How to do Better N400 Studies: Reproducibility,Consistency and Adherence to Research Standards in the Existing Literature

Neuropsychology Review - Given the complexity of ERP recording and processing pipeline, the resulting variability of methodological options, and the potential for these decisions to influence study...     

“We Hardly Ever Talk about It”: Emotional Responsive Attunement in Couples after a Child's Death

Within Western cultural traditions, the idea that parents should talk about the death of their child with each other is deeply rooted. However, across bereaved parent couples there are wide variations in communication about their grief with each other. In this study, we explored the experiences of bereaved couples related to the process of talking and not talking. We used a thematic coding approach to analyze 20 interviews with 26 bereaved parents (11 interviewed as couples, four as individuals). Four main meanings emerged out of our analysis: not talking because of the inadequacy and pointlessness of words in grief, not talking as a way to regulate emotions in daily life, not talking as an expression of a personal, intimate process, and not talking because the partner has the same loss but a different grief process. In addition, we found that the process of talking and not talking can partly be understood as an emotional responsive process on an intrapersonal and interpersonal level. In this process partners search for a bearable distance from their own grief and their partner's, and attune with their relational context. A better understanding of this process is sought in a dialectical approach, emphasizing the value of both talking and not talking in a tense relationship with each other. Implications for clinical work are described.     

“I Am Sorry to Send You SPAM”

A series of studies investigating cultural differences in apology usage in unsolicited email advertising messages (i.e., SPAM) are reported. Study 1 documented that in comparison to American SPAM, a greater percentage of Korean SPAM included apologies. The next five studies (Ns= 516, 3132, 662, 524, 536) tested various explanations for cross‐cultural differences in uses of, and responses to, apologies. Findings indicated that advertising messages containing apologies were not necessarily more effective than advertising messages without apologies. Koreans, however, considered advertising messages with apologies as more credible and normal and exhibited a greater tendency to model other people's apology use than did Americans. Thus, the frequent presence of apologies in Korean unsolicited email advertising is likely to be based on Koreans' modeling behavior (i.e., a greater tendency to follow social norms).     

化解信仰缺失危机的积极对策

清末民初至"文化大革命"特殊历史时期的社会动荡和极端思潮酿成我国社会信仰缺失的危机,一度造成社会道德衰败、诚信缺失、拜金主义严重、宗教问题凸显、社会和谐稳定难以维持等社会问题。随着改革开放以来宗教信仰自由政策的落实,中国社会向信仰常态回归已成趋势。因此,顺应全球化进程,发挥社会宗教信仰包容融合的特别优势,因势利导促成各宗教和合共生的"宗教共同体",并以此主动化解信仰危机和相关的社会问题,不失为可供选择的积极对策。