The cognitive and affective dimensions of moral conviction: implications for attitudinal and behavioral measures of interpersonal tolerance

The present studies investigate the role of both cognitive and affective dimensions of moral conviction in contributing to negative interpersonal responses. After demonstrating that the cognitive and affective dimensions of moral conviction are distinct constructs, the studies show that the cognitive dimension is sufficient to produce many forms of interpersonal intolerance. Simply believing an issue to be moral (i.e., objectively grounded, non-negotiable) results in greater intolerance for (Study 1), less sharing with (Study 2), and greater distancing from (Study 3) people with divergent attitudes. The emotional intensity with which beliefs are experienced is not alone explanatory. Nonetheless, it interacts with moral beliefs to produce the highest levels of interpersonal intolerance, distancing from dissimilar others, and context insensitivity. This interaction pattern between moral beliefs and affect was specific to emotional intensity and not other measures of attitude strength (Study 3).     

A limited role for the hippocampus in the modulation of novel-object preference by contextual cues

Recent evidence suggests that rats require an intact hippocampus in order to recognize familiar objects when they encounter them again in a different context. The two experiments reported here further examined how changes in context affect rats' performance on the novel-object preference (NOP) test of object-recognition memory, and how those effects interact with the effects of HPC damage. Rats with HPC lesions and control rats received NOP testing in either the same context in which they had previously encountered sample objects, or in a different but equally familiar context. In Experiment 1, the two contexts had very few overlapping cues within or outside the apparatus; thus, the differences between them were global. Consistent with previous results, control rats showed a novel-object preference in both the unchanged and (globally) changed contexts, whereas rats with HPC lesions displayed a preference only in the unchanged context. In Experiment 2, the context shift included only local features proximal to the test objects. The main results were the reverse of Experiment 1--rats with HPC lesions displayed a novel-object preference in both the unchanged and (locally) changed contexts, whereas control rats displayed a preference only in the unchanged context. The findings are consistent with the view that HPC damage does not cause a general inability to recognize objects, nor an inability to encode or store a representation of the context in which the objects are encountered. They suggest instead that HPC damage impairs the ability to remember specific locations of familiar objects within a particular context.     

Healing Principles: A Model for the Use of Ritual in Psychotherapy

The author presents a model, based on 5 healing principles (i.e., centering, assessment, gathering energy, directing energy, and gratitude and closure), for using ritual in psychotherapy. Application of the model is illustrated in a case study of a neopagan ritual designed to assist the client in strengthening her sense of self, differentiating from her mother, and making a career decision. The author also suggests using the Healing Principle Ritual Therapy Model with other belief systems.     

Dissidence from within: Examining the effects of intergroup context on group members’ reactions to attitudinal opposition

The successful achievement of a group’s goals often requires a broad base of support among members. Because group and individual interests can diverge, however, dissension is likely. We argued that reactions to such dissension on an issue that is relevant to the group’s status can vary as a function of contextual goals. Whereas dissension from an ingroup member would be rejected in an intergroup context, it might be tolerated in an intragroup context. Regression analyses of women’s (N=96) responses to dissension on an attitudinal issue (abortion on demand) indicated that in an intergroup context, women derogated a dissenting woman more if they had a strong gender identity and viewed the issue as gender relevant. Dissent in an intragroup context was evaluated more positively. The results provided insight into the factors involved in defining a collective identity.     

Coping with a threatened group identity: Psychosocial and neuroendocrine responses

Given the stress associated with belonging to a socially devalued group, members' reactions to a threat were evaluated within a stress and coping framework. Participants (N=72) were presented with an explicit or nonexplicit (positive vs. neutral cues) threat to a devalued identity. Regressions indicated that problem-focused coping was related to appraising the identity threat as controllable, and with a greater sense of optimism. Together these variables were associated with lower salivary cortisol levels. The role of emotion-focused coping was most evident under explicit threat conditions, such that it was associated with sustained cortisol elevations and a diminution of identity importance. The findings suggest that intergroup responses involve a complex interplay among stressor appraisals and coping propensities.     

Health Research in Complex Emergencies: A Humanitarian Imperative

Health researchers, research trainees, and ethics reviewers should be prepared for the special application of research ethics within complex humanitarian emergencies. This paper argues that as a precursor to published ethical guidelines for conducting research in complex emergencies, researchers and research ethics committees should observe the following primary ethical considerations: (1) the research is not at the expense of humanitarian action; (2) the research is justified in that it is needs-driven and relevant to the affected populations; and (3) the research does not compromise the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. These primary considerations are in harmony with the humanitarian goals of saving lives, alleviating suffering, and témoignage. Furthermore, there is an important role for research in supporting humanitarian action, and the extreme vulnerability of research participants in complex emergencies demands intense research ethics scrutiny. It is important to discern which ethical considerations are essential, and which are merely desirable, as excessive research ethics requirements may impede life-saving research.     

Male Melancholia, Identity-Loss, and Religion

This essay posits a relationship between male melancholia, defined as a complicated form of grief that resists compensatory consolation, and experiences of identity-loss. I draw especially from pastoral psychologist Donald Capps’s views on male melancholia. Concurring with Capps’s claim that melancholic men seek relief from melancholia in religion, I also draw from the psychology of Erik H. Erikson to add this emphasis: that both the roots of melancholia and subsequent experiences of melancholic loss link with experiences of perceived threats to or loss of one’s identity. I also suggest how religious rituals may ameliorate melancholia.     

Relationship maintenance across platonic and non-platonic cross-sex friendships in emerging adults

Prior research examining maintenance in cross-sex friendships focuses heavily on platonic (i.e., nonsexually active) friendships with limited research examining sexually involved cross-sex friendships (i.e., “friends with benefits relationships”). In this study, we investigated differences in relational maintenance behaviors between sexually and nonsexually active cross-sex friendships types. In an online survey, 531 emerging adult participants from large southwestern and southeastern universities identified either a friends with benefits or platonic opposite sex friendship and then completed items asking them to report the frequency with which they enacted each of 36 relationship maintenance behaviors. Overall, participants involved in casual sex friendships engaged in the least, and those who transitioned from a friends-with-benefits relationship to a romantic relationship engaged in the most frequent relationship maintenance. Platonic friendships employed more frequent maintenance than casual-sex friendships but less than either true friends with benefits or participants who transitioned to a romantic relationship.     

Control of multimovement coordination: sensorimotor mechanisms in speech motor programming

The present paper provides some hypotheses concerning the role of sensorimotor mechanisms in the coordination and programming of multimovement behaviors. The primary database is from experiments on the control of speech, a motor behavior that inherently requires multimovement coordination. From these data, it appears that coordination may be implemented by calibrated, sensorimotor actions which couple multiple movements for the accomplishment of common functional goals. The data from speech and select observations in other motor systems also reveal that these sensorimotor linkages are task-dependent and may underlie the intermovement motor equivalence that characterizes many natural motor behaviors. In this context, it is hypothesized also that motor learning may involve the calibration of these intermovement sensorimotor actions. These observations in turn provide some alternative perspectives on the concept of a motor program, primarily suggesting that individual movements and muscle contractions are not wholly prespecified, but shaped by sensorimotor adjustments.