Grasping the concept of personal property

The concept of property is integral to personal and societal development, yet understanding of the cognitive basis of ownership is limited. Objects are the most basic form of property, so our physical interactions with owned objects may elucidate nuanced aspects of ownership. We gave participants a coffee mug to decorate, use and keep. The experimenter also designed a mug of her own. In Experiment 1, participants performed natural lifting actions with each mug. Participants lifted the Experimenter’s mug with greater care, and moved it slightly more towards the Experimenter, while they lifted their own mug more forcefully and drew it closer to their own body. In Experiment 2, participants responded to stimuli presented on the mug handles in a computer-based stimulus–response compatibility task. Overall, participants were faster to respond in trials in which the handles were facing in the same direction as the response location compared to when the handles were facing away. The compatibility effect was abolished, however, for the Experimenter’s mug – as if the action system is blind to the potential for action towards another person’s property. These findings demonstrate that knowledge of the ownership status of objects influences visuomotor processing in subtle and revealing ways.     

A personal experience of supervision

TTte author's personal experience and perspective as a feminist counsellor and supervisee is explored. Some key boundary issues are identified which have brought about some important learning for her. These examples illustrate the crucial importance of an awareness of gender issues within both the counselling and the supervisory relationship.     

The Christian experience and interpretation of the early Muslim conquest and rule

The Christian experience of the Muslim conquest and early rule is described in the writings of contemporary historians, church leaders and other writers. These writings provide a range of perspectives and interpretations of that era, determined to some extent by the political situation and the sectarian affiliation of the writer. A survey of these interpretations demonstrates a general lack of awareness of the religious nature of Islam in the early Umayyad period in the seventh century CE. The Arabs are initially seen as looting and plundering invaders and then as a political force demanding taxes but also dispensing justice and protection. While they are seen to have religious links to the Jews, their major religious significance lies in the Christian interpretation of their invasion as a divine punishment for the sins of the Christian communities. Christian writings reflect a growing awareness of Islam as a religion towards the end of this period during the first half of the eighth century, with specific references to the Qur'an and Muslim beliefs.     

The role of the amygdala in emotional experience during retrieval of personal memories

ABSTRACT

Although the role of the amygdala in emotional memory retrieval has long been established, how such engagement varies depending on valence and retrieval context is less clearly understood. Participants retrieved personal memories associated with primarily positive, primarily negative, and mixed-valence images, pressing a button when successful. The button press divided trials into search and elaboration phases. Participants provided positivity and negativity ratings immediately following each trial, and then again in a post-retrieval survey. The relation between amygdala recruitment and emotionality exhibited a four-way interaction, with no other significant main effects or interactions. The interaction was driven by a temporal shift in the role of amygdala recruitment during retrieval of memories associated with mixed-valence images: Negativity ratings were supported more by search-related activity whereas positivity was more strongly associated with elaboration. Amygdala activity during retrieval relates to emotional experience in more complicated ways than previously understood. When participants were able to consider positive and negative aspects of the same event, amygdala recruitment during search and elaboration were associated with opposite behavioural effects. Such findings suggest that the amygdala may support distinct aspects of emotional experience for the same memory depending on when during retrieval it is recruited.     

Effects of personal experience on self-protective behavior

This article seeks to further our understanding of self-protective behavior by examining the effects of a particularly powerful stimulus to action: personal experience. It reviews the effects of automobile accidents on seat belt use, criminal victimization other than rape on individual crime prevention efforts, natural hazards experience on both natural hazards preparedness and compliance with evacuation warnings, and myocardial infarction on smoking. Theories suggesting mechanisms that could link personal experience to behavior are described, and data concerning the effects of experience on some key variables in these theories are discussed. Tentative propositions are offered to resolve the many apparent discrepancies in this literature. These propositions concern the effects of experience on risk perceptions, the influence of experience on risk salience, the specificity of responses to victimization, and the duration of experience effects.     

The interpretation of life experience and well-being: the sample case of relocation.

Social psychological theories of the self postulate mechanisms through which individuals interpret their life experiences to ensure positive self-evaluation. This framework was applied to a sample of aging women (N = 120, M age = 74.9 years) who had experienced community relocation. The authors measured their reasons for moving (push factors), reasons for selecting the new setting, (pull factors), and interpretive mechanisms, including how they compared with others in their new setting, how they were viewed by significant others following the move, how their behaviors changed following relocation, and whether the above evaluations occurred in life domains central to their sense of self. Regression analyses showed that push-pull factors and interpretive mechanisms accounted for substantial variance in multiple aspects of psychological well-being, particularly environmental mastery, purpose in life, and positive relations with others.     

Social comparison processes in the experience of personal relative deprivation

Drawing on social comparison and equity theories, we investigated the role that perceived similarity of a comparison target plays in how resentful people feel about their relative financial status. In Study 1, participants tended to choose a comparison target who was better off, and they selected a target they perceived to be more similar than dissimilar along dimensions that surrounded their financial outcomes. In Study 1, perceived relative disadvantage was positively associated with resentment regardless of the perceived similarity of the comparison target. The results of Studies 2 to 5b clarified these findings by showing that being both similar and dissimilar to a target can cause resentment depending on the context. Using hypothetical and real social comparisons, we found that people are more dissatisfied with their financial outcomes when their comparative targets have the same background qualifications (i.e., are similar) but are financially better off (Studies 2, 3b, 4, and 5b). However, we also found that when the comparative financial contexts were similar (i.e., equal affluence), participants were more dissatisfied when their target for comparison had lower qualifications (i.e., was dissimilar; Studies 2, 3a, 4, and 5a). In all cases, perceptions of unfairness mediated the effects of social comparison on financial dissatisfaction. Taken together, these studies address some of the ambiguities around what it means to be similar to a target in the context of social comparisons of affluence, and they underscore the importance of perceived unfairness in the link between social comparison and resentment with one's financial status.     

The role of personal goals in autonoetic experience when imagining future events

Although autonoetic experience—a sense of mental time travel—has been considered as the hallmark of episodic future thinking, what determines this subjective feeling is not yet fully understood. Here, we investigated the role of autobiographical knowledge by manipulating the relevance of imagined events for personal goals. Participants were asked to imagine three types of events (goal-related future events, experimenter-provided future events, and atemporal events) and to assess various characteristics of their mental representations. The results showed that the three types of events were represented with similar levels of detail and vividness. Importantly, however, goal-related future events were associated with a stronger autonoetic experience. Furthermore, autonoetic experience was significantly predicted by the importance of imagined events for personal goals. These findings suggest that the subjective feeling of pre-experiencing one’s personal future in part depends on the extent to which imagined events can be placed in an autobiographical context.     

Increased performance with increased personal control: A self-presentation interpretation

Past research has found that allowing people a choice of task materials sometimes increases performance on the task. A self-presentation interpretation for this effect was tested and supported in two experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects performed better on a paired-associate learning task when allowed to select some of the words for the test, but only when they believed the experimenter would know of their choice and their performance. In Experiment 2, subjects performed better on what they believed was a cognitive abilities test when allowed to select the test, but again only when they believed their performance would be known by those who were aware of the choice. It was concluded that providing increased control over a task often results in increased concern for self-presentation that may lead to a better performance on the task.     

Qualified therapists’ experience of personal therapy

Recent work shows that the majority of therapists strongly value personal therapy for what it can bring to their professional practice, and for personal development. The aim of this study was to explore qualified therapists’ experiences of personal therapy. Of the 220 qualified therapists who were contacted via post and asked to take part in a questionnaire study, 48 returned the completed questionnaire, which consisted of a series of closed and open questions. Two‐thirds of respondents had engaged in personal therapy. The two most frequently cited reasons for engaging in personal therapy were personal growth and personal distress. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) identified two broad domains: impact on the person and impact on the professional. Results show that those surveyed recognised the value of personal therapy to themselves as a form of self‐care and personal development. Personal therapy was valued in professional practice as a form of experiential learning from being in the client role. The limitations of this research included a relatively low response rate, raising the question of whether those most likely to have had positive experiences of personal therapy were more likely to participate. Future research might deliberately seek to understand negative experiences of personal therapy. Other avenues for future research include the need to understand how experiences of therapy relate to gender, profession, and therapeutic orientation.     

Daily dynamics of personal identity and self‐concept clarity

We examined the daily dynamics among self‐concept clarity and identity processes, and their effects on distress, among a sample of 580 Dutch adolescents. Participants completed measures of identity, self‐concept clarity, anxiety and depression at annual intervals; and daily single‐item measures of self‐concept clarity, identity commitments and reconsideration across three 5‐day weeks. We examined (a) cross‐lagged associations of self‐concept clarity to identity commitment and reconsideration and (b) associations of daily fluctuations in self and identity processes to later anxiety and depression. Results indicated that self‐concept clarity and identity commitments influence one another reciprocally across days, and that day‐to‐day fluctuations in identity predicted later anxiety and depression. Results are discussed in terms of self and identity processes and their effects on distress. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thanks, but no thanks: The role of personal responsibility in the experience of gratitude

Current theories of gratitude suggest that individuals feel grateful when they perceive someone else to be responsible for a desired outcome. However, it is unclear whether individuals must also feel a lack of personal responsibility in order to feel gratitude. This paper provides evidence that in achievement contexts, without the belief that they are responsible for their success, individuals do not experience gratitude, even when they acknowledge the help they have received. In two studies, the more helpful participants thought an experimenter had been, the more grateful they felt, but only if they also spontaneously felt responsible for (Study 1) or were induced to feel responsible for (Study 2) their outcomes.