Initial perceptions in negotiations: evaluation and response to ‘logrolling’ offers

In negotiations, where several issues are under consideration and parties have different priorities among these issues, integrative agreements can be reached through ‘logrolling’: concessions on low priority issues in exchange for gains on higher priority issues. The present research focuses on the potential role of initial offers in the development of integrative agreements. We show first, that in a simulated competitive market the specific composition of initial offers influences the final agreements, beyond the effect predicted by their overall value. In order to obtain some insight into the judgmental processes that might play a role, we explore the way in which inexperienced negotiators presented with a hypothetical negotiation context evaluate and respond to logrolling versus distributive initial offers. Three hypotheses were tested: logrolling offers convey an implicit message of cooperation, logrolling offers promote understanding of the mutual interest structure of the task, and, finally, logrolling offers establish within‐issue anchors. Results do not support the first two hypotheses: logrolling offers were not necessarily judged more attractive than distributive ones, and they did not seem to affect the deeply rooted fixed‐pie assumption. However, initial offers did establish within‐issue anchors: counter‐offers were affected by the specific composition of the initial offers beyond the effect of their overall value. This anchoring process resulted in logrolling offers yielding a higher profit for their initiator, as well as higher combined profits for both parties. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychosocial response to COVID‐19 pandemic in India: Helpline counsellors’ experiences and perspectives

The COVID‐19 pandemic presents a threat to physical and psychosocial health of individuals. In lieu of the subsequent lockdown and containment measures, helpline counselling becomes a viable method of accessing psychosocial services during the pandemic. The present paper describes experiences of counsellors working with a special COVID‐19 counselling helpline initiated by iCALL, a national‐level technology‐assisted counselling service of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India, which aims to address the psychosocial impact of the pandemic and the lockdown. The paper is based on two focus group interviews held with 11 counsellors during the initial two months of the helpline's functioning. Findings of the study highlight the diverse profile of the callers, with individuals belonging to different strata of society and to marginalised communities. The nature of concerns presented by the callers were often a mix of psychological, relational and practical issues. The resultant distress emanated from an interplay of these factors with the relational contexts, their social locations and social structures the individuals were embedded in. This highlighted the need for conceptualising and responding from a psychosocial lens, whereby interventions involved traditional counselling approaches and strategies for addressing determinants of distress by connecting callers to required ground‐level resources. Counsellors’ engagement with this process impacted their professional and personal selves, necessitating the need for structured and continuous training, supervision and support. At a larger level, the counsellors’ narratives asserted the need for adopting a psychosocial paradigm for conceptualising and addressing mental health concerns in India.     

Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.     

Parental coping socialization is associated with healthy and anxious early‐adolescents’ neural and real‐world response to threat

The ways parents socialize their adolescents to cope with anxiety (i.e., coping socialization) may be instrumental in the development of threat processing and coping responses. Coping socialization may be important for anxious adolescents, as they show altered neural threat processing and over reliance on disengaged coping (e.g., avoidance and distraction), which can maintain anxiety. We investigated whether coping socialization was associated with anxious and healthy adolescents’ neural response to threat, and whether neural activation was associated with disengaged coping. Healthy and clinically anxious early adolescents (N = 120; M = 11.46 years; 71 girls) and a parent engaged in interactions designed to elicit adolescents’ anxiety and parents’ response to adolescents’ anxiety. Parents’ use of reframing and problem solving statements was coded to measure coping socialization. In a subsequent visit, we assessed adolescents’ neural response to threat words during a neuroimaging task. Adolescents’ disengaged coping was measured using ecological momentary assessment. Greater coping socialization was associated with lower anterior insula and perigenual cingulate activation in healthy adolescents and higher activation in anxious adolescents. Coping socialization was indirectly associated with less disengaged coping for anxious adolescents through neural activation. Findings suggest that associations between coping socialization and early adolescents’ neural response to threat differ depending on clinical status and have implications for anxious adolescents’ coping.     

The Relationship Between Distress and Delight in Males’ and Females’ Reactions to Frightening Films

Data from Zillmann, Weaver, Mundorf, and Aust's 1986 study suggested that when males viewed a horror film, their levels of reported distress were correlated with levels of enjoyment or delight. For females, distress and delight were not related. Zillmann et al. interpreted these findings in the context of gender role socialization and excitation transfer theory. One limitation of the Zillmann et al. study is that only one film stimulus was used, which raises a question about the generalizability of the pattern of reported sex differences. In addition, no physiological measures of emotional response were reported. In the present research, secondary analyses from two studies were conducted that showed that the pattern of sex differences reported by Zillmann et al. did generalize to other film stimuli. Moreover, results from physiological responses indicated the plausibility of the excitation transfer process.     

Infants’ responsiveness to maternal speech and singing

Infants who were 6 months of age were presented with extended audiovisual episodes of their mother's infant-directed speech or singing. Cumulative visual fixation and initial fixation of the mother's image were longer for maternal singing than for maternal speech. Moreover, movement reduction, which may signal intense engagement, accompanied visual fixation more frequently for maternal singing than for maternal speech. The stereotypy and repetitiveness of maternal singing may promote moderate arousal levels, which sustain infant attention, in contrast to the greater variability of speech, which may result in cycles of heightened arousal, gaze aversion, and re-engagement. The regular pulse of music may also enhance emotional coordination between mother and infant.     

Herman Bavinck’s ‘Yes’ and Karl Barth’s ‘No’: Constructing a Dialectic‐in‐Organic Approach to the Theology of General Revelation

By grounding theology in God’s revelation, Herman Bavinck (1854‐1921) and Karl Barth (1886‐1968) take differing attitudes to general revelation, which is widely accepted in the circle of Reformed theology. Bavinck firmly says ‘Yes’ to the existence of the knowledge of God in creation. In contrast with him, Barth holds fast to the Christocentric view of God’s revelation, and thus says ‘No’ to general revelation in the universe. This divergence is primarily due to their different theological thinking and concerns. Bavinck deploys organic thinking in revelation and focuses on God’s creation, which seems to blur the distinction between general and special revelation. By contrast, Barth makes use of dialectical thinking and preoccupies himself with divine‐human reconciliation, which subordinates creation to God’s redemption. To this extent, both bring about disparities within God’s revelation. This essay proposes a dialectic‐in‐organic approach to general revelation, which affirms the disclosure of the knowledge of the Triune God in creation, recognises the independent value of creation, and maintains the diversity‐with‐parity within the revelation of the Triune God.     

Gender Essentialism and Responses to Candidates’ Messages

People often form negative attitudes against those who deviate from gender norms. Within the political realm, this has the potential to translate into effects on perceptions of candidate likability and traits. Female candidates who tend to focus on issues stereotypically thought of as feminine are generally more positively evaluated than those who focus on stereotypically masculine domains. The current studies investigate whether these effects vary depending on the extent to which people endorse gender essentialism, which is the tendency to attribute gender differences to relatively more intrinsic, innate, and immutable factors versus believing that gender differences are largely due to cultural and learned factors. Current data with adults across two studies suggest a number of interesting findings: Evaluations of candidates depended on an interaction between respondents’ gender essentialism and whether or not the candidate’s message fit traditional stereotypes. In particular, high essentialist respondents felt significantly more negative toward male candidates with nonstereotypic messages.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ Creativity in China’s Classrooms: The Role of Students’ Academic Achievement and Misbehaviors

Teachers can be biased, especially toward low achievers and students with behavioral issues. However, creative students often appear to be disruptive in the classroom, and many of them struggle academically. The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which teachers’ perceptions of students’ creativity is associated with students’ academic achievement and classroom (mis)behaviors, as well as to examine the interaction between these two factors. Three hundred and fifty‐four eighth‐grade students selected from five middle schools in China participated in this study. Using achievement scores, peer nominations, a divergent thinking test, a self‐rated ideational behavior scale, and teacher ratings, the present study found that, whereas creativity has no significant relationship with teachers’ perceptions, academic achievements and misbehavior are significantly associated within structors’ perceptions. The achievement bias resulted in the underestimation of low achievers’ creativity, even when the low achievers were highly creative. More nuances emerged when student misbehaviors were considered. Specifically, misbehaving low achievers’ originality was further underestimated even when they were highly original. In contrast, teachers overestimated well‐behaved high achievers’ creativity, even when the students comprised the lowest creativity group. The results are further discussed from a socio‐cultural perspective.