Dual processes of emotion and reason in judgments about moral dilemmas

We report the results of two experiments that show that participants rely on both emotion and reason in moral judgments. Experiment 1 showed that when participants were primed to communicate feelings, they provided emotive justifications not only for personal dilemmas, e.g., pushing a man from a bridge that will result in his death but save the lives of five others, but also for impersonal dilemmas, e.g., hitting a switch on a runaway train that will result in the death of one man but save the lives of five others; when they were primed to communicate thoughts, they provided non-emotive justifications for both personal and impersonal dilemmas. Experiment 2 showed that participants read about a protagonist's emotions more quickly when the protagonist was faced with a personal dilemma than an impersonal one, but they read about the protagonist's decision to act or not act equally quickly for personal and impersonal dilemmas.     

A Preliminary Study of COVID-19-related Stressors,Parenting Stress,and Parental Psychological Well-being Among Parents of School-age Children

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The COVID-19 pandemic has had substantial health, social, and economic effects on families. Consequent lockdowns and school closures heightened the burden on...     

Counterfactual and semifactual conditionals prime alternative possibilities

The authors examined in 3 experiments the comprehension of counterfactuals, such as "If it had rained, the plants would have bloomed," and semifactuals, such as "Even if it had rained, the plants would have bloomed," compared with indicative conditionals, "If it rained, the plants bloomed." The first experiment showed that people read the negative conjunction, "not p and not q" faster when it was primed by a counterfactual than when it was primed by an indicative conditional. They read the affirmative conjunction, "p and q" equally quickly when it was primed by either conditional. The 2nd experiment showed that people read the negated-antecedent conjunction, "not p and q" faster when it was primed by a semifactual conditional. The 3rd experiment corroborated these results in a direct comparison of counterfactuals and semifactuals. The authors discuss the implications of the results for the mental representations of different conditionals.     

Psychological predictors of weight regain in obesity

It is a consistent finding that, among obese patients, the weight lost as a result of the most widely available treatments for obesity is almost always regained. This relapse appears to be attributable to the individual's inability to persist with the behavioural strategies needed to maintain the new lower weight. Little research has investigated the psychological mechanisms that might account for this phenomenon. This study aimed to identify psychological factors that predict weight regain. Fifty-four women with obesity who had lost weight by attending community slimming clubs were interviewed immediately after losing 10% of their initial body weight, and then followed-up every 2 months for a period of 1 year by means of telephone interviews. The results identified two prospective predictors of weight regain: one cognitive factor (dichotomous thinking) and one historical variable (maximum lifetime weight). The finding that a specific cognitive style is a significant predictor of relapse has implications for the treatment of obesity.     

Does Octopus vulgaris have preferred arms?

Previous behavioral studies in Octopus vulgaris revealed lateralization of eye use. In this study, the authors expanded the scope to investigate arm preferences. The octopus's generalist hunting lifestyle and the structure of their arms suggest that these animals have no need to designate specific arms for specific tasks. However, octopuses also show behaviors, like exploration, in which only single or small groups of arms are involved. Here the authors show that octopuses had a strong preference for anterior arm use to reach for and explore objects, which points toward a task division between anterior and posterior arms. Four out of 8 subjects also showed a lateral bias. In addition, octopuses had a preference for a specific arm to reach into a T maze to retrieve a food reward. These findings give evidence for limb-specialization in an animal whose 8 arms were believed to be equipotential.     

Feeding behavior of Aplysia: a model system for comparing cellular mechanisms of classical and operant conditioning

Feeding behavior of Aplysia provides an excellent model system for analyzing and comparing mechanisms underlying appetitive classical conditioning and reward operant conditioning. Behavioral protocols have been developed for both forms of associative learning, both of which increase the occurrence of biting following training. Because the neural circuitry that mediates the behavior is well characterized and amenable to detailed cellular analyses, substantial progress has been made toward a comparative analysis of the cellular mechanisms underlying these two forms of associative learning. Both forms of associative learning use the same reinforcement pathway (the esophageal nerve, En) and the same reinforcement transmitter (dopamine, DA). In addition, at least one cellular locus of plasticity (cell B51) is modified by both forms of associative learning. However, the two forms of associative learning have opposite effects on B51. Classical conditioning decreases the excitability of B51, whereas operant conditioning increases the excitability of B51. Thus, the approach of using two forms of associative learning to modify a single behavior, which is mediated by an analytically tractable neural circuit, is revealing similarities and differences in the mechanisms that underlie classical and operant conditioning.     

Cognitive capacities for behavioural flexibility in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): the effect of snare injury on complex manual food processing

In chimpanzees, it is only in the restricted context of tool use that manual and cognitive skills have been described, comparable to those that gorillas and orang-utans display in obtaining plant foods. We report the complex food preparation skills used to eat, without tools, the leaves of the tree Broussonettia papyrifera in the Sonso community of chimpanzees at Budongo Forest, Uganda. Able-bodied individuals used multi-stage techniques that required bimanual role differentiation at several stages, and were hierarchical in organisation. A total repertoire of 14 techniques was found, with strong preference in all individuals for either of two of these; 6 additional techniques were found when flowers and leaves were eaten together. However, in this community over 20% of individuals suffer from some form of upper- or lower-limb injury as a result of snares. We investigated the manner of compensation for upper-limb injury. Only the most severely injured showed reduced feeding efficiency. Injured individuals were found to use the same repertoire of techniques as able-bodied chimpanzees. We found no evidence to suggest that injured individuals were able to develop wholly novel techniques optimal for their specific injuries, although shifts in preference for particular techniques did occur. Rather, injured individuals used novel ways of achieving particular steps in the process; by "working around" their impairments; in this way, they managed to use the same techniques as the able-bodied. Since snare injuries generally befall young animals, these results suggest that chimpanzees learn techniques partly through observational learning (of, necessarily, able-bodied individuals). Accepted after revision: 8 February 2001 Electronic Publication     

Validating the measurement and structure of self-concept: snapshots of past,present, and future research

Although the study of self-concept has been a topic of great interest and much study in the social sciences for many decades, it is really only in the past 30 years that any fruitful expansion in knowledge of both its theoretical structure and its related measurement has been forthcoming. From three perspectives--past, present, and future--the author presents abbreviated and selected highlights of important construct validity findings related to this research and postulates possible trends and areas of self-concept research yet to be explored.     

Measurement equivalence: a comparison of methods based on confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory

Current interest in the assessment of measurement equivalence emphasizes 2 major methods of analysis. The authors offer a comparison of a linear method (confirmatory factor analysis) and a nonlinear method (differential item and test functioning using item response theory) with an emphasis on their methodological similarities and differences. The 2 approaches test for the equality of true scores (or expected raw scores) across 2 populations when the latent (or factor) score is held constant. Both approaches can provide information about when measurement nonequivalence exists and the extent to which it is a problem. An empirical example is used to illustrate the 2 approaches.