Repression versus sensitization in response to media violence as predictors of cognitive avoidance and vigilance

Repression and sensitization as situational modes of coping with anxiety were examined as predictors of trait measures of cognitive avoidance and vigilance. In this study, 303 undergraduates saw a violent film clip to elicit anxiety. Increases in skin conductance level (SCL) and state anxiety (STA) from baseline were measured to identify repressors (high SCL, low STA) and contrast them with sensitizers (low SCL, high STA) and genuinely low anxious individuals (low SCL, low STA). State anger was also recorded. Trait measures of vigilance and cognitive avoidance were collected 2 weeks earlier. Significant SCL × STA interactions indicated that repressors scored higher on cognitive avoidance and lower on vigilance compared to sensitizers and low anxious participants. Repressors were less likely than sensitizers to report gaze avoidance during the clip. The anger by SCL interaction was nonsignificant, suggesting that repressors and sensitizers differ specifically in the processing of anxiety rather than negative affect in general.     

Sub-centimeter language organization in the human temporal lobe

The human temporal lobe is well known to be critical for language comprehension. Previous physiological research has focused mainly on non-invasive neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques with each approach requiring averaging across many trials and subjects. The results of these studies have implicated extended anatomical regions in peri-sylvian cortex in speech perception. These non-invasive studies typically report a spatially homogenous functional pattern of activity across several centimeters of cortex. We examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of word processing using electrophysiological signals acquired from high-density electrode arrays (4 mm spacing) placed directly on the human temporal lobe. Electrocorticographic (ECoG) activity revealed a rich mosaic of language activity, which was functionally distinct at four mm separation. Cortical sites responding specifically to word and not phoneme stimuli were surrounded by sites that responded to both words and phonemes. Other sub-regions of the temporal lobe responded robustly to self-produced speech and minimally to external stimuli while surrounding sites at 4 mm distance exhibited an inverse pattern of activation. These data provide evidence for temporal lobe specificity to words as well as self-produced speech. Furthermore, the results provide evidence that cortical processing in the temporal lobe is not spatially homogenous over centimeters of cortex. Rather, language processing is supported by independent and spatially distinct functional sub-regions of cortex at a resolution of at least 4 mm.     

Living in the Past,Present, and Future: Measuring Temporal Orientation With Language

Temporal orientation refers to individual differences in the relative emphasis one places on the past, present, or future, and it is related to academic, financial, and health outcomes. We propose and evaluate a method for automatically measuring temporal orientation through language expressed on social media. Judges rated the temporal orientation of 4,302 social media messages. We trained a classifier based on these ratings, which could accurately predict the temporal orientation of new messages in a separate validation set (accuracy/mean sensitivity = .72; mean specificity = .77). We used the classifier to automatically classify 1.3 million messages written by 5,372 participants (50% female; ages 13–48). Finally, we tested whether individual differences in past, present, and future orientation differentially related to gender, age, Big Five personality, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms. Temporal orientations exhibit several expected correlations with age, gender, and Big Five personality. More future‐oriented people were older, more likely to be female, more conscientious, less impulsive, less depressed, and more satisfied with life; present orientation showed the opposite pattern. Language‐based assessments can complement and extend existing measures of temporal orientation, providing an alternative approach and additional insights into language and personality relationships.     

Rational social and political polarization

Philosophical Studies - Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief...     

Older siblings influence younger siblings' motor development

Evidence exists for two competing theories about the effects of having an older sibling on development. Previous research has found that having an older sibling has both advantages and disadvantages for younger siblings' development. This study examined whether and how older siblings influenced the onset of their own younger siblings' motor milestones, a heretofore unstudied developmental domain in the sibling literature. Parents of 51 sibling pairs reported their children's crawling and walking onset dates. In keeping with imitation theories, in families where younger siblings crawled or walked earlier than their own older sibling, they did so significantly earlier. Moreover, in keeping with limited parental resource theories, in families where older siblings crawled or walked earlier than their own younger sibling, they did so significantly earlier. Older siblings did influence younger siblings' motor development, but how they did so may have depended on unique family characteristics. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choosing to Suffer: Reflections on an Enigma

Most people pursue pleasure and seek to avoid pain. Some individuals, however, choose a life characterized by pain and suffering. The author describes the most common varieties of such behavior patterns: asceticism, martyrdom, penance and masochism. Critical psychodynamics are discussed and the author proposes a synthesis of the motivation underlying pain/suffering seeking behavior.     

Généralisation de propriétés biologiques, physiques et comportementales chez l’enfant de cinq à neuf ans

This study is designed to examine how biological knowledge is organized and structured in children. Five- to nine-year-old children's interpretations of biological phenomena are studied by examining to what extent the transmission of different kinds of properties is perceived as being causally related to birth origins. A property generalization task is used, in which biological relations (birth origins) are pitted against adoptive relations. The characteristics to be generalized correspond to non-obvious biological characteristics, visible physic characteristics or behavioural characteristics. Our results show that five-year-old children do not understand the origin of these characteristics. A conceptual change seems to be at work by the age of seven but the delimitation of biological categories remains imperfect.