Forgiveness in adolescents, young, middle-aged, and older adults

The evolution of the propensity to forgive an offense was studied in a sample of 236 people from various age groups. The effect of a number of circumstances connected with the offense was considered: intent to harm, severity of consequences, cancellation of consequences, social proximity to the offender, apologies from the offender, and the attitude of others. The method was an application of information integration theory. A global increase in the propensity to forgive from adolescence to old age was observed. Several interactions between age and circumstances were found: (a) The effect of the cancellation factor was higher in young adolescents and in the very old than in the middle-aged, (b) the attitude of others and the restoration of harmony factors were important only in adolescents. Finally, the structure of the Forgiveness schema was shown to be an additive one, regardless of the age of the participants.     

Social isolation,aggression, and dominance in attacks in juvenile angelfish,Pterophyllum scalare

The effects of social isolation on aggressive behavior and rank order have been investigated in small groups of juvenile angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare. An experimental protocol including a “double transfer” of the subjects was used, in which fish were transferred to new aquaria in groups, before subsequent isolation and regrouping. A significant decrease in aggression was observed in the first recording session following both isolation and group transfer, after which the level returned to that recorded in the home tanks. The social hierarchy was also perturbed, but changes generally involed the two highest ranking fish in two out of the three groups, and were found not to be statistically significant. The behavior patterns are interpreted as adaptive responses to environmental change. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Hypnosis,hypnotic suggestibility,memory, and involvement in films

Our research extends studies that have examined the relation between hypnotic suggestibility and experiential involvement and the role of an hypnotic induction in enhancing experiential involvement (e.g., absorption) in engaging tasks. Researchers have reported increased involvement in reading (Baum & Lynn, 1981) and music-listening (Snodgrass & Lynn, 1989) tasks during hypnosis. We predicted a similar effect for film viewing: greater experiential involvement in an emotional (The Champ) versus a non-emotional (Scenes of Toronto) film. We tested 121 participants who completed measures of absorption and trait dissociation and the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and then viewed the two films after either an hypnotic induction or a non-hypnotic task (i.e., anagrams). Experiential involvement varied as a function of hypnotic suggestibility and film clip. Highly suggestible participants reported more state depersonalization than less suggestible participants, and depersonalization was associated with negative affect; however, we observed no significant correlation between hypnotic suggestibility and trait dissociation. Although hypnosis had no effect on memory commission or omission errors, contrary to the hypothesis that hypnosis facilitates absorption in emotionally engaging tasks, the emotional film was associated with more commission and omission errors compared with the non-emotional film.     

The septum: neural systems involved in eating, drinking, irritability, nuricide, copulation, and activity in rats.

Eating, drinking, irritability, muricide, and copulation were measured in 45 male rats before and after one of three coronal knife cuts in the septal region or a control operation; in addition, activity was measured postoperatively. (a) Cuts posteroventral to the septum resulted in slight hypophagia, marked hyperdipsia, irritability, asexuality, and decrease in activity. (b) Cuts of the fornix resulted only in slight decrease in activity. (c) Cuts through the anterior septum resulted in irritability, slight hyposexuality, and slight decrease in activity. No significant correlations between the various behavioral effects were found. It was suggested that the neural pathways mediating eating, drinking, irritability, muricide, copulation, and activity are relatively distinct and that neural activity in the septal region probably does not influence behavior in any unitary fashion.     

Optimism, Pessimism, and Hope in Durkheim

In Book Two, Chapter (1), of The Division of Labor in Society (1984) entitled "The Progress of the Division of Labor and Happiness", Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) stages a provocative encounter between the attitudes of optimism and pessimism, an encounter that reveals certain problematic assumptions regarding the status of hope in relation to the project of binding oneself to life under conditions of anomie. Durkheim's theoretical assault on the utilitarian-based optimism of his day is accomplished against the backdrop of a critical pessimism that is shown to be equally untenable. However, his critique leaves the question of the status of hope in relation to the question of human happiness unclarified and ambiguously framed, even as Durkheim defends hope against the despair of pessimism. The essay concludes with a critical appraisal of Durkheim's partial critique of pessimism and a few observations regarding the links between memory, expectation, pessimism, suicide, hope, and happiness.     

IQ similarity in twins,siblings, half-siblings,cousins, and random pairs

A classic child-development IQ dataset collected by Fels Research Institute contains data on a number of different kinship categories. The present study analyzed IQ scores from five kinship categories of 7–12-year-old children into genetic and environmental components. The common environmental effects were larger for older children than younger children. Overall, the Genetic and Common Environment Sources each accounted for approximately 40% of the IQ variability in these data, leaving 20% of the variability for nonshared environmental effects and for measurement error.     

Disgust,Harm, and Morality in Politics

This study experimentally tests a theoretical framework for moral judgment in politics, which integrates two research traditions, Domain‐Theory and Sentimentalism, to suggest that moral judgment is bidimensional, with one dimension pertaining to harm and the other to moral emotions. Two experiments demonstrate that priming harm associations and the moral emotion of disgust prior to a political issue facilitates moral conviction on the political issue as well as a harsher moral judgment compared to no‐prime and to nonmoral emotional and cognitive negative primes (sadness and damage to objects). In addition, harm cues and disgust, but not sadness or damage, interact with the preexisting attitude toward the political issue in affecting moral conviction.     

Collaboration,Partnership, Policy,and Practice in Career Development

This article discusses the importance of collaboration among professional organizations, governmental entities, and counselors in behalf of career development. Examples of possible international and national collaborative initiatives and policy emphases are described.     

Racism,Xenophobia, and Migration in Italy,a Post-Catholic Country

This paper looks at the present situation of xenophobia and racism in Italy through the lenses of land and displacement. It examines the relationship between the homeland and the phenomenon of migration – internal and international – from the beginning of the unitary unified state of Italy (1861) and the Catholic identity of Italian society. Colonialism opened the door to disdain for Black people, while fascism decreed racial laws against Jews without opposition from the Catholic hierarchy. After the Second World War, the Italian Republic banned any form of racism; but more recently the fear of the stranger has led to intolerance of migrants arriving in Italy because of war, violence, hunger, and poverty in their homelands. While Pope Francis, Italian bishops, and many Catholic associations and individuals have called for an attitude toward migrants based on the gospel, sentiments of racism and hate against foreigners are widely present among the population of a formerly Catholic country.     

Morality,values, traditional bullying,and cyberbullying in adolescence

The aim of the present study was to investigate moral aspects and human values in traditional bullying and cyberbullying, in order to detect differences between the two types of bullying and to test the role of immoral and disengaged behaviours in mediating the relationships between personal values and involvement in bullying. Sample comprised 390 adolescents aged 14–18, balanced for gender, attending different high schools. Traditional and cyberbullying were detected by means of two self‐report measures, while the Portrait Values Questionnaire was used to assess 10 values in four dimensions according to the value system model by Schwartz (1992): self‐trascendence, self‐enhancement, openness to change, and conservation. Finally, immoral and disengaged behaviours were assessed by means of five items about behavioural and personal aspects salient for morality. Results showed that, irrespective of gender, self‐enhancement and self‐trascendence moderately predicted cyber and traditional bullying, respectively, while immoral and disengaged behaviours predicted both. Indirect effects showed that self‐enhancement and openness to change predicted both forms of bullying through immoral behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of similarities and differences between cyber and traditional bullying and with attention to the central role of morality in explaining bullying nature.     

Minority Youth, Crime, Conflict, and Belonging in Australia

In recent decades, the size and diversity of the minority population of contemporary western societies has increased significantly. To the critics of immigration, minority youth have been increasingly linked to crime, criminal gangs, anti-social behaviour, and riots. In this article, we draw on fieldwork conducted in Sydney, Australia’s largest and most ethnically diverse city, to probe aspects of the criminality, anti-social behaviour, national identity, and belonging of ethnic minority youth in Australia. We conclude that the evidence on minority youth criminality is weak and that the panic about immigrant youth crime and immigrant youth gangs is disproportionate to the reality, drawing on and in turn creating racist stereotypes, particularly with youth of ‘Middle Eastern appearance’. A review of the events leading up to the Sydney Cronulla Beach riots of December 2005 suggests that the underlying cause of the riots were many years of international, national, and local anti-Arab, anti-Muslim media discourse, and political opportunism, embedded in changing but persistent racist attitudes and practises. Our argument is that such inter-ethnic conflict between minority and majority youth in Sydney is the exception, not the rule. Finally, we draw on a hitherto unpublished survey of youth in Sydney to explore issues of national identity and belonging among young people of diverse ethnic and religious background. We conclude that minority youth in Sydney do not live ‘parallel lives’ but contradictory, inter-connected cosmopolitan lives. They are connected to family and local place, have inter-ethnic friendships but are often disconnected to the nation and the flag.     

Dominance,physiology, and self-aggression in monkeys

Several tests failed to detect any relationship between the amount of self-aggression (SA) and either spontaneous or contrived dominance rank of self-aggressive stumptailed macaques living in groups. SA and stereotyped movements were affected differently when the subjects were given drugs, suggesting a dissociation between these two behaviors. SA did not correlate with measured adrenocortical arousal, indicating that self-aggressive monkeys are not stressed as they are when receiving social aggression. Theories of social aggression, such as social learning theory, deal poorly with self-directed aggression.