Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences

Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one's preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.     

Aging and the discrimination of 3-D shape from motion and binocular disparity

Two experiments evaluated the ability of younger and older adults to visually discriminate 3-D shape as a function of surface coherence. The coherence was manipulated by embedding the 3-D surfaces in volumetric noise (e.g., for a 55?% coherent surface, 55?% of the stimulus points fell on a 3-D surface, while 45?% of the points occupied random locations within the same volume of space). The 3-D surfaces were defined by static binocular disparity, dynamic binocular disparity, and motion. The results of both experiments demonstrated significant effects of age: Older adults required more coherence (tolerated volumetric noise less) for reliable shape discrimination than did younger adults. Motion-defined and static-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces resulted in similar coherence thresholds. However, performance for dynamic-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces was superior (i.e., the observers?? surface coherence thresholds were lowest for these stimuli). The results of both experiments showed that younger and older adults possess considerable tolerance to the disrupting effects of volumetric noise; the observers could reliably discriminate 3-D surface shape even when 45?% of the stimulus points (or more) constituted noise.     

Integrating cross-cultural psychology research methods into ethnic minority psychology

Multicultural psychology has 2 related but often disconnected streams, namely cross-cultural psychology and racial and ethnic minority psychology (Hall & Maramba, 2001). We propose that advances in both fields will be facilitated if there is greater cross-fertilization, especially in methodological approaches given that proponents in both fields are interested in studying and understanding the role and impact of culture on human behavior. To facilitate this cross-fertilization, we present 3 methodological approaches that would be of value in racial and ethnic minority psychology. First, we present an overview of the importance of and the approaches to evaluating and establishing measurement equivalence. Second, we discuss recent advances in the understanding of conceptual equivalence in light of indigenous approaches, cultural manipulation, and multilevel analysis. Third, we present a combined etic-emic approach to cross-cultural personality research as illustrated by the Cross-Cultural Personality Assessment Inventory developed by Fanny Cheung and her colleagues.     

Reconsolidation in humans opens up declarative memory to the entrance of new information

A consolidated memory recalled by a reminder enters a vulnerability phase (labilization), followed by a process of stabilization (reconsolidation). Several authors have suggested that the labilization of the consolidated memory makes the incorporation of new information possible. Here, we demonstrate updating in the framework of memory declarative reconsolidation in humans by giving an opportune verbal instruction. Volunteers learn an association between five cue-syllables (L1) and their respective response-syllables. Twenty-four hours later, the paired-associate verbal memory is labilized by exposing the subjects to the reminder, and then they receive the verbal Instruction of adding three new cue-response syllables (INFO) with their respective responses to the former list of five. The new information is incorporated into the single former L1-memory and both INFO and L1 are successfully retrieved on the third day. However, when the Instruction is not preceded by a proper reminder, or when the instruction omits the order of adding the INFO into the former L1-memory, we observed interference in retrieval of both the original and the new information, suggesting that they are encoded independently and coexist as separate memories.     

Hippocampal memory processes are modulated by insulin and high-fat-induced insulin resistance

Insulin regulates glucose uptake and storage in peripheral tissues, and has been shown to act within the hypothalamus to acutely regulate food intake and metabolism. The machinery for transduction of insulin signaling is also present in other brain areas, particularly in the hippocampus, but a physiological role for brain insulin outside the hypothalamus has not been established. Recent studies suggest that insulin may be able to modulate cognitive functions including memory. Here we report that local delivery of insulin to the rat hippocampus enhances spatial memory, in a PI-3-kinase dependent manner, and that intrahippocampal insulin also increases local glycolytic metabolism. Selective blockade of endogenous intrahippocampal insulin signaling impairs memory performance. Further, a rodent model of type 2 diabetes mellitus produced by a high-fat diet impairs basal cognitive function and attenuates both cognitive and metabolic responses to hippocampal insulin administration. Our data demonstrate that insulin is required for optimal hippocampal memory processing. Insulin resistance within the telencephalon may underlie the cognitive deficits commonly reported to accompany type 2 diabetes.     

Three Reviews of For Life Abundant: Practical Theology,Theological Education,and Christian Ministry,edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra, 2008

For Life Abundant, the fruit of sustained reflection among systematic theologians, practical theologians, and pastors, is an important new work that deserves attention. The volume provokes creative and critical thinking about practical theology. Its contributors conceptualize the field as a disciplined practice of imagination and skill residing at the confluence of Christian tradition and living ecclesial communities, and ask what such a construal of practical theology might mean for theological education. Given the significance of For Life Abundant, Teaching Theology and Religion asked three theological educators who are located in different regions, types of institutions, and fields, to review and respond to it. Rebecca Slough describes the volume's central questions and organization, and considers how it might contribute to the deliberations of a seminary faculty regarding a school's curriculum. Martha Stortz shows how the process and structure of For Life Abundant are in themselves illustrative of the conceptualization of practical theology for which it argues. Kwok Pui‐lan notes the volumes strengths and goes on to probe its lacunae, particularly with regard to global, gender, and multi‐cultural considerations relevant to a robust construal of pastoral theology in our time. While the authors of these three reviews and responses to the volume did not interact as they wrote them, together they comprise a conversation that should be on‐going. TTR invites further responses to the volume.     

Action Research: A Missing Component in the Emergence of Social and Cross‐Cultural Psychology as a Fully Inter‐Connected Global Enterprise

Action research, as envisaged by Lewin, uses research to solve a social problem and provide theoretical knowledge. It involves a cyclical–spiral of planning, action, and evaluation with feedback between parties, taking into account power and value differences and empowering change agents. This has been all but abandoned by social psychologists today. Contemporary ‘participatory’ action research has migrated to fields like education and development and community studies that emphasize a social constructionist epistemology with a qualitative approach of recording bottom‐up processes of social change and community self‐awareness. The globalization of psychology affords new opportunities for a return to more top‐down Lewinian traditions, where academics in the developing world – embedded within a cultural milieu of interconnectedness and relatively exempt from pressures to publish or perish – can work together with academics in wealthy countries to produce a process oriented psychology that is capable of making a difference under conditions of climate change and the end of cheap oil. Asian social psychology, where strongly indigenous psychologies have taken root in growing economies, may take a leading role in this movement.     

Forming and reacting to overall fairness: A cross-cultural comparison

This study compared the cross-cultural formation and reactions toward overall fairness perception of employees from the US, China, Korea, and Japan. Distributive justice was related to overall fairness less strongly for Americans and Japanese than for Chinese and Koreans. In contrast, interactional justice was related to overall fairness more strongly for Americans and Japanese than for Chinese and Koreans. As expected, materialism seems to provide a coherent account of these cultural differences. In addition, overall fairness showed a stronger effect on turnover intention for Americans than for Chinese and Koreans. For job satisfaction, the effect of overall fairness was stronger for Americans than for Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. Power distance seems to provide an adequate account of these cultural differences.     

Movements execution in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

We evaluated the relationship between motor and neuropsychological deficits in subjects affected by amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) and early Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Kinematics of goal-directed movement of aMCI and AD subjects were compared to those of age-matched control subjects. AD showed a slowing down of motor performance compared to aMCI and controls. No relationships were found between motor and cognitive performances in both AD and aMCI. Our results suggest that the different motor behaviour between AD and aMCI cannot be related to memory deficits, probably reflecting the initial degeneration of parietal-frontal circuits for movement planning. The onset of motor dysfunction in early AD could represent the transition from aMCI to AD.