Divergent effects of different positive emotions on moral judgment

Positive emotions are often treated as relatively similar in their cognitive-behavioral effects, and as having unambiguously beneficial consequences. For example, Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006) reported that a humorous video made people more prone to choose a utilitarian solution to a moral dilemma. They attributed this finding to increased positive affect. To determine whether such results actually stem in general from positive affect or from other more specific properties of humor, we conducted an experiment with moral dilemmas presented during an interleaved emotion-induction procedure involving mirth and another positive emotion, elevation. Mirth increased permissiveness for deontological violations, whereas elevation had the opposite effect. Furthermore, affective valence had no apparent independent influence on these judgments. Our results suggest that mirth and elevation have distinct cognitive consequences whose properties reflect their respective social functions, not their shared positive valence.     

God and Country: The Partisan Psychology of the Presidency,Religion, and Nation

Overt love of God and country have seemingly been prerequisites to be president in the United States in recent decades, if not always. Indeed, the 2008 presidential race was replete with campaign messages showcasing such perspectives—that Barack Obama and John McCain were religiously faithful and deeply patriotic. Scholarship demonstrates the potential political power of explicit appeals to America and Christianity; however, little research has examined (a) citizens' perceptions of candidates' ties to faith and nation and (b) how these impressions may be related to electoral attitudes and intended vote. We address this gap, measuring both explicit and implicit indicators of the Christian‐ness and American‐ness of Obama and McCain. We expected and found that both explicit and—in a final‐entry regression position—implicit perceptions of these traits related to voters' overall candidate attitudes and intended vote choice and that they were connected significantly more strongly for our sample of self‐described Republicans than Democrats. Results illuminate these partisan differences and raise questions about their implications for U.S. presidential politics in years to come.     

Follow-up of a full-scale network assembly

The authors conducted two full-scale network assemblies for the family network of a suicidal adolescent. Findings from the clinical follow-up and telephone interviews with 21 of 65 participants revealed benefits for the index family and the network members who participated in the meetings. A ripple effect in which the participants' own personal networks improved was also demonstrated. Benefits included resolution of a suicidal crisis, better understanding of depression and family stress, more adaptive responses to depression and suicidal risk, and improved personal relationships. No casualties from this intervention were discovered. This report is intended to stimulate future, more systematic outcome studies.     

Spirituality,spiritual sensibility and human growth

While notions of spirituality, spiritual experience and spiritual development seem much neglected in the literature of modern analytical philosophy, such terminology continues to be current in both common usage and religious contexts. This author has previously taken issue with some recent attempts to develop (educational and other professional) conceptions of spirituality and spiritual experience as substantially independent of religious attachment. Notwithstanding this, the present paper considers whether such a ‘religiously-untethered’ notion of spirituality, spiritual experience or sensibility might yet be sustainable in terms of two key criteria: (1) as a capacity for non-instrumental perspectives on, or interpretations of, the world of ordinary experience; and (2) as a corresponding capacity to identify goals and values that transcend or are not reducible to the meeting of immediate natural or material—either individual or social—needs.