Interactive effects of social network centrality and social identification on stress

The present study aimed to integrate the social identity approach to health and well-being with social network analysis. Previous research on the effects of social network centrality on stress has yielded mixed results. Building on the social identity approach, we argued that these mixed results can be explained, in part, by taking into account the degree to which individuals identify with the social network. We hence hypothesized that the effects of social network centrality on stress are moderated by social identification. Using a full roster method, we assessed the social network of first-year psychology students right after the start of their study programme and three months later. The effects of network centrality (betweenness, closeness, eigenvector centrality) and social identification on stress were examined using structural equation models. As predicted, our results revealed a significant interaction between network centrality and social identification on stress: For weakly or moderately identified students, network centrality was positively related to stress. By contrast, for strongly identified students, network centrality was unrelated to stress. In conclusion, our results point to the perils of being well-connected yet not feeling like one belongs to a group.     

Social preference in rats

Rats were given repeated choices between social and nonsocial outcomes, and between familiar and unfamiliar social outcomes. Lever presses on either of 2 levers in the middle chamber of a 3-chamber apparatus opened a door adjacent to the lever, permitting 45-s access to social interaction with the rat in the chosen side chamber. In Experiment 1, rats preferred (a) social over nonsocial options, choosing their cagemate rat over an empty chamber, and (b) an unfamiliar over a familiar rat, choosing a non-cagemate over their cagemate. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 with 2 different non-cagemate rats. Rats preferred both non-cagemate rats to a similar degree when pitted against their cagemate, but were indifferent when the 2 non-cagemates were pitted against each other. Similar preference for social over nonsocial and non-cagemate over cagemate was seen in Experiment 3, with new non-cagemate rats introduced after every third session. Response rates (for both cagemate and non-cagemate rats) were elevated under conditions of nonsocial (isolated) housing compared to conditions of social (paired) housing, demonstrating a social deprivation effect. Together, the experiments contribute to an experimental analysis of social preference within a social reinforcement framework, drawing on methods with proven efficacy in the analysis of reinforcement more generally.     

Rain,Rain Go Away! A Diary Study on Morning Weather and Affective Well-Being at Work

Weather determines a number of affective experiences in everyday life. Although affective events theory positions environmental features such as the weather as important in determining affective well-being also at work, research in this regard has mainly focused on predictors within the person or work context. Addressing this gap, we studied how daily morning weather relates to day-specific affective well-being at work. Specifically, we examined vigor and job satisfaction as positive well-being states, and negative affect and burnout as negative well-being states. Additionally, we examined individual weather sensitivity and positive/negative affectivity as person-level moderators of the daily weather–well-being relationship. Using data gathered in a diary study with 115 employees reporting on 457 workdays, we found morning weather to be related to state vigor and job satisfaction, but not to negative affect and burnout. Positive affectivity moderated the relationships between morning weather and job satisfaction as well as burnout. Weather sensitivity moderated the relationship between morning weather and vigor, while negative affectivity did not moderate any relationship between morning weather and well-being at work. Our results contribute to the understanding of affective well-being at work by pointing at the role environmental factors such as weather conditions can play.     

Entrepreneurial Passion: A Review,Synthesis, and Agenda for Future Research

The present study undertakes a comprehensive and critical review of the body of empirical work on entrepreneurial passion. In particular, we document how the “first generation” of research on entrepreneurial passion and work passion in entrepreneurs has gained growing attention in various sub-fields of entrepreneurship research including entrepreneurial management, psychology, and finance. We provide an overview over theories used, definitions and measurements adopted, research methods utilized (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative, survey-based vs. experimental/intervention), the thematic focus of studies, and unit of investigation (e.g., individual vs. team). We not only flag the problems of inconsistencies and limitations with respect to theory use, the making of causal inferences, and the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial passion in existing studies (e.g., jingle fallacies), but also review the antecedents and outcomes of entrepreneurial passion identified in prior work and work where it had been examined as a moderator. Following this, we offer a research agenda with concrete suggestions to act as a foundation for the “second generation” of entrepreneurial passion research that proactively addresses the issues and gaps identified in our review. Finally, we also highlight how insights from the entrepreneurial passion literature can inform scholarship on passion more broadly.     

Understanding fish cognition: a review and appraisal of current practices

Animal Cognition - With over 30,000 recognized species, fishes exhibit an extraordinary variety of morphological, behavioural, and life-history traits. The field of fish cognition has grown...     

Freedom as Non-domination,Robustness, and Distant Threats

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - It is a core feature of the conception of freedom as non-domination that freedom requires the absence of exposure to arbitrary power across a range of relevant...     

Timing the “magical number seven”: Presentation rate and regularity affect verbal working memory performance

The informative value of time and temporal structure often remains neglected in cognitive assessments. However, next to information about stimulus identity we can exploit temporal ordering principles, such as regularity, periodicity, or grouping to generate predictions about the timing of future events. Such predictions may improve cognitive performance by optimising adaptation to dynamic stimuli. Here, we investigated the influence of temporal structure on verbal working memory by assessing immediate recall performance for aurally presented digit sequences (forward digit span) as a function of standard (1000 ms stimulus-onset-asynchronies, SOAs), short (700 ms), long (1300 ms) and mixed (700–1300 ms) stimulus timing during the presentation phase. Participant's digit spans were lower for short and mixed SOA presentation relative to standard SOAs. This confirms an impact of temporal structure on the classic “magical number seven,” suggesting that working memory performance can in part be regulated through the systematic application of temporal ordering principles.     

EARSHOT: A Minimal Neural Network Model of Incremental Human Speech Recognition

Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many-to-many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side-stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real-world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two-layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short-term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human-like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR.     

A combination of combat experience,early abduction,and severe traumatization fuels appetitive aggression and violence among abductees of rebel war in Northern Uganda

Individuals who perpetrate violence may likely perceive violence as appealing and infliction of violence to derive pleasure is termed as appetitive aggression. Individuals who were abducted as children into an armed group often experience a higher number of traumatic event types, that is traumatic load and are usually socialized in a violence-endorsing environment. This study aims to investigate the interaction between age at initial abduction with that of traumatic load, and their influence on appetitive aggression along with perpetration of violent acts by former members of an armed rebel group of both sexes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among a target group of formerly abducted rebel-war survivors (including participants with and without combat experience) from Northern Uganda. Participants included 596 women and 570 men with N = 1,166 (M_age = 32.58, SD_age = 9.76, range: 18–80 years). We conducted robust linear regression models to investigate the influence of age at initial abduction, traumatic load, combat experience, and biological sex on appetitive aggression as well as their perpetrated violent acts. Our study shows, appetitive aggression and the number of perpetrated violent acts were specifically increased in individuals who were abducted young, experienced several traumatic events in their lifetime, and with previous combat experience. For perpetrated violence men showed increased levels whereas for appetitive aggression the association was independent of biological sex. Therefore, early abducted individuals with a higher traumatic load, who have combat experience, need to be given special intervention to prevent any further violence.     

The Ideological Foundations of Economic Protectionism: Authoritarianism,Social Dominance Orientation,and the Moderating Role of Political Involvement

Even though economic globalization and foreign trade are major topics in the political discourse of most societies and negative attitudes toward international trade are prevalent, there is a lack of research investigating the ideological roots of protectionist preferences from a psychological perspective. In the present research, we examined the implications of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) for trade attitudes. Using data from two nationally representative samples from the United States (Study 1) and Germany (Study 2), we found that RWA predicted protectionist attitudes above and beyond economic self-interest. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between RWA and opposition to international trade was moderated by political involvement. The association of SDO with protectionist attitudes was inconsistent across the two studies and was not moderated by political involvement. Taken together, these results emphasize the importance of basic ideological orientations and the psychological dispositions they reflect in explaining public attitudes toward international trade.