good deal of energy is currently being expended into discovering the fundamental machinery underlying deductive reasoning. Is it based upon mental models (arrays) or deduction rules (propositions)? The appeal of finding a “grand unified theory” of reasoning is obvious, but the likelihood of achieving this must also be considered.

This paper discusses the use of experimental psychology in attempts to discover the processes associated with the fundamental reasoning mechanism. One particular problem is that individuals can use different strategies to solve reasoning problems. The consequences of this are assessed in relation to: (1) the assumptions underlying the experiments, (2) the choice of tasks and task presentations intended to enable the fundamental reasoning processes to be viewed directly, and (3) the power status of the theories and the nature of the evidence required to show that either theory is superior. Under close scrutiny the debate appears to be unresolvable by using empirical techniques. However, although the main conclusions are negative, it is suggested that approaches that directly investigate individual differences are likely to be useful alternatives.     

Do you understand what you are reading?

This article discusses the concepts of literacy, theological literacy and literacy practices as a resource for understanding how tradition and faith/belief are intertwined. Against the background of recent elaborations of literacy within the field of literature and educational studies, the suggestion is made that “tradition” can be understood as a semiotic domain, i.e. a set of practices that recruits one or more modalities to communicate distinctive types of meanings. Theological literacy is accordingly defined as the ability to interpret, develop and communicate a theological semiotic domain. Literacy helps us to see that Christian faith/belief cannot be taught and acquired once and for all by learning a doctrinal content and a specific religious practice. At the same time, however, literacy nevertheless stresses the importance of knowing doctrinal content and religious practise, seeing that literacy is part of the process of shaping and construing faith and tradition.     

Who benefits from independent careers? Employees,organizations, or both?

The traditional organizational career has been depicted as the classic example of how employers and employees can develop a mutually beneficial relationship; but changes in the competitive landscape and in individual work values have challenged its viability. Commentators have argued that a ‘new career’ deal, encapsulated by the notions of the protean and the boundaryless career, has emerged suggesting a shift in control of careers from organizations to individuals. Research has explored the implications for individuals' careers while largely neglecting consequences for organizations. Our paper seeks to remedy this by exploring both the individual and the organizational outcomes of independent career orientations and the extent to which organizations can manage these through high commitment human resource management (HRM) practices. Our study, conducted with 655 employee–supervisor dyads, indicates that a protean career orientation results in gains for both employees and organizations, whereas a boundaryless career orientation is associated with mutual losses. In addition, our findings suggest that high commitment HR practices play an important role in managing the outcomes of employees seeking traditional careers but have only a limited impact on those with a boundaryless career orientation.     

Codependency: Addictive love,adjustive relating,or both?

The concept of codependency constitutes a controversial but, in our view, eminently researchable area of clinical concern. Following a perspective on the evolution of the concept, we summarize the currently dominant view that codependency is a personality syndrome closely akin to addictive love. We then present an alternative point of view that focuses on the characteristics of codependent relating rather than the characteristics of the codependent person, arguing that codependency may be either endogynous or exogynous. Recent efforts to develop valid measures of codependency as a personality predisposition and as a set of relationship characteristics are discussed, followed by the conclusion that the two assessment approaches are complementary rather than contradictory.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mike Dewald, Karin Parker, and Pam Quinn of the United Recovery Center, Grand Forks, ND, in some of the data collection.     

Do you understand what I want to tell you? Early sensitivity in bilinguals' iconic gesture perception and production

Previous research has shown differences in monolingual and bilingual communication. We explored whether monolingual and bilingual pre‐schoolers (N = 80) differ in their ability to understand others' iconic gestures (gesture perception) and produce intelligible iconic gestures themselves (gesture production) and how these two abilities are related to differences in parental iconic gesture frequency. In a gesture perception task, the experimenter replaced the last word of every sentence with an iconic gesture. The child was then asked to choose one of four pictures that matched the gesture as well as the sentence. In a gesture production task, children were asked to indicate ‘with their hands’ to a deaf puppet which objects to select. Finally, parental gesture frequency was measured while parents answered three different questions. In the iconic gesture perception task, monolingual and bilingual children did not differ. In contrast, bilinguals produced more intelligible gestures than their monolingual peers. Finally, bilingual children's parents gestured more while they spoke than monolingual children's parents. We suggest that bilinguals' heightened sensitivity to their interaction partner supports their ability to produce intelligible gestures and results in a bilingual advantage in iconic gesture production.