To defer or to stand up? How offender formidability affects third party moral outrage

According to models of animal behavior, the relative formidability of conspecifics determines the utility of deferring versus aggressing in situations of conflict. Here we apply and extend these models by investigating how the formidability of exploiters shapes third party moral outrage in humans. Deciding whether to defer to or stand up against a formidable exploiter is a complicated decision as there is both much to lose (formidable individuals are able and prone to retaliate) and much to gain (formidable individuals pose a great future threat). An optimally designed outrage system should, therefore, be sensitive to these cost- benefit trade-offs. To test this argument, participants read scenarios containing exploitative acts (trivial vs. serious) and were presented with head-shot photos of the apparent exploiters (formidable vs. non-formidable). As predicted, results showed that, compared to the non- formidable exploiter, the formidable exploiter activated significantly more outrage in male participants when the exploitative act was serious. Conversely, when it was trivial, the formidable exploiter activated significantly less outrage in male participants. However, these findings were conditioned by the exploiters' perceived trustworthiness. Among female participants, the results showed that moral outrage was not modulated by exploiter formidability.     

Behaviors associated with “good” and “poor” outcomes in a simulated career decision

What career decision-making procedures enable people to make decisions that yield consequences congruent with their own values? The 40 “best” (most congruent) and 40 “worst” decision makers on the Career Decision Simulation were compared in a sample of 148 community college students. No significant differences appeared in the amount of double checking, number of occupations and information sources checked, amount of information collected, decision time required, and the proportion of information sought about high values. The “best” decision makers, however, were significantly more persistent in immediately seeking more information about an occupation that seemed to match one of their most important personal work values. Following a values-guided search appears more effective than simply searching exhaustively.     

“Measuring up to Measure” Dysmorphophobia as a Language Game

We look into the transformation of meanings in psychotherapy and suggest a clinical application for Wittgenstein’s intuitions concerning the role of linguistic practices in generating significance. In post-modern theory, therapy does not necessarily change reality as much as it does our way of experiencing it by intervening in the linguistic-representational rules responsible for constructing the text which expresses the problem. Since “states of mind assume the truths and forms of the language devices that we use to represent them” (Foucault, 1963, p. 57), therapy may be intended as a narrative path toward a new naming of one’s reified experiences. The clinical problem we consider here, the pervasive feeling of inadequacy due to one’s excessive height (dysmorphophobia), is an excellent example of “language game” by which a “perspicuous representation” (the “therapy” proposed by Wittgenstein in the 1953) may bring out alternatives to linguistically-built “traps”, putting the blocked semiotic mechanism back into motion.     

Is elevated risk of child maltreatment in immigrant families associated with socioeconomic status? Evidence from three sources

In this study we tested whether children from Dutch‐immigrant families are at increased risk for maltreatment, and if so, what factors could explain this risk. Three data sources from the second Netherlands Prevalence Study of Maltreatment of Youth (NPM‐2010) were used to answer these questions. First, 1127 professionals from various occupational branches (sentinels) were asked to report each child (including some background information on the child and family) for whom they suspected child maltreatment during a period of three months. Second, we included the 2010 data from the Dutch Child Protective Services and third, 1759 high school students aged 11–17 years filled out a questionnaire on their experiences of maltreatment in the past year. We found that children from traditional immigrant families with a relatively long migration history in the Netherlands (Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, and Antillean) and from nontraditional immigrant families (African [except Morocco], Eastern European, Central Asian, and South and Central American; often refugees) were at increased risk for child maltreatment compared to native Dutch families. However, in the professionals’ and CPS data this risk disappeared for the traditional immigrant families after correction for educational level of the parents and for step‐parenthood. Within the group of families with low education or step‐parents, the risk for child maltreatment was similar for traditional immigrant families as for native Dutch families. Nontraditional families remained at increased risk after correction for sociodemographic and family factors. In conclusion, we found that children from both traditional and nontraditional immigrant families are at increased risk for maltreatment as compared to children from native Dutch families. For the traditional immigrants this risk could partially be explained by socioeconomic status. This implies that socioeconomic factors should be taken into account when outlining policies to fight child maltreatment.     

A Bilingual “Neighborhood Club”: Intervening with Children Exposed to Urban Violence

Mental health practitioners have offered relatively little in response to the pervasive community violence faced by many children living in impoverished neighborhoods. The “neighborhood club” is a school-based, short-term, support group designed to assist children with the psychological impact of exposure to community violence. Ten “neighborhood clubs” were conducted in two public elementary schools in Detroit, Michigan. This paper reviews the implementation of a bilingual “neighborhood club,” undertaken to better serve the Spanish-speaking Latino students in a school community. We discuss many of the rewards and challenges of conducting a bilingual, multicultural support group for children and conclude that a bilingual support group provides all children with a model that validates ethnic and cultural diversity while also building empathic bonds based on mutually-reinforcing, common experiences.     

A Failure to Obtain “Disinhibition”

The effects of removing the mothers from rat litters for an hour a day on days 3 to 9 (separation treatment) were evaluated against effects for litters where the mothers were removed and immediately replaced (disturbance) and undisturbed controls. There were no consistent differences between the groups in the open-field, but separated and disturbed litters were heavier than controls as adults and not different from one another. At weaning, separated litters were heavier and disturbed litters lighter than controls. The results are discussed in terms of the possible mechanisms underlying the effects of removing the mother, with emphasis on the comparison of mechanisms based on the specific absence of the mother from the litter with incidental disturbance effects or altered maternal responsiveness.     

Neuro-cognitive aspects of “OM” sound/syllable perception: A functional neuroimaging study

The sound “OM” is believed to bring mental peace and calm. The cortical activation associated with listening to sound “OM” in contrast to similar non-meaningful sound (TOM) and listening to a meaningful Hindi word (AAM) has been investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The behaviour interleaved gradient technique was employed in order to avoid interference of scanner noise. The results reveal that listening to “OM” sound in contrast to the meaningful Hindi word condition activates areas of bilateral cerebellum, left middle frontal gyrus (dorsolateral middle frontal/BA 9), right precuneus (BA 5) and right supramarginal gyrus (SMG). Listening to “OM” sound in contrast to “non-meaningful” sound condition leads to cortical activation in bilateral middle frontal (BA9), right middle temporal (BA37), right angular gyrus (BA 40), right SMG and right superior middle frontal gyrus (BA 8). The conjunction analysis reveals that the common neural regions activated in listening to “OM” sound during both conditions are middle frontal (left dorsolateral middle frontal cortex) and right SMG. The results correspond to the fact that listening to “OM” sound recruits neural systems implicated in emotional empathy.     

“Compliance” to “Concordance”: A Critical View

Advocates of “concordance” describe it as a new model of shared decision-making between physicians and patients based on a partnership of equals. “Concordance” is meant to make obsolete the notion of “compliance,” in which patients are seen as, ideally, following doctors’ orders. This essay offers a critical view of concordance, arguing that the literature itself on concordance, including materials at the web site of Medicines Partnership, the implementation arm in Great Britain of the concordance model, is full of contradiction; concordance, in fact, harbors an ideology of compliance. The essay suggests that an improvement in patient medication use will more likely come from a frank consideration of the relation of compliance issues and commercial ones, and that a key question across domains is, “how are patients/health agents/consumers persuaded to acquire certain drugs and take them as directed?”     

Joining up with ‘not us’ staff to run adolescent groups in schools

The author describes the development of a model for working with staff members from non-psychoanalytic backgrounds to run therapeutic and therapy-like pupil groups in schools. She draws on her experience of co-facilitating groups at a London-based secondary school and uses examples from recent group work with Year 10 pupils (aged 14–15). Child psychotherapists who have shied away either from doing group work in general, or more specifically taking on group work in schools, may be encouraged to see that the underlying principles are essentially no different from those of individual therapy. Worrying and troublesome young people tend to have difficulties in their external relationships, often exhibited at school and contributing to their underachievement. Psychoanalytically informed groups such as the kind portrayed here can address this difficulty by offering a safe setting for interactions with other group participants and with the leaders to be observed, examined and challenged in the here and now. Attention is paid to primitive anxieties and the defences employed to keep them at bay, including the tendency to place individual needs before group needs when sense of self and sometimes survival itself are felt to be threatened. The aim is for participants to learn about themselves by sharing a group experience and, if successful, integrate some conflicting aspects of themselves. This model for doing group work demonstrates how child psychotherapists can make a unique and valuable contribution, provided the school environment is conducive and there is a member of staff who is open to learning a new way of working.     

Accuracy of recall among “eyewitnesses” to a simulated robbery: Intrapersonal and stimulus determinants

This study is a laboratory analogue investigation of variables that impinge upon the recall of detail about a simulated act of armed robbery among “eyewitnesses.” Specifically, this study sought to determine (1) whether recall of detail by Ss who watch the videotape of a simulated “armed robbery” taken by surveillance camera in a “convenience” store varies according to (a) the dress and appearance of the presumed “robber,” (b) the gender of the victim of the “robbery,” and/or (c) the gender of the “eyewitness”; and (2) whether such recall varies according to S’s inventoried psychological “needs.” Ss viewed the videotape of the simulated robbery under one of four conditions representing variations in the dress and appearance (“status”) of the alleged offender and the gender of the alleged victim; completed the Personality Adjective Inventory; and responded to a questionnaire concerning details of the alleged offense. Results indicate that the single statistically significant source of variance in accuracy of recall of detail is the experimentally manipulated “status” of the perpetrator; gender of victim and of subject contribute significantly neither in isolation nor in interaction. Inventoried psychological needs for “autonomy” and “change” are significantly but negatively and weakly correlated with accuracy among women Ss, while “change” alone is so correlated among men Ss. Findings are interpreted in accordance with theory and research in experimental social psychology and psychological criminology bearing upon person perception and role expectancy in relation to behavioral stereotypes. This study was supported in part through the Henry Rutgers Scholars Program at Rutgers College of Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey. The authors express their gratitude to Charles Rouse, Steven Gaynor, April Hayes, Erica Gross, Shawn Kimble, Elizabeth Chen, and Stephanie Bonn; Officer Leroy Washington, Rutgers University Police; and most particularly to Dipak Munsaf, proprietor of Krauszer's Food Store in the sixth ward of the city of New Brunswick.     

Breaking up is Hard to do,Especially for Strongly “Preoccupied” Lovers

Abstract

Is a relationship breakup harder on certain people? To address this question, the present study investigated the relationship of individuals’ attachment styles to various reported aspects of a relationship's dissolution: initiation of the breakup, emotional reactions to the breakup, reasons for the breakup, and experiences and perceptions following the breakup. One hundred nineteen undergraduates completed an extensive questionnaire concerning a past romantic relationship that had broken up. Feeney, Noller, and Hanrahan's (1994) Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) provided continous measures for five attachment styles or “attitudes”: confidence, discomfort with closeness, need for approval, preoccupation with relationships, and relationships as secondary. Principal-components analyses served to derive criterion indexes from the breakup questionnarie measures, which were individually regressed on the five ASQ scales. As predicted form attachment theory, respondents scoring high on preoccupation with relationships (reflcting anxious/ambivalent attachment) showed distinctive responses to the relationship breakup, in contrast to those scoring high on other attachment styles. Specifically, those strongly preoccupied with relationships reported (a) that their partner was unhappy in the relationship and had initiated the breakup, (b) having experienced difficulty adjusting to the breakup and felling it had been a mistake, and (c) more negative emotion and less positive emotion following the breakup. Implications of these findings are discussed     

Binding “what” and “where” in auditory working memory: An asymmetrical association between sound identity and sound location

Contrasting results in visual and auditory working memory studies suggest that the mechanisms of association between location and identity of stimuli depend on the sensory modality of the input. In this auditory study, we tested whether the association of two features both encoded in the “what” stream is different from the association between a “what” and a “where” feature. In an old–new recognition task, blindfolded participants were presented with sequences of sounds varying in timbre, pitch and location. They were required to judge if either the timbre, pitch or location of a single-probe stimulus was identical or different to the timbre, pitch or location of one of the sounds of the previous sequence. Only variations in one of the three features were relevant for the task, whereas the other two features could vary, with task-irrelevant changes. Results showed that task-irrelevant variations in the “what” features (either timbre or pitch) caused an impaired recognition of sound location and in the other task-relevant “what” feature, whereas changes in sound location did not affect the recognition of either one of the “what” features. We conclude that the identity of sounds is incidentally processed even when not required by the task, whereas sound location is not maintained when task irrelevant.     

A response to Penrose’s “Sandel on enhancement: A response to Van Niekerk”

In this article the author responds to Brian Penrose’s critical response to his (Van Niekerk’s) article “Biomedical enhancement and the pursuit of mastery and perfection: a critique of the views of Michael Sandel” that appeared in the PSSA conference edition of the SAJP 33(2), 2014. While Van Niekerk is appreciative of the opportunity for spirited dialogue that Penrose’s response provides, he nevertheless takes issue with several charges Penrose raises. He responds to Penrose’s claims that Van Niekerk does not fully understand “the Sandel project” and thus that Van Niekerk creates and shoots down a straw man in his argument against Sandel. Van Niekerk argues that Penrose’s claims are indicative of significant methodological differences between their respective approaches. Penrose acknowledges the “fuzziness” of Sandel’s arguments with regards to biomedical enhancement. He then develops an interpretation of Sandel’s views that claims to have “filled in the complete picture” of what Sandel attempts to do, and then reproaches Van Niekerk for not responding to that “completed picture”, i.e. the “Sandel project”. Van Niekerk finds this to be an unreasonable and methodologically highly problematic demand on him. Van Niekerk responds to a number of Penrose’s arguments, and then concludes that while there are, of course, good reasons to exercise caution at the prospect of biomedical enhancement with regard to its risks, the possibilities offered by enhancement need not elicit a prima facie reaction of pessimism. Rather, such prospects can also be regarded in a positive light as an exciting opportunity to take our own evolution in hand.     

“By the time I got to London I was like a coke bottle that had been shaken up and was about to explode!” A case study of performance expectations with a retired athlete

ObjectivesThis study aimed to address voids in academic literature by exploring the consequences of performance expectations from the perspective of a retired athlete.MethodologyAn instrumental case study was used to capture the experiences of a retired female athlete who had been exposed to performance expectations throughout her career. Six conversational life story interviews were conducted with the athlete and the data were represented in two portrait vignettes.ResultsThe vignettes provide a rich and holistic account of the participant’s experiences of performance expectations. Salient points that are detailed throughout the vignettes include: i) the consequences (e.g., fear of failure, perceptions of pressure, magnification of intrapersonal expectations) of media expectations for the athlete; ii) factors that the athlete perceived to influence the consequences of media expectations (e.g., the amount of media attention received); iii) the cumulative consequences (e.g., nausea, lack of perceived control, butterflies) of interpersonal expectations from multiple perceivers (e.g., the media, coaches, the public, opponents); and iv) the presence of a fear culture associated with expectations, which had ramifications for the athlete’s well-being and their ability to talk about their experiences.ConclusionsThis article offers a novel insight to the multi-modal consequences of performance expectations for an athlete, the dominant role that the media played in shaping the athlete’s experiences, and the athlete’s inability to disclose her experiences of expectations. Stakeholders are encouraged to develop their own meanings, interpretations, and evaluations of the vignettes, and apply their interpretations to policy and practice.     

“Delayed Response” as Tested by three Methods and its Relation to Other Learning Situations

The so-called “nervous habits” of 198 students were assessed by time-sampling 22 movement categories. Concentration of manipulatory behavior in the head and hand areas suggested that the stimulation generated by these activities is of some importance. Compared to men, women showed less facial manipulation and less leg and foot movement, but compensated, particularly by more nail-biting and manicure. Category scores did not have significant linear correlations with either Extraversion or Neuroticism scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI). This may be due to idiosyncrasies in movement patterns.