The influence of abstract and concrete mindsets on anticipating and guiding others' self-regulatory efforts

To investigate how people anticipate and attempt to shape others' self-regulatory efforts, this work examined the impact of abstract and concrete mindsets on attention to goal-relevant aspects of others' situations. An abstract (relative to a concrete) mindset, by making accessible the cognitive operation of considering activities' purpose (versus process) was predicted to focus attention on how others' self-evaluative situations could impact others' long-term aims of self-knowledge and self-improvement, thus facilitating the anticipation and preference that others pursue accurate, even self-critical, feedback. Participants in an abstract (relative to a concrete) mindset both anticipated (Experiment 1) and suggested (Experiments 2a and b) that others pursue realistic rather than overly positive self-relevant information, with the latter effect apparently explained by the salience of abstract versus concrete goal-relevant features of others' situations (Experiment 2b). Implications for self-regulatory mindsets, as well as for interpersonal relations, are discussed.     

Wanted: real Children. about Innocence and Nostalgia in a Commodified Childhood

Today childhood takes place within amultimedia context where education, marketingand entertainment operate together in one bigmelting pot. Childhood is commodified, asituation not everybody seems happy with. Dueto increasing exposure with violence and sexualactivities, for example in children's games,children seem to lose the chance to be realchildren. In the discussions about thiscommodified childhood, innocence and nostalgiaseem omnipresent concepts. In this article wefirst analyse the discourse about the innocenceof childhood as presented by Neil Postman inhis bestseller ``The Disappearance ofChildhood.'' Here, childhood is seen as a periodwhich can mainly be characterised in terms of a``not yet.'' However, Postman's view on childhoodpresents only one side of the romanticcontinuum. The other side – in which the childappears as having a nature of her own – can beillustrated by ``On naïve and sentimentalpoetry,'' an essay written by Friedrich Schillerin 1795. Both opposing views on childhood canlead to a different interpretation of theinnocence of childhood. Finally, Schiller'sdichotomy – the naïve versus thesentimental poet – can be seen as a useful legup to the clarification of nostalgia whichseems to go hand in hand with the feeling ofthe loss of (one's own) childhood.     

Similarity relations among spoken words: The special status of rimes in English

This paper presents an analysis of the distribution of phonological similarity relations among monosyllabic spoken words in English. It differs from classical analyses of phonological neighborhood density (e.g., Luce &; Pisoni, 1998) by assuming that not all phonological neighbors are equal. Rather, it is assumed that the phonological lexicon has psycholinguistic structure. Accordingly, in addition to considering thenumber of phonological neighbors for any given word, it becomes important to consider thenature of these neighbors. If one type of neighbor is more dominant, neighborhood density effects may reflect levels of segmental representation other than the phoneme, particularly prior to literacy. Statistical analyses of the nature of phonological neighborhoods in terms ofrime neighbors (e.g.,hat/cat),consonant neighbors (e.g.,hat/hit), andlead neighbors (e.g.,hat/ham) were thus performed for all monosyllabic words in the Celex corpus (4,086 words). Our results show that most phonological neighbors are rime neighbors (e.g.,hat/cat) in English. Similar patterns were found when a corpus of words for which age-of-acquisition ratings were available was analyzed. The resultant database can be used as a tool for controlling and selecting stimuli when the role of lexical neighborhoods in phonological development and speech processing is examined.     

文明的"早生晚熟"和"晚生早熟"--中、英两国文明特征的比较与反思

本文从经济形态、政治制度、社会结构、思想观念、人格特征五个方面对中英两国文明进行观照,认为中英文明分别具有“早生晚熟”和“晚生早熟”的不同特征,而这又是与双方文明进程迥然、专制程度差异、社会结构有别以及对待传统态度不同分不开的。正是这些差别造成了中华文明从先行到落后,而英国文明虽后来反居上。因此,只有丢掉包袱。轻装上阵。中华民族才能浴火重生。     

Identity‐based motivation: Constraints and opportunities in consumer research

This commentary underscores the integrative nature of the identity-based motivation model (Oyserman, D. (2009). Identity-based motivation: Implications for action-readiness, procedural-readiness, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(3) (this issue)). We situate the model within existing literatures in psychology and consumer behavior, and illustrate its novel elements with research examples. Special attention is devoted to, 1) how product- and brand-based affordances constrain identity-based motivation processes and, 2) the mindsets and action tendencies that can be triggered by specific cultural identities in pursuit of consumer goals. Future opportunities are suggested for researching the antecedents of product meanings and relevant identities.     

Spermine improves recognition memory deficit in a rodent model of Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with motor and cognitive impairment. Intrastriatal administration of quinolinic acid (QA) causes neurodegeneration, glial proliferation and cognitive impairment in animals, which are similar to these seen in human HD. Since polyamines improve memory in cognitive tasks, we now tested if the post-training intrastriatal administration of spermine, an agonist of the polyamine site at the NMDA receptor, reverses the deficits in the object recognition task induced by QA. Bilateral striatal injections of QA (180 or 360 nmol/site) caused object recognition impairment, neuronal death and reactive astrogliosis. A single injection of spermine (0.1 and 1 nmol/site), 5 days after QA injection, reversed QA-induced impairment of object recognition task. Spermine (0.1 nmol/site) also inhibited QA-induced reactive astrogliosis measured by a semi-quantitative determination of GFAP immunolabelling, but did not alter neuronal death, measured by a semi-quantitative determination of fluoro-Jade C staining. These results suggest that polyamine binding sites may be considered a novel therapeutic target to prevent reactive astrogliosis and mnemonic deficits in HD.     

Acetylcholine activity in selective striatal regions supports behavioral flexibility

Daily living often requires individuals to flexibly respond to new circumstances. There is considerable evidence that the striatum is part of a larger neural network that supports flexible adaptations. Cholinergic interneurons are situated to strongly influence striatal output patterns which may enable flexible adaptations. The present experiments investigated whether acetylcholine actions in different striatal regions support behavioral flexibility by measuring acetylcholine efflux during place reversal learning. Acetylcholine efflux selectively increased in the dorsomedial striatum, but not dorsolateral or ventromedial striatum during place reversal learning. In order to modulate the M2-class of autoreceptors, administration of oxotremorine sesquifumurate (100 nM) into the dorsomedial striatum, concomitantly impaired reversal learning and an increase in acetylcholine output. These effects were reversed by the m(2) muscarinic receptor antagonist, AF-DX-116 (20 nM). The effects of oxotremorine sesquifumurate and AF-DX-116 on acetylcholine efflux were selective to behaviorally-induced changes as neither treatment affected acetylcholine output in a resting condition. In contrast to reversal learning, acetylcholine efflux in the dorsomedial striatum did not change during place acquisition. The results reveal an essential role for cholinergic activity and define its locus of control to the dorsomedial striatum in cognitive flexibility.     

Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) point to inform a human about the location of a tool

Although pointing is not part of great apes’ natural gestural repertoire, they can learn to point to food, in order to request it. To assess the flexibility with which they can use this gesture, one can vary the potential referent of the point. In two previous studies, three orangutans (two of them human-reared) have shown the ability to point to the location of a tool which a human experimenter needed in order to give them food. Here, we tested six orangutans and five bonobos using a set-up in which our subjects had to guide a human experimenter to the hiding place of a fork which was needed in order to retrieve a piece of food for the subject out of a vertical tube. We further examined the potential role of a competitive/deceptive context by varying the identity of the person responsible for hiding the tool. In addition, we implemented three different control conditions in which an object was hidden but it was not necessary to indicate its location to get the food. We found that the majority of subjects spontaneously guided the experimenter to the hiding place of the fork by pointing to it when it was necessary and they did so significantly less in control conditions. We did not find an effect of the person hiding the fork. Our results show that mother-reared orangutans and bonobos are able to point to inform a human about the location of an object that the human needs to procure food for the subject and that they can take into account whether it is relevant or not to do so.