How probable is probably? It depends on whom you're talking about

Two studies tested whether people interpreted verbal chance terms in a self‐serving manner. Participants read statements describing the likelihood of events in their own future and in the future of a randomly chosen other. They interpreted the chance terms numerically. Chance terms were interpreted as denoting a higher probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in someone else's future (Study 1). Similarly, chance terms were interpreted as denoting a lower probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in someone else's future (Studies 1 and 2). These differences occurred primarily when the risk statements were threatening. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What do I think you're doing? Action identification and mind attribution

The authors examined how a perceiver's identification of a target person's actions co-varies with attributions of mind to the target. The authors found in Study 1 that the attribution of intentionality and cognition to a target was associated with identifying the target's action in terms of high-level effects rather than low-level details. In Study 2, both action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, and in Study 3, they were reduced for a target suffering misfortune. In Study 4, it was again found that action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, but like that for the self or a liked other, positive actions were identified at higher levels than negative actions, with the reverse being true for disliked others. In Study 5, the authors found that instructing participants to adopt the target's perspective did not affect mind attribution but did lead to higher level identifications of the target's actions.     

Does how I look at what you're doing depend on what I'm doing?

Previous studies showed that people proactively gaze at the target of another's action by taking advantage of their own motor representation of that action. But just how selectively is one's own motor representation implicated in another's action processing? If people observe another's action while performing a compatible or an incompatible action themselves, will this impact on their gaze behaviour? We recorded proactive eye movements while participants observed an actor grasping small or large objects. The participants' right hand either freely rested on the table or held with a suitable grip a large or a small object, respectively. Proactivity of gaze behaviour significantly decreased when participants observed the actor reaching her target with a grip that was incompatible with respect to that used by them to hold the object in their own hand. This indicates that effective observation of action may depend on what one is actually doing, being actions observed best when the suitable motor representations may be readily recruited.     

Is who you are who you're talking to? Interpersonal style and complementarity in mixed-sex interactions

To investigate interpersonal theory, the authors examined the social behavior of 112 previously unacquainted male-female pairs collaborating on a joint task. Structural equation modeling analyses provided clear evidence of complementarity: In addition to trait affiliation and dominance both predicting situational behavior, each interaction partner's behavior influenced the other's in accordance with the theory, eliciting similar levels of affiliation and opposite levels of dominance. There were also clear biases related to participants' interpersonal traits: When behavior, as indexed by observers, was held constant, more trait affiliative participants tended to view themselves and their partner as warmer during the interaction; likewise, more trait dominant participants perceived themselves to act more dominantly than they actually did. Throughout, there were no sex differences.     

What do you do when you're happy or blue? Mood,expectancies, and behavioral interest

The effects of induced moods on interest in performing a wide spectrum of behaviors were examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects who received the Velten Mood Induction elation manipulation indicated significantly greater interest than neutral subjects in social, prosocial, strenuous, leisure, and general activities on a shortened version of the Pleasant Events Schedule. Subjects who received the depression induction indicated lower interest in social, leisure, and strenuous activities. Depressed mood was associated with an interest in sitting and thinking, being alone, and taking a nap, but depression produced no increase in interest in prosocial behavior or in 12 forms of self-gratification. Experiment 2 focused on seven potential mediators in the effects of mood on behavior interests. Following a positive, negative, or neutral mood induction, subjects were asked to record their positive and negative outcome expectancies, positive and negative emotion expectancies, and their self-perceptions of energy, ability, and opportunity for active and passive, social and nonsocial behaviors. Induced elation, depression, and neutral moods again were found to influence interest in both active and passive types of social and nonsocial behaviors. The subjects' expectations of positive outcomes, and to a lesser extent their perceived energy for the behavior, were the strongest mediators of the effect of mood on behavior interests.The present experiments were conducted at Elmhurst College; thanks to Cindy Argianis, Chris Jankowski, and Victoria Mandell for their work in Experiment 1, and to Russell Fett for his help in Experiment 2. Valuable comments on an earlier draft were provided by Henry Adams, Anita Barbee, Katherine Noll, Sid Rosen, and David Shaffer.     

Does time fly when you're counting down? The effect of counting direction on subjective time judgment

We show that counting downward while performing a task shortens the perceived duration of the task compared to counting upward. People perceive that less time has elapsed when they were counting downward versus upward while using a product (Studies 1 and 3) or watching geometrical shapes (Study 2). The counting direction effect is obtained using both prospective and retrospective time judgments (Study 3), but only when the count range begins with the number “1” (Study 2). Furthermore, the counting direction affects peoples' attitude toward the product, their likelihood of using it again, and their purchase intentions. We test several plausible accounts for the counting direction effect, including task difficulty, numerical anchoring, and arousal. We find preliminary evidence that downward counting feels shorter because it is more arousing than upward counting.     

“Use your common sense to navigate,and you're gonna get along okay”: Exploring the sensorial politics of attunement,survival, and resistance in Canadian federal prisons

What does prison feel like? This question has generated a theoretically and epistemologically innovative body of literature known as sensory criminology. However, due to the bureaucratic barriers that researchers experience in trying to access prison spaces and incarcerated people, much of this literature is written about/from the privileged experiences of prison ethnographers, undoubtedly missing many of the sensory nuances of prison life. To collapse the distance, and to prioritize the value of the sensory from the perspective of incarcerated people, we use qualitative data gleaned from 57 semi-structured interviews with former federally incarcerated people in Canada to examine the sensory dynamics of prison life as they are grounded in lived experiences. To concentrate our discussion, we focus analytic attention on the sensorial politics of survival and resistance, highlighting how incarcerated people must first become affectively and sensorially attuned to the prison environment to survive and resist the state-sanctioned violence of incarceration. After contextualizing our project – Feeling the Carceral – we analyze what incarcerated people describe as the shocking and tumultuous process of affective attunement to the prison environment. Next, we demonstrate how incarcerated people use their sensory interpretations of prison spaces to both protect themselves from, and resist, state-sanctioned violence, ultimately questioning the ethics and usefulness of carceral intervention. Specifically, we contend that attending to the ways incarcerated people sensorially decipher and interpret the prison environment not only demonstrates the intelligence and resourcefulness of criminalized people, but it also reveals more subtle, yet nonetheless totalizing, forms of prison violence that have been previously overlooked in the literature.     

Violate my beliefs? Then you're to blame! Belief content as an explanation for causal attribution biases

We examined the extent to which the content of beliefs about appropriate behavior in social situations influences blame attributions for negative outcomes in relationship situations. Young, middle-aged, and older adults indicated their level of agreement to a set of traditional and nontraditional beliefs. Five months later, we assessed the degree to which these same individuals blamed traditional and nontraditional characters who violated their beliefs in 12 social conflict situations. Older adults held more traditional beliefs regarding appropriate relationship behaviors (e.g., the acceptability of premarital sex). Individual differences in the content of one's beliefs were needed to understand age-related patterns in blame attributions; for example, adherence to traditional beliefs about appropriate relationship behaviors led to higher responsibility and blame attributions toward characters behaving in ways that were inconsistent with these beliefs. Structural regression models showed that beliefs fully mediated the effects of working memory and need for closure on causal attributions and partially mediated the effects of age and religiosity on attributions. Personal identification with the characters had additional, independent effects on attributions. Findings are discussed from the theoretical perspective of a belief-based explanation of social judgment biases.     

I know you're me, but who am I? Perspective taking and seeing the other in the self

Research examining the consequences of perspective-taking on cognition suggests that through perceiver–target overlap, perspective-taking can lead to greater valuing of targets, greater helping of targets, and a reduction in stereotyping of targets and the groups to which they belong. Research has also begun to focus more closely on the ways perceivers come to think and act like targets. This research, however evocative, is not conclusive. The current studies set out to provide firmer support. Reported here, two studies found that perspective-taking influences perceiver–target overlap, which mediates changes in self-concept (ratings of the self on researcher-related attributes and beliefs after taking the perspective of a researcher in Study 1 and attitudes toward African Americans after taking the perspective of a racist in Study 2). In the same studies, overlap simultaneously mediated valuing of the targets (target ratings on positive attributes in Study 1 and liking for the target in Study 2).     

“兴”之“景”与“意境”之“境”

从诗歌艺术形象构成的角度看,“兴”与“意境”都是标志艺术本体的审美范畴,都由“情”“景”二元构成。不过“兴”之景只是借以引起其情的“物”,而“意境”之“景”则是“处身其境”的“境”,即主体处身于其中借情感体验过程中酝酿、萌生特定情感和独特感受的生活环境,而且“情”与物”、“意”与“境”生成关系的方式亦不相同。     

“地真”“女真”与“真人”

清华简《汤在啻门》中的"地祇"称"地真",容易使人联想到《楚帛书》的"女填"。"女填"应读为"女真",是"女娲"的另一种称法。"地真"和"女真"得名与"真人"有关。真人本指修真得道的人,引申表示圣人、至人或帝王。"地真"和"女真"这种称法是"真"在使用过程中意义泛化的结果,具有明显的道家色彩,对于判别文献的性质有一定参考作用。     

“四大”、“五蕴”为何“皆空”

常听人说,“酒色财气”“四大皆空”,以为这就是佛教的主张。稍懂佛教或有一点佛学常识的人,都知道佛教所说的“四大皆空”的“四大”指的是:地、水、火、风,那么,四大又为何“皆空”?空的是什么? 一般较少接触佛教的人都认为“空”很难理解,认为既然有我们的生存环境,一切事物或现象的存在也都是实实在在的,怎么能说是“空”呢?如果一切都归之于空,那     

“作”和“做”

“作”是一个很古老的词,在商至西周时代即已广泛使用。在甲骨文、金文里写为“乍”,有建立(如“乍邦”)、兴建(如“乍邑”)、制造(如“乍钟”)等意思。后来加了“人”旁,在先秦典籍里有多种意思和用法,如兴起(《周易·乾卦文言》:“圣人作而万物睹”)、创作(《尚书·益稷》:“帝庸作歌”)、振作(《左传·庄公十年》)等。相传产生于帝尧时代的《击壤歌》,有“日出而作,日入而息”句。根据后句,有人把前句的“作”解释为“起”,也有人解释为劳动、工作;均与兴起义有关。     

“成人之美”与“趁人之危”

正英国回来,有朋友问,中国和英国的发展相差多少年?还真的回答不了这个问题,这涉及到历史、政治、经济、文化和教育等等诸多因素。有一个听来的故事,或许可以帮助了解一下这个问题。一对在英国爱丁堡工作了一辈子的退休老夫妇准备卖了房到西班牙去养老。英国四面环海,     

“东窗事发”与“东床快婿”

也许是因为有“东风压倒西风”的豪言壮语，也许是因为有“福如东海”的美好祝愿，不少人认为汉语中凡有“东”字的词汇或成语均含有吉祥之意，其实不然。成语“东窗事发”的“东窗”即指阴谋诡计的发祥之地。     

“世界末日”与“天外来客”

近来有人重新翻开16世纪法国诺查·丹玛的警世预言《诸世纪》借以恐吓人们。诗中说,1999年将有巨大的灾难从天而降,地球上的人将无一幸免。 据天文观察证实,1999年将是坦普尔·达斯特慧星回归年,这颗慧星每33年回归地球一次,最早发现它是在1833年11月12日降临在北美东海岸的那次狮子座流星雨。当时人们不知道这是一种极普通的天文现象,便误以为是“世界末日”来临了。据推算,这颗慧星应于1999年再次回归地球,到那时人们可以目睹天空中出现的壮观景象。     

“苦”与“知心”

正一个晴朗的午后,加拿大魁北克街头新装的啤酒售卖机吸引了许多人的目光。大家都很奇怪,这台售卖机怎么会没有投币孔呢?这叫人怎么买啤酒啊?不过,很快有细心的人发现,售卖机一侧的说明文字告诉人们,只要对着售卖机大声喊出你的苦恼,它就会吐出一罐与你"知心"的啤酒来。啤酒能知心?人们的好奇心一下子被调动起来。"女友结婚,     

“能”与“肯”

"有一回,耶稣在一个城里,有人满身长了大麻风,看见他,就俯伏在地,求他说:‘主若肯,必能叫我洁净了。’耶稣伸手摸他说:‘我肯,你洁净了吧!’大麻风立刻就离了他的身。"这是记载在《路加福音》5章的一个神迹,《马太福音》和《马可福音》也有记载。近日再读这个神迹时,我被其中的一个细节深深地吸引,这个细节就是大     

“兴旺”与“衰微”

施洗约翰是先知传统中断400年之后的首位先知,所以他一出现,就引来众多犹太人的关注。当他＂在犹太的旷野传道＂时,＂耶路撒冷和犹太全地,并约旦河一带地方的人,都出去到约翰那里,承认他们的罪,在约旦河里受他的洗＂（参太3：5—6）。此人的影响,由此可见一斑。然而,这位先知的辉煌时期并不很长,就在事工开展得如火如荼之际,与他同龄的另一位先知——耶稣——出现了。约翰曾向他的听众推荐过耶稣,而现在的耶稣却正在全面超越约翰,并且大有取而代之的趋势。面对此种境况,约翰的门徒看不惯,也想不通,于是愤愤不平地报告老师：＂拉比,从前同你在约旦河外,你所见证的那位,现在施洗,众人都往他那里去了。＂约翰门徒的话中,流露出对耶稣的妒忌和不满,似乎有制止他的冲动。面对＂后来者居上＂的现实,约翰门徒的心态符合一般规律,但没有得到老师的认可。约翰如此劝勉门徒：＂若不是从天上赐的,     

“喜爱”与“思想”

《诗篇》第1篇以“有福”为主题,用简洁利落的笔触勾勒出基督徒的幸福人生,让读者不得不心驰神往：“他要像一棵树栽在溪水旁,按时候结果子,叶子也不枯干。凡他所作的尽都顺利。”