Belief in a just world and wellbeing in Indian schools

This study investigates the meaning of belief in just world (BJW) for students' subjective justice experiences with their parents and teachers and for students' subjective well-being. The hypotheses tested were that the more strongly students endorse BJW, the less the distress at school and depressive symptoms they experience. Two dimensions of BJW were assessed: personal BJW, reflecting the belief that events in one's own life are generally just, and general BJW, reflecting the belief that the world is basically a just place. The participants were 278 Indian students attending ten 10th grade classes at two private English-medium schools. The results showed that only the personal BJW, not the general BJW, was important in explaining justice experiences and wellbeing. The more the students endorsed the belief in personal just world, the more they felt treated justly by their teachers and their parents alike, and the less distress at school and depressive symptoms they experienced. In addition, teacher justice, but not parent justice, explained distress at school. Finally, the effect of personal BJW on depressive symptoms was partly mediated by both teacher and parent justice. This pattern of results persisted when class effects were controlled. Overall, this pattern of results emphasizes the importance of the individual and subjective experience of justice of the teacher behavior for adolescent wellbeing. Implications for further studies on BJW and wellbeing at school are discussed.     

A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF BRIEF RULES, A TIMER, AND PREFERRED TOYS ON SELF-CONTROL

Some children make impulsive choices (i.e., choose a small but immediate reinforcer over a large but delayed reinforcer). Previous research has shown that delay fading, providing an alternative activity during the delay, teaching participants to repeat a rule during the delay, combining delay fading with an alternative activity, and combining delay fading with a countdown timer are effective for increasing self‐control (i.e., choosing the large but delayed reinforcer over the small but immediate reinforcer). The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of various interventions in the absence of delay fading (i.e., providing brief rules, providing a countdown timer during the delay, or providing preferred toys during the delay) on self‐control. Results suggested that providing brief rules or a countdown timer during the delay was ineffective for enhancing self‐control. However, providing preferred toys during the delay effectively enhanced self‐control.     

Belief in a just world, teacher justice, and bullying behavior

The relation between school students' belief in a just world (BJW) and their bullying behavior was investigated in a questionnaire study. The mediating role of teacher justice was also examined. Data were obtained from a total of N = 458 German and Indian high school students. Regression analyses revealed that the more strongly students believed in a personal just world and the more they evaluated their teachers' behavior toward them personally to be just, the less bullying behavior they reported. Moreover, students with a strong BJW tended to evaluate their teachers' behavior toward them personally to be more just, and the experience of teacher justice mediated the relation between BJW and less bullying perpetration. This pattern of results was as expected and consistent across different cultural contexts. It persisted when neuroticism, sex, and country were controlled. The adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research are discussed.     

In medio stat virtus: theoretical and methodological extremes regarding reciprocity will not explain complex social behaviors

Guala contests the validity of strong reciprocity as a key element in shaping social behavior by contrasting evidence from experimental games to that of natural and historic data. He suggests that in order to understand the evolution of social behavior researchers should focus on natural data and weak reciprocity. We disagree with Guala's proposal to shift the focus of the study from one extreme of the spectrum (strong reciprocity) to the other extreme (weak reciprocity). We argue that the study of the evolution of social behavior must be comparative in nature, and we point out experimental evidence that shows that social behavior is not cooperation determined by a set of fixed factors. We argue for a model that sees social behavior as a dynamic interaction of genetic and environmental factors.     

The bystander-effect: a meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies

Research on bystander intervention has produced a great number of studies showing that the presence of other people in a critical situation reduces the likelihood that an individual will help. As the last systematic review of bystander research was published in 1981 and was not a quantitative meta-analysis in the modern sense, the present meta-analysis updates the knowledge about the bystander effect and its potential moderators. The present work (a) integrates the bystander literature from the 1960s to 2010, (b) provides statistical tests of potential moderators, and (c) presents new theoretical and empirical perspectives on the novel finding of non-negative bystander effects in certain dangerous emergencies as well as situations where bystanders are a source of physical support for the potentially intervening individual. In a fixed effects model, data from over 7,700 participants and 105 independent effect sizes revealed an overall effect size of g = -0.35. The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping. We also identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers.     

The ancestor effect: Thinking about our genetic origin enhances intellectual performance

The present research hypothesizes that thinking about one's genetic origin (i.e. ancestors) provides people with a positive psychological resource that increases their intellectual performance. To test this line of reasoning, we manipulated whether participants thought about their ancestors or not (manipulation of ancestor salience), and measured their expected as well as actual intellectual performance in a variety of intelligence tasks. Four studies supported our assumptions: participants show higher expected (Study 1) and actual intellectual performance (Studies 2–4) when they are reminded about their ancestors. We also have initial evidence that this effect may be fuelled by increased levels of perceived control and promotion orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. (Plutarch 46–120 AD) Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Education,Conflict and the Political: Introduction to the Special Issue

In recent years the French philosopher Jacques Rancière has addressed the predicament of artists and curators who, in their eagerness to convey a critical message or engage their viewers in an emancipatory process, end up predetermining the outcomes of the experience, hence blocking its critical or emancipatory potential. In this essay I consider Rancière’s writing on this topic and draw out the parallels with the predicament of teachers and curriculum designers who have critical and emancipatory objectives. The risk of education that strives for emancipation is that it can become so directive in steering students to the “right” outcomes that it does not leave these students any intellectual room. Rancière’s work is helpful in reminding us that teachers and curricula with explicitly critical, political, emancipatory objectives can defeat their own purposes and become stultifying if they do not leave the student room to use her or his own intelligence.     

Building a Committed Hospice Volunteer Workforce—Do Variables at the Experience Stage Matter?

Volunteers are crucial to the survival of non‐profit organisations, who therefore have a fundamental interest in sustaining voluntary engagement over time. A central variable regarding sustained voluntary engagement is volunteers' organisational commitment, which has so far been a neglected research issue. The study at hand therefore explicitly focuses on hospice volunteers' commitment. Starting from the assumption that variables at the experience stage of volunteerism may be relevant in predicting volunteer commitment, questionnaire data on volunteers' motives, motive fulfilment and role identity were collected in a sample of hospice volunteers (N = 276). Results of multiple regression analyses show positive relationships between altruistic motive fulfilment and a volunteer role identity on the one hand and volunteer commitment on the other. Observed interaction effects imply that altruistic motive fulfilment is of importance both at the initial phase of volunteering and for long‐term volunteers. Moreover, interaction effects provide evidence that the fulfilment of egoistic motives is of particular importance amongst volunteers to whom egoistic motives are central. Thus, the fulfilment of altruistic motives and facilitating the development of a volunteer role identity should be permanent concerns in building a committed workforce. Egoistic motive fulfilment in contrast is of special relevance, when egoistic motives for volunteering are strong. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age-related qualitative differences in post-error cognitive control adjustments

Detecting an error signals the need for increased cognitive control and behavioural adjustments. Considerable development in performance monitoring and cognitive control is evidenced by lower error rates and faster response times in multi-trial executive function tasks with age. Besides these quantitative changes, we were interested in whether qualitative changes in balancing accuracy and speed contribute to developmental progression during elementary school years. We conducted two studies investigating the temporal and developmental trajectories of post-error slowing in three prominent cognitive conflict tasks (Stroop, Simon, and flanker). We instructed children (8-, 10-, and 12-year-old) and adults to respond as fast and as accurately as possible and measured their response times on four trials after correct and incorrect responses to a cognitive conflict. Results revealed that all age groups had longer response times on post-error versus post-correct trials, reflecting post-error slowing. Critically, slowing on the first post-error trial declined with age, suggesting an age-related reduction in the orienting response towards errors. This age effect diminished on subsequent trials, suggesting more fine-tuned cognitive control adjustments with age. Overall, the consistent pattern across tasks suggests an age-related change from a relatively strong orienting response to more balanced cognitive control adaptations.