A Cognitive Anatomy of Political Trust and Respective Bases: Evidence from a Two‐City Survey in China

Building on contemporary research on social cognition and psychology, trust, political representation and accountability, and candidate evaluation, this article proposes to decompose political trust into two cognitively distinct but related components for examination: competence versus intention evaluations. This article further argues that people's evaluations of their government's competence and intention in governance can have distinct bases due to the varying accessibility of pertinent information. Using valid instruments from a unique sampling survey in two Chinese cities in 2005, this article tests the validity of this cognitive scheme. Empirical evidence shows that (1) the surveyed Chinese urban residents effectively differentiated between their central government's competence and intention in governance: on average, they had a quite positive assessment of the central government's intention to serve its people, despite their relatively pessimistic views of its competence to deliver good governance; (2) the Chinese urbanites did consult different sources of information and heuristics when evaluating their central government's competence and intention, respectively.     

Vulnerabilities in Ghanaian orphans: Using the ecological systems theory as a lens

International studies have suggested that parental loss is a risk factor for poor physical and mental health, but all orphans do not develop the same kind and intensity of wellbeing indicators. This disparity is associated with certain biopsychosocial characteristics of the developing orphan which may interact with certain environmental factors to determine the levels of vulnerability a child may experience following parental death. While studies have been devoted to orphanhood in Ghana, no study has examined the nature of multisystemic risks within the sociocultural environment, and the factors within orphans which may interact to determine their experiences and developmental outcomes in Ghana. In the present paper, the Ecological Systems Theory is used to depict different vulnerabilities associated with orphanhood in the Ghanaian context. Using this theory, I demonstrate that Ghanaian orphans may experience vulnerabilities at all systems of the theory. Implications of the identified vulnerabilities for research, interventions and policy making are discussed.     

Perceived human and material costs of disasters as drivers of donations

Are disaster relief appeals more successful if they emphasize the material cost of disaster events in terms of economic damages and need for shelter, food, and health care, or if they emphasize the human cost in terms of psychological suffering and trauma caused? Although giving patterns seem to suggest that large-scale events that cause widespread material damage (e.g., the Asian Tsunami of 2004) are more successful at eliciting donations than smaller scaled events, it is argued that this pattern is explained by the fact that large perceived material damage leads to more perceived human suffering. In other words, it is the perceived human suffering which is the proximal driver of donations, rather than the material damage itself. Therefore, relief appeals that emphasize the human cost of events are more successful at eliciting donations than appeals that emphasize the material cost of events. This was demonstrated in a study focusing on donations by British participants (N = 200) to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2020, a study focusing on donations by British participants to victims of severe weather events in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2020 (N = 210), and a study among British participants focusing on a fictitious event (N = 150).     

Asymmetric frontal brain activity and parental rejection predict altruistic behavior: Moderation of oxytocin effects

Asymmetric frontal brain activity has been widely implicated in reactions to emotional stimuli and is thought to reflect individual differences in approach–withdrawal motivation. Here, we investigate whether asymmetric frontal activity, as a measure of approach–withdrawal motivation, also predicts charitable donations after a charity’s (emotion-eliciting) promotional video showing a child in need is viewed, in a sample of 47 young adult women. In addition, we explore possibilities for mediation and moderation, by asymmetric frontal activity, of the effects of intranasally administered oxytocin and parental love withdrawal on charitable donations. Greater relative left frontal activity was related to larger donations. In addition, we found evidence of moderation: Low levels of parental love withdrawal predicted larger donations in the oxytocin condition for participants showing greater relative right frontal activity. We suggest that when approach motivation is high (reflected in greater relative left frontal activity), individuals are generally inclined to take action upon seeing someone in need and, thus, to donate money to actively help out. Only when approach motivation is low (reflected in less relative left/greater relative right activity) do empathic concerns affected by oxytocin and experiences of love withdrawal play an important part in deciding about donations.     

心理治疗循证实践中“证据”的四个基本问题

循证实践正在成为西方心理治疗发展的主流方向。但如何理解循证实践的"证据"仍是见仁见智。部分社会大众甚至心理学专家仅将"循证"当作一种"修辞"或"时尚",顾名思义地界定"证据",或按主观信仰随意地选择与应用"证据"。文章以"证据"为研究焦点,试图建构系统理解"证据"的全面图景,探讨了心理治疗循证实践中关于"证据"的4个基本问题:(1)从历史考察与理论分析的视角出发,探讨了"心理治疗为什么需要证据";(2)从证据的类型范围、生产者及存在形式三个视角,描述了"心理治疗存在哪些证据";(3)从证据的科学程度、研究设计的严谨程度及解决实践问题的契合程度出发,阐述了"哪些证据才是好的证据";(4)从6个步骤推广证据及创新研究设计两个方面展开,分析了"在现实世界中如何推广与应用证据"。     

Contact and identity: The experience of ‘China goods’ in a Ghanaian marketplace

The rise in Chinese traders and increased availability of low‐cost imported goods benefits consumers, challenges local African retailers and is a point of tension in local communities. China's presence in Africa has been largely discussed and analysed through a political economy perspective. The social impact in local communities has been documented anecdotally but has yet to be empirically studied. This study took place in Makola Market, Accra, Ghana, to investigate the emerging intergroup encounters between established Ghanaian traders and nascent Chinese traders. Photo‐elicited semi‐structured interviews were conducted to explore how their interrelated experiences shape their interpretative framework and inform the dialectic of contact and social identity. I draw on these interpretative frameworks to propose a new model of contact, the Tri‐relational Contact Model, to capture and highlight how people's experiences include contact relationships with not just each other, but also with their places of business and the goods of trade. The findings from this study empirically highlight the micro‐level impact of China's presence in Ghana and help re‐conceptualize the contact hypothesis through a new model of contact with greater analytical utility to explicate the relational nature of contact and social identity formation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The link between anger and admiration toward governmental actions and self-reported preventive behaviour in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, across six correlational studies in four different countries (total N = 4937), we examined the link between citizens' anger with and admiration for the government's actions and decisions (i.e., system-based anger and admiration) and engagement in preventive behaviour. The internal meta-analyses showed that individuals who admired the government's actions were more likely to adopt personal hygiene and social distancing behaviour. Yet, the link between emotions and preventive behaviour differed concerning the target of emotions, especially for anger. Specifically, anger about restrictions imposed by the government was negatively related to preventive behaviours, but this relationship was not significant when the target of anger was the government's overall handling of the pandemic. Our findings emphasise the importance of citizens' emotions and the targets of those emotions during the crisis.     

Engaging with the unknown: How Judaism enabled Freud's psychological discoveries

A large literature has formed around the question of how Freud's Jewishness and/or Judaism influenced his psychological discoveries and development of psychoanalytic theory and methods. The article organizes the literature into several core theses but brings new clarity and insight by applying two essential criteria to demonstrate an impact of Judaism on Freud's thinking: direct content and historical timing. First, there should be evidence that Freud incorporated actual content from Jewish sources, and second, this incorporation must have occurred during the most crucial period of Freud's early discovery, conceptualization, and development of psychoanalysis, roughly 1893–1910. Thus, for example, Bakan's well-known theory that Freud studied Kabbala is completely negated by the absence of any evidence in the required time period. Part I reviews the literature on the influence of Freud's ethnic/cultural Jewish identity. Part II introduces the Judaic sacred literature, explores Freud's education in Judaism and Hebrew, and presents evidence that Freud had the motive, means, and resources to discover and draw from the “Dream Segment” of the Talmud—along with the traditional Judaic methods and techniques of textual exegesis. Freud then applied these same Judaic word-centered interpretive methods—used for revealing an invisible God—to revealing an invisible Unconscious in four successive books in 1900, 1901, and 1905.     

Parental loss, trusting relationship with current caregivers, and psychosocial adjustment among children affected by AIDS in China

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between parental loss, trusting relationship with current caregivers, and psychosocial adjustment among children affected by AIDS in China. In this study, cross-sectional data were collected from 755 AIDS orphans (296 double orphans and 459 single orphans), 466 vulnerable children living with HIV-infected parents, and 404 comparison children in China. The trusting relationship with current caregivers was measured with a 15-item scale (Cronbach's α?=?0.84) modified from the Trusting Relationship Questionnaire developed by Mustillo et al. in 2005 (Quality of relationships between youth and community service providers: Reliability and validity of the trusting relationship questionnaire. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 14, 577-590). The psychosocial measures include rule compliance/acting out, anxiety/withdrawal, peer social skills, school interest, depressive symptoms, loneliness, self-esteem, future expectation, hopefulness about future, and perceived control over the future. Group mean comparisons using analysis of variance suggested a significant association (p?相似文献   

The significance of death for the living

Heidegger's conception of death as an attitude toward life, overlooked in current literature on death and dying, offers potential for deepening our understanding of the care of non-critically ill patients. By breaking away from the notion of death as an event distinct from life and viewing it as an anticipated possibility at every moment of life, Heidegger provides insight into our attempts to evade death through our fundamental attitudes and value commitments, which in turn determine our behavior and actions. When combined with a method of application — the Nietzschean principle of reversal — these insights permit the understanding of diverse types of human mentality confronted with significant situations. Among the most important applications of these conceptions is to persons in need of medical care, and the resultant types, which are sampled as hypothetical cases, carry important implications for the sensitive care and psychosocial management of non-terminally ill patients.     

Greek women's attitudes toward pregnancy,labor, and infant: Their significance for intervention

Greek women's needs, attitudes, and experiences during the months immediately prior to and subsequent to the birth of their infants were evaluated. Themes considered were women's feelings and attitudes toward pregnancy, labor and the expected infant; breast feeding; emotional and practical needs; experiences from perinatal care and relationships with medical care personnel and with the family; perceptions of physical and emotional stress; and their relationships with infant and partner. Findings showed, among others, that women emphasized a desire for more personal care — more time, continuity of care, information about their pregnancy, and less distance from the doctor. Moreover, they expressed their need for emotional support. Anxiety was found to be a central feature of women's feelings during labor and delivery. The same anxiety was related to efforts to deal with infant crying, attempts to console the infant, and concern for picking the baby up. Understanding maternal attitudes provides guidelines for designing an intervention program that would integrate emotional and cognitive factors.     

The Making of a Sexual Being in Ghana: The State,Religion and the Influence of Society as Agents of Sexual Socialization

With the aim of generating in-depth information on society’s expectations and views on sexual expression in Ghana, we present findings on what was expected of the state, religion, and the influence of society on sexual socialization in Ghana. As a society, our need to break the culture of silence about sex cannot be overemphasized. Our study is important against a background that in Sub-Saharan African, HIV and AIDS is mostly spread through sexual intercourse, and that the region bears a disproportionate large percentage of the world’s HIV and AIDS burden. Although Ghana has a 2009 adult (15+ years) prevalence rate of 1.6% and a prevalence rate of 1.9% for persons 15–49 years old, some regions and sentinel sites show rather high rates, making HIV and AIDS issues of high concern nationally. Respondents from the general public, key informants and special groups across all three ecological zones of Ghana were purposively selected. All the interviewees agreed that in Ghana fidelity in all sexual relationships is highly valued and expected. However, there is gender discrimination in the application of such social norms of fidelity, in favor of males. Amongst the three agents of socialization studied, religion seemed to exert the most influence. Modernity interwoven with Christianity seem to have taken a great toll on such norms of sexual socialization.     

Juror Need for Cognition and Sensitivity to Methodological Flaws in Expert Evidence1

This study examined whether need for cognition (NC) moderated jurors' sensitivity to methodological flaws in expert evidence. Jurors read a sexual harassment trial summary in which the plaintiff's expert presented a study that varied in ecological validity, general acceptance, and internal validity. High NC jurors found the defendant liable more often and evaluated expert evidence quality more favorably when the expert's study was internally valid vs. missing a control group; low NC jurors did not. Ecological validity and general acceptance did not affect jurors' judgments. Ratings of expert and plaintiff credibility, plaintiff trustworthiness, and expert evidence quality were positively correlated with verdict. Theoretical implications for the scientific reasoning literature and practical implications for trials containing psychological science are discussed.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa

Socio-economic developments in Africa in an era of globalization, the rise of charismatic and evangelical Christianity, and the call for Islamization and application of the Shari^ca in parts of Africa are in danger of creating tension and destroying the apparently peaceful co-existence between the two faith communities. The article offers a conceptual basis for the relationship between Christians and Muslims from the Islamic perspective, addressing the need for Christians and Muslims to work in concert and the inherent problems that must be faced, and makes recommendations to foster a better relationship. Since any discussion of the contemporary is rooted in the past, reference is made to historical situations in order that Muslims and Christians may learn from history. Examples from Nigeria and the Sudan, where there has been polarization of Muslims and Christians, and where the problem is endemic, seek to illustrate the point, together with personal experiences and observations from Ghana.     

Government E‐Recruiting Web Sites: The influence of e‐recruitment content and usability on recruiting and hiring outcomes in US state governments

This research examines both the content and usability of e‐recruiting web sites on a government's ability to attract individuals to apply for government positions and on government's ability to retain new hires. Building on previous studies evaluating corporate recruiting web pages, this study evaluates the e‐recruiting efforts of state governments in the United States. Our study shows that governments with more usable hiring web site receive significantly more applications per job opening; whereas states with higher quality content on their recruiting web pages have significantly less voluntary turnover of new hires.     

In defense of a regulated market economy

The dominant understanding of political corporate social responsibility (CSR) suggests new, broader political roles for businesses in the globalized economy, challenging the classical liberal social order (where business firms’ task is to focus on economic issues and the government's role is to take care of political responsibilities). In this paper, we show how the major framing of the political CSR discussion not only challenges the classical liberal social order but also goes against the more general political economic perspective of the regulated market economy (where strict and [in most cases] strong boundaries exist between business and politics). We argue that this latter tendency of the political CSR discussion is its main weakness. We introduce a Rawlsian reframing of political CSR that is in line with the idea of a global-regulated market economy and compatible with some of the basic global ethical aims of the political CSR movement.     

A Right to Understand Injustice: Epistemology and the “Right to the Truth” in International Human Rights Discourse

People's “right to truth” or their “right to know” about their government's human rights abuses is a growing consensus in human rights discourses and a fertile area of work in international and humanitarian law. In most discussions of this right to know the truth, it is commonly seen as requiring the state or international institutions to provide access to evidence of the violations. In this paper, I argue that such a right naturally has many epistemic aspects, and the tools of social epistemology can be helpful in elucidating what such a right entails. As a beginning for this project, I draw on those resources to argue that the right to know the truth is only meaningful if it includes a right to understand the abuses, and that such understanding can only come through the development of community epistemic capacities. Given this, I further argue that the state has a duty to support the development of these capacities, and that a critical place for beginning this process is in public schools.