Theodicy on Trial

Philosophia - Moral anti-theodicists have posed a consequentialist argument against the theodical enterprise: that theodicies lead to harmful consequences in reality and that this should be...     

Target detection in one visual field in the presence or absence of stimuli in the contralateral field by right- and left-handed subjects

Marked differences in detectability are observed as a function of retinal locus when subjects are required to find a briefly exposed target pattern of uncertain location in the presence of a number of discriminably different nontarget patterns. Our previous studies using this search paradigm have attributed these detectability differences, and the right visual field detectability superiority associated with them, to a serial (scanning) mechanism which tends to examine stimuli in the right field earlier than those in the left. The present experiment, performed on large groups of right- and left-handed subjects, was designed to test the hypothesis that there are two independent serial processors, one in each hemisphere--an hypothesis which might account for the differences in detectability within and between the two half-fields in terms of hemispheric processing differences. The results are inconsistent with the dual independent serial processor hypothesis but are fully consistent with a single serial processor, a scanning mechanism, which has access to the information presented to both visual half-fields.     

Do you believe happiness can change? An investigation of the relationship between happiness mindsets,well-being,and satisfaction

Three studies (N = 794) examined if beliefs about the malleable nature of happiness (growth mindsets) are associated with well-being and if this well-being had downstream implications for satisfaction with one’s relationships (Studies 1–3), health (Study 3), and job (Study 3). In Study 1 (N = 277), happiness growth mindsets were associated with greater well-being and greater relationship satisfaction. In Study 2 (N = 337), using an experimental paradigm and serial mediation, encouraging growth mindsets led to stronger beliefs in the changeable nature of happiness, which in turn was associated with subjective well-being, and, finally, relationship satisfaction. In Study 3 (N = 180), we replicated the downstream effects of growth mindsets of happiness on well-being and subsequently on relationship satisfaction and extended these serial mediation effects to health and job satisfaction. We discuss the implications of happiness mindsets.     

Men's grooming in the Latter-day Saints Church: A qualitative study of norm violation

The role of personal grooming as an indicator of commitment to church hierarchy is examined in a study of one congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Latter-day Saints Church policy urges men to be clean-shaven. In the present study, we interview all men in one ward who have worn beards or mustaches, in order to investigate questions of authority, identity, and conflict that occurred as a result of violating the grooming norm. Interviewees describe an identity conflict, with self-expression conflicting with the desire to demonstrate faithfulness to their church. In some cases, they reconcile the conflict by conforming to the norm; in others, they violate the norm out of a sense of asserting their own identity, but this comes at a cost of distance from their church identity.     

Escaping affect: how motivated emotion regulation creates insensitivity to mass suffering

As the number of people in need of help increases, the degree of compassion people feel for them ironically tends to decrease. This phenomenon is termed the collapse of compassion. Some researchers have suggested that this effect happens because emotions are not triggered by aggregates. We provide evidence for an alternative account. People expect the needs of large groups to be potentially overwhelming, and, as a result, they engage in emotion regulation to prevent themselves from experiencing overwhelming levels of emotion. Because groups are more likely than individuals to elicit emotion regulation, people feel less for groups than for individuals. In Experiment 1, participants displayed the collapse of compassion only when they expected to be asked to donate money to the victims. This suggests that the effect is motivated by self-interest. Experiment 2 showed that the collapse of compassion emerged only for people who were skilled at emotion regulation. In Experiment 3, we manipulated emotion regulation. Participants who were told to down-regulate their emotions showed the collapse of compassion, but participants who were told to experience their emotions did not. We examined the time course of these effects using a dynamic rating to measure affective responses in real time. The time course data suggested that participants regulate emotion toward groups proactively, by preventing themselves from ever experiencing as much emotion toward groups as toward individuals. These findings provide initial evidence that motivated emotion regulation drives insensitivity to mass suffering.     

Relational humility: conceptualizing and measuring humility as a personality judgment

The study of humility has progressed slowly due to measurement problems. We describe a model of relational humility that conceptualizes humility as a personality judgment. In this set of 5 studies, we developed the 16-item Relational Humility Scale (RHS) and offered initial evidence for the theoretical model. In Study 1 (N = 300), we developed the RHS and its subscales--Global Humility, Superiority, and Accurate View of Self. In Study 2, we confirmed the factor structure of the scale in an independent sample (N = 196). In Study 3, we provided initial evidence supporting construct validity using an experimental design (N = 200). In Study 4 (N = 150), we provided additional evidence of construct validity by examining the relationships between humility and empathy, forgiveness, and other virtues. In Study 5 (N = 163), we adduced evidence of discriminant and incremental validity of the RHS compared with the Honesty-Humility subscale of the HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004).     

Forgiveness results from integrating information about relationship value and exploitation risk

Exploitation is a fact of life for social organisms, and natural selection gives rise to revenge mechanisms that are designed to deter such exploitations. However, humans may also possess cognitive forgiveness mechanisms designed to promote the restoration of valuable social relationships following exploitation. In the current article, the authors test the hypothesis that decisions about forgiveness result from a computational system that combines information about relationship value and exploitation risk to produce decisions about whom to forgive following interpersonal offenses. The authors examined the independent and interactive effects of relationship value and exploitation risk across two studies. In Study 1, controlling for other constructs related to forgiveness, the authors assessed relationship value and exploitation risk. In Study 2, participants experienced experimental manipulations of relationship value and exploitation risk. Across studies, using hypothetical and actual offenses and varied forgiveness measures, the combination of low exploitation risk and high relationship value predicted the greatest forgiveness.     

The cost of callousness: regulating compassion influences the moral self-concept

It has often been argued that compassion is fundamental to morality. Yet people often suppress compassion for self-interested reasons. We provide evidence that suppressing compassion is not cost free, as it creates dissonance between a person's moral identity and his or her moral principles. We instructed separate groups of participants to regulate their compassion, regulate their feelings of distress, or freely experience emotions toward compassion--inducing images. Participants then reported how central morality was to their identities and how much they believed that moral rules should always be followed. Participants who regulated compassion-but not those who regulated distress or experienced emotions--showed a dissonance-based trade-off. If they reported higher levels of moral identity, they had a greater belief that moral rules could be broken. If they maintained their belief that moral rules should always be followed, they sacrificed their moral identity. Regulating compassion thus has a cost of its own: It forces trade-offs within a person's moral self-concept.