Factors Associated with Jealousy Over Real and Imagined Infidelity: an Examination of the Social-Cognitive and Evolutionary Psychology Perspectives

Three hundred fifty-eight undergraduates completed anonymous questionnaires regarding jealousy over a mate's infidelity. More men than women predicted that sexual infidelity would be worse than emotional infidelity when given the forced-choice hypothetical measures used in previous work. When some of the implications of hypothetical infidelity were controlled, the gender difference disappeared. One hundred twenty-seven participants reported having actual experience with a mate's infidelity. The two genders did not differ in degree of focus on the sexual versus emotional aspects of a mate's real betrayal. Sexual jealousy was correlated with having a greater number of sexual relationships and, for men but not women, with placing higher importance on sex in dating relationships. The results are discussed from a social-cognitive perspective.     

A model of transitive choice

We report a formal model of transitive inference based on protocols from experiments on squirrel monkeys solving the 5-term series problem (McGonigle & Chalmers, 1977, 1992). These studies generate databases featuring transitive choice, task transfer (where at first a significant decrement is observed, and later substantial improvement without explicit training), and, finally, a Symbolic Distance Effect (SDE) based on decision-time data. Using a rule-based (production) system, we first established rule stacks at the group, then at the individual level, on the basis of triadic transfer performance first recorded in the McGonigle and Chalmers (1977) study. The models for each subject then accommodated data from the more intensive, later study with the same subjects (McGonigle & Chalmers, 1992). We found the initial model capable of dealing with all choice and reaction-time phenomena reported thus far, with only small changes in a rule search procedure. In common with an independent assay by McGonigle and Chalmers (1992), our model-based reassessment of decision times indicates that a major source of reaction time variation is item prominence in the rule stack rather than interitem (ordinal) distance per se.     

The Relationship Between Attitudinal and Behavioral Measures of Sex Preference

This study examined the relationship between an attitudal and a behavioral measure of sex preference for offspring. In addition to looking at the relationship between these measures, their relationship to other variables was also investigated. Pregnant women and their spouses (N = 56) responded to a questionnaire measure of sex preference, a behavioral measure of sex preference, Bern's Sex Role Inventory, and the Attitudes Towards Women Scale. The behavioral and questionnaire measures of sex preference were significantly related, indicating that in the area of preferred sex of firstborn children, attitudinal measures appear to be highly related to behavioral measures. Contrary to prediction, androgynous and nonandrogyn-ous persons did not differ significantly on preferred sex of child. However, persons with a more positive attitude toward women's movement ideology showed significantly less male preference than persons with less positive attitudes toward women's movement ideology.     

The role played by Gerhard Adler in the development of analytical psychology internationally and in the UK

The Jungian analyst Gerhard Adler left Berlin and re‐settled in London in 1936. He was closely involved with the professionalization of analytical psychology internationally and in the UK, including the formation of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) and The Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP).The tensions that arose within the latter organization led to a split that ended in the formation of the Association of Jungian Analysts (AJA). A further split at AJA resulted in the creation of another organization, the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists (IGAP). Adler's extensive publications include his role as an editor of Jung's Collected Works and as editor of the C.G. Jung Letters.     

The impact of perspective in visualizing health‐related behaviors: first‐person perspective increases motivation to adopt health‐related behaviors

Two experiments investigated the effects of perspective and visualization on motivation to engage in health‐related behaviors. Participants visualized themselves donating blood (Experiment 1) or quitting smoking (Experiment 2) from either the first‐person (own) or third‐person (observer's) perspective. Subsequently, motivation to engage in the visualized behavior was assessed. Contrary to previous findings showing the benefits of taking a third‐person perspective on behaviors not related to health, visualizing using the first‐person perspective had greater effects on motivation than visualizing using the third‐person perspective. Indeed, visualizing using the third‐person perspective was no more effective than not visualizing anything (Experiment 2). The theoretical implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.     

A Tale of Two Congresses: The Psychological Study of Psychical,Occult, and Religious Phenomena, 1900–1909

In so far as researchers viewed psychical, occult, and religious phenomena as both objectively verifiable and resistant to extant scientific explanations, their study posed thorny issues for experimental psychologists. Controversies over the study of psychical and occult phenomena at the Fourth Congress of International Psychology (Paris, 1900) and religious phenomena at the Sixth (Geneva, 1909) raise the question of why the latter was accepted as a legitimate object of study, whereas the former was not. Comparison of the Congresses suggests that those interested in the study of religion were willing to forego the quest for objective evidence and focus on experience, whereas those most invested in psychical research were not. The shift in focus did not overcome many of the methodological difficulties. Sub‐specialization formalized distinctions between psychical, religious, and pathological phenomena; obscured similarities; and undercut the nascent comparative study of unusual experiences that had emerged at the early Congresses.     

Sisyphus,happiness and transcendence

What is the relation between transcendence and happiness? What type of transcendence can still be part of the concept happiness in our modern age? To answer these questions, I analyse the myth of Sisyphus from the existentialist perspective of Albert Camus, and investigate whether Sisyphus is (or can be) ‘truly’ happy and what role transcendence plays in this kind of happiness. This prompts a question about the relation between the concepts transcendence, meaning of life, and happiness. Taking Sisyphus as an exemplar, I argue that, although our contemporary culture has a flattening tendency regarding transcendence, various types of transcendence remain inextricably related to happiness.