For God (or) country: the hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control

It has been recently proposed that people can flexibly rely on sources of control that are both internal and external to the self to satisfy the need to believe that their world is under control (i.e., that events do not unfold randomly or haphazardly). Consistent with this, past research demonstrates that, when personal control is threatened, people defend external systems of control, such as God and government. This theoretical perspective also suggests that belief in God and support for governmental systems, although seemingly disparate, will exhibit a hydraulic relationship with one another. Using both experimental and longitudinal designs in Eastern and Western cultures, the authors demonstrate that experimental manipulations or naturally occurring events (e.g., electoral instability) that lower faith in one of these external systems (e.g., the government) lead to subsequent increases in faith in the other (e.g., God). In addition, mediation and moderation analyses suggest that specific concerns with order and structure underlie these hydraulic effects. Implications for the psychological, sociocultural, and sociopolitical underpinnings of religious faith, as well as system justification theory, are discussed.     

Personality and Defensive Reactions: Fear,Trait Anxiety,and Threat Magnification

ABSTRACT The revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (rRST) of personality ( Gray & McNaughton, 2000 ) maintains that trait individual differences in the operation of defensive systems relate to facets of human personality, most notably anxiety and fear. We investigated this theory in 2 separate studies (total N=270) using a threat scenario research strategy ( Blanchard, Hynd, Minke, Minemoto, & Blanchard, 2001 ). Consistent with rRST, results showed that individuals with high fear questionnaire scores tended to select defensive responses entailing orientation away from threat (e.g., run away) and that fear‐prone individuals also tended to perceive threats as magnified. The extent of this threat magnification mediated the positive association observed between fear and orientation away from threat. Overall, results suggest that interindividual variance in defensive reactions is associated with a variety of existing personality constructs but that further research is required to determine the precise relationship between personality and defensive reactions.     

Perception through a perspective-taking lens: Differential effects on judgment and behavior

In contrast to the view that social perception has symmetric effects on judgments and behavior, the current research explored whether perspective-taking leads stereotypes to differentially affect judgments and behavior. Across three studies, perspective-takers consistently used stereotypes more in their own behavior while simultaneously using them less in their judgments of others. After writing about an African-American, perspective-taking tendencies were positively correlated with aggressive behavior but negatively correlated with judging others as aggressive. Similarly, after writing about an elderly man, perspective-takers walked more slowly and became more conservative, but judged others as less dependent. These divergent effects of perspective-taking on judgment and behavior occurred regardless of whether perspective-taking was manipulated or measured, whether judgments were measured before or after behavior, the stereotype that was activated, and participants’ culture (American, Singaporean). These findings support theorizing that judgments and behavior can diverge when individuals’ social strategies are geared towards establishing and maintaining social bonds, as well as provide insight into how perspective-taking helps individuals manage diversity.     

Shifts in postdiscrimination gradients within a stimulus dimension based on bilateral facial symmetry

A shift in generalization gradients away from S+ and towards stimuli on the opposite end of the stimulus dimension from S- is a well established phenomenon in the laboratory, occurring with humans and nonhumans and with a wide range of stimuli. The phenomenon of gradient shifts has also been observed to have an analogous relationship to a variety of apparent biases in preference observed in the natural environment. One way to examine the validity of such analogies is by examining whether gradient shifts can be observed with complex and naturalistic stimuli. In the present experiment, undergraduates were trained to discriminate between faces that varied in terms of relative bilateral facial symmetry (a stimulus dimension correlated with health and attractiveness). Comparisons were made within subjects, using two sets of images. For both sets, the faces varied from naturally asymmetrical to symmetrical, and S+ was a face equidistant to the two extremes. With one set, S- was the naturally asymmetrical face, and with the other, S- was the symmetrical face. A peak shift was obtained in both conditions, although the effect was clearer in the aggregate than on the level of the individual. Overall, the results are consistent with the view that the processes responsible for gradient shifts in the lab are relevant to judgments made in the natural environment.     

Relationship between a history of consistent maternal employment and depression in young adults

Research on the correlates of maternal employment has yielded inconsistent results. In this study, 79 male and 120 female undergraduates with mothers who had been employed from the students' infancy through their adolescence scored higher on the Beck Depression Inventory-II than those whose mothers had not been employed. This relationship between children's depressive symptoms and mothers' employment history was not evident among young adults whose mothers' employment was perceived to be financially unnecessary.     

Gender differences in distributive negotiation: When in the negotiation process do the differences occur?

This study tested whether the degree of association among aspiration level, intended opening offer, actual first offer, actual counter‐offer, and final agreement was moderated by negotiator gender. Results show that gender does moderate the association between the predictor variable of intended opening offer and the criterion variable of actual first offer and the relationship between intended opening offer and actual counter‐offer. Interesting, this latter association was statistically non‐significant for women and statistically significant for men. These results suggest that gender differences disadvantaging women seem to manifest with the actual first offer and the actual counter‐offer. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of properties of layered silicate minerals on adsorbed DNA surface affinity,self-assembly and nanopatterning

We report on the specific interaction between DNA and some mica-family minerals and other layered silicate structures. The interaction depends on mineral surface's crystallography, chemistry and potential. These properties are responsible for a remarkable variety of adsorption mechanisms and can be used to modulate surface self-assembly and nanopatterning of DNA. The controlled deposition of DNA onto non-conductive mineral regions with atomically flat boundaries has very attractive applications in nano-biotechnology (for example, microelectronics, microarrays and sensors). In addition, the extreme affinity discovered for some mineral surfaces, together with their ability to organize the DNA molecules, could be an indication of their catalytic potential. It may also have had relevance in the prebiotic environment, with important implications for the earth and life sciences.