Hearts Strangely Warmed (and Cooled): Emotional Experience in Religious and Atheistic Individuals

In light of neurophysiological evidence suggesting a link between hemispheric dominance and religious preference, three studies tested whether atheists and religious individuals process emotions differently. Suggestive of right-hemispheric dominance, individuals who identified with religion reported more intense positive emotions associated with a recalled love experience (Study 1), greater sadness in immediate response to reading a tragic news story (Study 2), and more vivid recall of the subjective details of either their most recent birthday or an existential crisis (Study 3). They also reported greater alexithymia compared to atheists. Overall, agnostic/no religion individuals averaged in between these two groups. The results suggest that, relative to atheists, religious individuals have more accessible yet undifferentiated emotions, which may perhaps serve as raw materials for religious experience.     

Beyond Death’s (and Conception’s) Door: The Unsettling Limitations of Incarnate Existence

The psychological effects of contemplating one’s death have received much empirical attention, but the impact of thinking about one’s conception—the other temporal endpoint of physical existence—has not. Across three experiments, reflecting on conception or death (vs. a neutral topic) led to increased framing of sexual reproduction as miraculous and sacred, intensified belief in discarnate immortality, and a greater desire to experience a discarnate state that offered no direct assurance of literal immortality. Thinking about death uniquely evoked greater anxiety as well as greater desire for an experience that offered assurance of literal immortality, congruent with the tenets of terror management theory. Nevertheless, the parallel effects evoked by reflecting on conception and death also suggest that both amplify the aversive salience of the limitations inherent to physical existence, such that people respond by seeking experiences and adjusting attitudes/beliefs to divert attention from the physical body.     

Hate: Evidence for a motivational conceptualization

Motivation and Emotion - Four studies (three Canadian, one African) tested whether lay understandings of hate are congruent with conceptualizing hate as a motive with the goal of diminishing or...     

Quitting before leaving: the mediating effects of psychological attachment and detachment on voice

This research advances understanding of the psychological mechanisms that encourage or dissuade upward, improvement-oriented voice. The authors describe how the loyalty and exit concepts from A. O. Hirschman's (1970) seminal framework reflect an employee's psychological attachment to or detachment from the organization, respectively, and they argue that psychological attachment and detachment should not be considered as separate, alternative options to voice but rather as influences on voice behavior. Findings from 499 managers in the restaurant industry show that psychological detachment (measured as intention to leave) is significantly related to voice and mediates relationships between perceptions of leadership (leader-member exchange and abusive supervision) and voice, whereas psychological attachment (measured as affective commitment) is neither a direct predictor of voice nor a mediator of leadership-voice relationships.     

Racism,Counterfactual Thinking,and Judgment Severity1

Two contrasting models of the effects of motivational influences on the relationship between counterfactual thinking and social judgment were tested, using a modified version of Wells and Gavanski's (1989) cab driver vignette. Undergraduates (N= 208) assigned blame to a negligent white or black target after imagining how the target's alternative behavior could have either easily or improbably averted two accident-related fatalities. Results suggested that motivational variables such as racism moderate the relationship between counterfactual thinking and judgment severity rather than directly affect the counterfactual thinking process itself. Implications for current conceptions of both counterfactual thinking and racism are discussed.     

Distorted distance estimation induced by a self-relevant national boundary

Six experiments explored the possibility that the categorization of self versus not-self can distort visual estimations of distance. In Experiments 1-3, Americans overestimated the distance between a U.S. location and a foreign location relative to a visually equidistant U.S. location. In Experiment 4, Canadians overestimated foreign relative to Canadian locations. Experiment 5 showed that this effect occurs even when the domestic context is not physically contiguous. Experiment 6 showed that distance distortion occurs only when crossing one’s own border to a foreign location, not when crossing borders from one foreign location to another. Thus, crossing the psychological boundary between self and not-self creates a visual illusion that distorts on-line distance estimates.     

Let me count the ways: An integrative theory of love and hate

We propose an integrative theory of love and hate intended to help resolve problems and inconsistencies that have emerged from previous conceptualizations. We suggest that love is a motive based on the valuing of the other and is associated with the goal of preserving or promoting the other's well‐being. Likewise, hate is a motive based on devaluing the other and is associated with the goal of diminishing or destroying the other's well‐being. We further suggest that intense, powerful emotions may serve as eliciting experiences for different types of love and hate, and we discuss how benefiting or harming the other can be either an instrumental or an ultimate goal for the various forms of love and hate. Finally, we discuss some ways in which our theory can promote new directions in the future study of love and hate.     

"It's the end of the world as we know it": threat and the spatial-symbolic self

According to amoebic self theory, the boundary defining the self encompasses 3 levels of self-representation--bodily, social, and spatial-symbolic. Study 1 related a newly developed measure of individual differences in sensitivity to boundary threat across these 3 domains to values and disgust sensitivity. Four subsequent studies focused on spatial-symbolic threat sensitivity and related it to right-wing authoritarianism, aversive reactions to unfamiliar out-groups, and revulsion to vermin. A final experiment illustrates how a salient spatial-symbolic threat (dust mites) can elicit reactions toward out-groups that closely parallel mortality salience effects observed in research inspired by terror management theory, even though dust mites do not elicit mortality concerns. The importance of preserving the familiar in order to preserve the self is discussed.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Religiousness, Spirituality, and Underage Drinking: The Role of Positive Alcohol Expectancies

Research has consistently found that religiousness and spirituality are negatively associated with underage drinking. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the mechanisms by which these variables influence this important outcome. With 344 underage young adults (ages 18–20; 61 % women), we investigated positive alcohol expectancies as a mediator between religiousness and spirituality (measured separately) and underage alcohol use. Participants completed the Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Alcohol Expectancies Questionnaire, and Drinking Styles Questionnaire. Results indicate less positive alcohol expectancies partially mediate the relationship between both religiousness and spirituality and underage alcohol use. This suggests religiousness and spirituality’s protective influence on underage drinking is partly due to their influence on expectations about alcohol’s positive effects. Since underage drinking predicts problem drinking later in life and places one at risk for serious physical and mental health problems, it is important to identify specific points of intervention, including expectations about alcohol that rise from religious and spiritual factors.     

For my eyes only: gaze control, enmeshment, and relationship quality

Perceived closeness that preserves the distinctness of each partner enhances intimate relationship quality, whereas pseudocloseness or enmeshment--reflecting an inability to distinguish one's own thoughts and emotions from a partner's--may have more negative outcomes (R. J. Green & P. D. Werner, 1996). Two studies investigated whether a dispositional inability to differentiate self from other is manifested at the attentional level as reduced capacity to inhibit following the gaze of another (A. Frischen, A. P. Bayliss, & S. P. Tipper, 2007). Among healthy elderly spouses in Study 1, superior gaze control predicted superior sociocognitive functioning, and those with poorer gaze control abilities were perceived by the partner as constricting the perceiving partner's autonomy, which in turn predicted lower relationship satisfaction among the latter. Moreover, these links were mediated by enmeshment, as indicated by the percentage of "we"-focused versus "I"- or partner-focused thoughts and emotions in the partners' independent accounts of the same relationship events. Extending these findings in a sample of Parkinson's disease patients and their spouses, Study 2 revealed a biphasic effect of self-other differentiation on relationship dynamics: In the early stages of the disease, increased couple focus promoted superior relationship quality, whereas lack of self-other differentiation predicted poorer relationship quality later. Thus, dispositional variations in fundamental social-perceptual processes predict both close relationship dynamics and long-term relationship quality.