Superior discrimination between similar stimuli after simultaneous exposure

Human participants received unsupervised exposure to difficult-to-discriminate chequerboard stimuli (e.g., AX and BX), before learning a discrimination between them. Experiment 1 demonstrated that prior exposure enhanced later discrimination and that intermixed exposure (AX, BX, AX, BX ...) resulted in better subsequent discrimination than did blocked exposure (CY, CY ... DY, DY ...). Experiment 2 showed that simultaneous exposure to two similar stimuli (AX-BX, BX-AX ...) facilitated the later acquisition of a successive discrimination, more than successive exposure (AX-AX, BX-BX ...). These results parallel those observed by Mundy, Honey, and Dwyer (2007) who used pictures of human faces as stimuli and establish the generality of the fact that simultaneous exposure produces a particularly marked perceptual learning effect.     

The Moral Foundations of Human Rights Attitudes

Human rights are claimed to be innate and based on moral principles. Human rights attitudes have been shown to be related to political ideology, but there have been few studies investigating their relationship with morality. Using moral foundations theory, we examine whether morals can predict human rights attitudes across two studies. The first study used questionnaires to show that human rights are based exclusively on individualizing moral foundations; however, increases in individualizing and decreases in binding foundations predict increases in human rights endorsement. Moral foundations also mediated the relationship between political identification and human rights. Both individualizing and binding foundations performed a role in explaining the lower endorsement of human rights by conservatives as compared to liberals. The second study used textual analysis of newspaper articles to show that human-rights-related articles contained more moral language than other articles, in particular for the individualizing foundations. Conservative newspapers had a greater use of binding foundations in human rights articles than liberal newspapers.     

Valuing life and evaluating suffering in infants with life-limiting illness

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - In this paper, we explore three separate questions that are relevant to assessing the prudential value of life in infants with severe life-limiting illness....     

Personal and participatory socializers of the perceived legitimacy of aggressive behavior in sport

Recent international attention from the media and professional organizations has focused increasingly on violent incidents in sport. The present study developed and used the Sport Behavior Inventory (SBI) to examine personal and participatory variables that influence the socialization of the perceived legitimacy of aggressive sport behavior in children and adolescents ages 8–19 enrolled in public schools. In phase I of this study, the psychometric properties of the SBI as a measure of perceived legitimacy were evaluated in terms of content validity, structural validity, internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. A multiple regression analysis in phase II indicated that increases in athletes’ perceptions of the legitimacy of aggressive sport behavior were positively related to age, being male, and contact sport participation. Results were discussed in relation to the social factors that contribute to the development of perceptions of legitimacy for aggressive sport behavior, and future research uses for the SBI. Aggr. Behav. 27:405–418, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Aristotle On Well-Being And Intellectual Contemplation: Dominic Scott

In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia , primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods.     

On‐line ostracism affects children differently from adolescents and adults

This research examines adults', and for the first time, children's and adolescents' reaction to being ostracized and included, using an on‐line game, ‘Cyberball’ with same and opposite sex players. Ostracism strongly threatened four primary needs (esteem, belonging, meaning, and control) and lowered mood among 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds, 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, and adults. However, it did so in different ways. Ostracism threatened self‐esteem needs more among 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds than older participants. Among 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, ostracism threatened belonging more than other needs. Belonging was threatened most when ostracism was participants' first experience in the game. Moreover, when participants had been included beforehand, ostracism threatened meaning needs most strongly. Gender of other players had no effect. Practical and developmental implications for social inclusion and on‐line experiences among children and young people are discussed.     

Paradigm change in aggression research: The time has come to retire the General Aggression Model

As Kuhn (1970) has noted, most scientific fields go through processes of paradigm change, painful periods in which old theories no longer fit available data and are placed by new theories. Such periods typically create strife and debate as ideological differences emerged between proponents of old and new theoretical approaches. In the current paper, we argue that such a period has been reached within the field of aggression research. Over the past half-century, social cognitive and social learning paradigms of aggression, exemplified in the General Aggression Model (GAM) have retained dominance, particularly in areas such as media violence. We contend that data to support the GAM and social cognitive approaches to aggression have never been conclusive, and newer evidence increasingly suggests that the GAM and social cognitive theories of aggression more generally are not adequate to explain aggressive phenomena. We discuss weaknesses and problematic, sometimes hidden assumptions of the GAM and how these reduce the utility of this paradigm. Current evidence suggests that the GAM and the social cognitive paradigm of aggression should be retired, and approaches which focus on diathesis-stress hold greater promise.     

Transition,transformation and the art of losing: Some uses of poetry in hospice care for the terminally ill

What lessons for psychotherapy can be drawn from the enjoyment and sustenance we find in the use of literature? This paper looks back on a recent creative writing project undertaken with patients in a hospice day centre, and suggested reasons why the patients found this activity not only enjoyable but also therapeutic. Both the hospice as an institution and the poetic form are defined in terms of a transitional space. The article shows how the act of reading and writing poetry places a value for patients on not knowing at a time when the plain hard facts of terminal illness loom large. The author describes a practical way of engaging with poetry in this context, and uses clinical material to describe how the literary arts can provide a transformational object, and a point of inspiration, that may help patients to negotiate the changes brought about by their illness.