Appreciation,Analysis, and Critique: <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion</Emphasis> and the Future of Conversion Studies

This article provides an introduction to the essays in this issue on the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, edited by Lewis Rambo and Charles Farhadian. After briefly discussing the origins of these essays in a session sponsored by the Religious Conversions Group at the 2015 American Academy of Religion annual meeting, as well as some of the broad historical trends and problems in the study of conversion(s), the essay provides a summary of each author’s contributions and suggests that one particular topic—healing—deserves more attention in the study of conversion than it has heretofore enjoyed.     

When nasty breeds nice: Threats of violence amplify agreeableness at national, individual, and situational levels

Humans have perennially faced threats of violence from other humans and have developed functional strategies for surviving those threats. Five studies examined the relation between threats of violence and agreeableness at the level of nations, individuals, and situations. People living in countries with higher military spending (Study 1) and those who chronically perceive threats from others (Study 2) were more agreeable. However, this threat-linked agreeableness was selective (Studies 3-5). Participants primed with threat were more agreeable and willing to help familiar others but were less agreeable and willing to help unfamiliar others. Additionally, people from large families, for whom affiliation may be a salient response to threat, were more likely than people from small families to shift in agreeableness. Returning to the national level, military spending was associated with increased trust in ingroup members but decreased trust in outgroups. Together, these findings demonstrate that agreeableness is selectively modulated by threats of violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

THE EFFECT OF ELICITATION METHODS ON PERSONAL CONSTRUCT DIFFERENTIATION AND VALENCE

The effect of personal construct elicitation methods on construct content and structure was addressed in two studies. In Study 1, a between-subjects design was used to compare Kelly's (1955) original Triadic Difference method of elicitation with a Dyadic Opposite method. Study 2 used a fully-crossed, mixed factorial design to compare Kelly's (1955) Triadic Difference method with Epting, Suchman, and Nickeson's (1971) Triadic Opposite method. Results showed that "difference" methods of construct elicitation produced significantly higher levels of construct differentiation, lower numbers of positive emergent construct poles, and less socially undesirable implicit construct poles than "opposite" methods (see also Caputi & Reddy, in press). Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to a critical reappraisal of repertory grid methods.     

Centrality Preferences in Choices Among Similar Options

Three explanations were explored for the finding that people prefer the middle option rather than the extremes when choosing from an array of similar options. In Study 1, 68% chose the middle item from a set of three highlighters and three surveys, whereas 32% chose an item from either end, p < .0001. In Study 2, 71% selected the middle chair from a row of three chairs that were either all empty, or had a backpack occupying either one of the two end chairs, p < .0001. These results support a minimal mental effort principle rather than a preference for symmetry rule. In Study 3, 54.2% recalled more graphic items from the center poster of a 3-poster collage, whereas 31.3% and 14.5% recalled more items from the left and right posters, respectively, p < .004. These findings lend additional support to a focus of attention explanation.     

The diagnosticity of color for emotional objects

Object classification can be facilitated if simple diagnostic features can be used to determine class membership. Previous studies have found that simple shapes may be diagnostic for emotional content and automatically alter the allocation of visual attention. In the present study, we analyzed whether color is diagnostic of emotional content and tested whether emotionally diagnostic hues alter the allocation of visual attention. Reddish-yellow hues are more common in (i.e., diagnostic of) emotional images, particularly images with positive emotional content. An exogenous cueing paradigm was employed to test whether these diagnostic hues orient attention differently from other hues due to the emotional diagnosticity. In two experiments, we found that participants allocated attention differently to diagnostic hues than to non-diagnostic hues, in a pattern indicating a broadening of spatial attention when cued with diagnostic hues. Moreover, the attentional broadening effect was predicted by self-reported measures of affective style, linking the behavioral effect to emotional processes. These results confirm the existence and use of diagnostic features for the rapid detection of emotional content.     

A Review of: “Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond. By Patricia J. Bauer.”

Patricia Bauer's impressive book, Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond, traces the development of autobiographical memory from infancy to adulthood. Drawing on a variety of different lines of evidence, ranging from brain development to cognitive development, this book reviews the fundamental questions (e.g., why do we remember so little about early childhood?) and proposes some provocative answers. Both experts and novices will have much to gain from this volume.     

Universals

In this paper, I argue that there are universals. I begin (Sect. 1) by proposing a sufficient condition for a thing’s being a universal. I then argue (Sect. 2) that some truths exist necessarily. Finally, I argue (Sects. 3 and 4) that these truths are structured entities having constituents that meet the proposed sufficient condition for being universals.     

Learning to diminish the effects of proactive interference: Reducing false memory for young and older adults

Results from two experiments revealed that prior experience with proactive interference (PI) diminished PI’s effects for both young and older adults. Participants were given two rounds of experience, with different materials, in a situation that produced PI. Comparisons with a control condition showed that the effects of PI on accuracy and on high-confidence intrusion errors (false memory) were reduced on the second round, as compared with those on the first. Also, the ability of confidence to diagnose accuracy of responding improved across rounds. Effects of prior experience with PI depended on feedback given at the time of test (Experiment 1). At least in part, the diminishment of PI resulted from participants’ allocating more attention to interference items during study in the second round than in the first (Experiment 2). Implications of the results for interpreting age differences in PI and false memory are discussed.     

Testing four explanations for the better/worse-than-average effect: Single- and multi-item entities as comparison targets and referents

In six experiments, we tested four explanations for the better/worse-than-average effect (B/WTA) by manipulating the number of items comprising the target or referent of direct comparison. A single-item target tended to be rated more extremely than a single-item or a multi-item referent (Experiments 1–3). No B/WTA was obtained, however, when a multi-item target was compared with either a single- or multi-item referent (Experiments 4 and 5). A bias favoring a multi-item target was found only if cohesiveness among the items was increased through instructions (Experiment 6). The Unique-Attributes Hypothesis generally provided the best explanation the findings; the focalism explanation also demonstrated some empirical viability. The results suggest that important preferential decision-making outcomes can be affected by both the number of items and whether items are strategically manipulated to serve as targets or referents of comparison.