Reduced Sense of Coherence Due to Neuroticism: Are Transcendent Beliefs Protective Among Catholic Pastoral Workers?

In this study, we examined a third variable effect on the relationship of personality traits, especially neuroticism and the salutogenetic concept sense of coherence. Specifically, we were interested in the moderating role of religious trust (RT) and transcendence perception operationalized as daily spiritual experiences (DSE) on the aforementioned relationship among religious individuals. We applied a cross-sectional study among a sample of 8594 pastoral workers using standardized questionnaires. Multiple regression and moderator analysis displayed the relationships between big five personality variables and sense of coherence. Neuroticism was identified as a negative predictor to sense of coherence, indicating impairment on this psychological resource. RT and DSE appear to function as moderators that buffer the negative effects of neuroticism on sense of coherence among religious persons. This is an interesting finding because people with expressions of neurotic personality tendencies often struggle to find helpful methods of coping and may find a helpful resource in the concepts studied here.     

Geometry, features, and panoramic views: ants in rectangular arenas

When tested in rectangular arenas, the navigational behavior of the ant Gigantiops destructor can produce results similar to vertebrates. Such results are usually interpreted as supporting the ability of animals to segregate spatial geometry and features. Here, we combine a detailed analysis of ants' paths with panoramic images taken from the ant's perspective that can serve as a basis for developing view-based matching models. The corner choices observed in ants were better predicted by the use of panoramic views along with a simple matching process [rotational image difference function (rIDF)] than by models assuming segregation of geometry and features (G/F). Our view-based matching model could also explain some aspects of the ants' path (i.e., initial direction, length) resulting from the different visual conditions, suggesting that ants were using such a taxon-like strategy. Analyzed at the individual level, the results show that ants' idiosyncratic paths tend to evolve gradually from trial to trial, revealing that the ants were partially updating their route memory after each trial. This study illustrates the remarkable flexibilities that can arise from the use of taxon-like strategies and stresses the importance of considering them in vertebrates.     

Parent-Child Engagement in Decision Making and the Development of Adolescent Affective Decision Capacity and Binge Drinking

The goal of this study was to investigate how parents’ engagement of their child in everyday decision-making influenced their adolescent’s development on two neuropsychological functions, namely, affective decision-making and working memory, and its effect on adolescent binge-drinking behavior.We conducted a longitudinal study of 192 Chinese adolescents. In 10th grade, the adolescents were tested for their affective decision-making ability using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and working memory capacity using the Self-ordered Pointing Test (SOPT). Questionnaires were used to assess perceived parent-child engagement in decision-making, academic performance and drinking behavior. At one-year follow-up, the same neuropsychological tasks and questionnaires were repeated.Results indicate that working memory and academic performance were uninfluenced by parent-child engagement in decision-making. However, compared to adolescents whose parents made solitary decisions for them, adolescents engaged in everyday decision-making showed significant improvement on affective decision capacity and significantly less binge-drinking one year later.These findings suggest that parental engagement of children in everyday decision-making might foster the development of neurocognitive functioning relative to affective decision-making and reduce adolescent substance use behaviors.     

The Role of Emotion in Decision Making: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

ABSTRACT— Decision making often occurs in the face of uncertainty about whether one's choices will lead to benefit or harm. The somatic-marker hypothesis is a neurobiological theory of how decisions are made in the face of uncertain outcome. This theory holds that such decisions are aided by emotions, in the form of bodily states, that are elicited during the deliberation of future consequences and that mark different options for behavior as being advantageous or disadvantageous. This process involves an interplay between neural systems that elicit emotional/bodily states and neural systems that map these emotional/bodily states.     

Thinking of critical words during study is unnecessary for false memory in the Deese,Roediger, and McDermott procedure

Do participants in the Deese, Roediger, and McDermott (DRM) procedure demonstrate false memory because they think of nonpresented critical words during study and confuse them with words that were actually presented? In two experiments, 160 participants studied eight visually presented DRM lists at a rate of 2 s or 5 s per word. Half of the participants rehearsed silently: the other half rehearsed overtly. Following study, the participants' memory for the lists was tested by recall or recognition. Typical false memory results were obtained for both memory measures. More important, two new results were observed. First, a large majority of the overt-rehearsal participants spontaneously rehearsed approximately half of the critical words during study. Second, critical-word rehearsal at study enhanced subsequent false recall, but it had no effect on false recognition or remember judgments for falsely recognized critical words. Thinking of critical words during study was unnecessary for producing false memory.     

Lotteries And Contexts

There are many ordinary propositions we think we know. Almost every ordinary proposition entails some lottery proposition which we think we do not know but to which we assign a high probability of being true (for instance:I will never be a multi-millionaire entails I will not win this lottery). How is this possible – given that some closure principle is true? This problem, also known as the Lottery puzzle, has recently provoked a lot of discussion. In this paper I discuss one of the most promising answers to the problem: Stewart Cohens contextualist solution, which is based on ideas about the salience of chances of error. After presenting some objections to it I sketch an alternative solution which is still contextualist in spirit.     

The role of emotion in decision-making: evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage

Most theories of choice assume that decisions derive from an assessment of the future outcomes of various options and alternatives through some type of cost-benefit analyses. The influence of emotions on decision-making is largely ignored. The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level. Lesions of the ventromedial (which includes the orbitofrontal) sector of the prefrontal cortex interfere with the normal processing of "somatic" or emotional signals, while sparing most basic cognitive functions. Such damage leads to impairments in the decision-making process, which seriously compromise the quality of decisions in daily life. The aim of this paper is to review evidence in support of "The Somatic Marker Hypothesis," which provides a systems-level neuroanatomical and cognitive framework for decision-making and suggests that the process of decision-making depends in many important ways on neural substrates that regulate homeostasis, emotion, and feeling. The implications of this theoretical framework for the normal and abnormal development of the orbitofrontal cortex are also discussed.     

Race-related stress,quality of life indicators,and life satisfaction among elderly African Americans

This article examined the relationships among race-related stress, quality of life indicators, and life satisfaction among elderly African Americans. A sample of 127 elderly African Americans, consisting of 87 women and 26 men (and 14 missing values), were administered the Index of Race-Related Stress, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey. Results indicated that elderly African American men and women differed significantly with regard to institutional and collective racism-related stress. In addition, the authors found that institutional racism-related stress was a significant predictor of psychological health in this sample of elderly African Americans.     

Correction to: In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit’s Conciliatory Project

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -