Young Children Choose to Inform Previously Knowledgeable Others

Children recognize that people who know more are better informants than those who know less. How does an individual’s prior knowledge affect children’s decisions about whom to inform? In 3 experiments, 3- to 6-year-old children were invited to share a novel piece of information with 1 of 2 potential recipients who differed in their recent history of knowledge. Children tended to inform the previously knowledgeable person rather than the previously ignorant person. This same effect was observed in a 4th experiment when the knowledgeable person stated that she already knew the information the participant had to share. In no case was the opposite pattern observed: Children never chose to inform the person who had known less. These results seem to conflict with equity considerations and may reflect a preference to affiliate with competent social partners.     

Self-reported expression and experience of triumph across four countries

Recent studies have suggested the existence of the emotion of triumph by documenting how its nonverbal signals are displayed and identified across cultures. The current study contributes to this literature by providing additional convergent evidence about the expression of triumph by examining self-reported expressions of triumph from participants from Japan, Russia, Serbia, and the U.S. Self-reported behavioral expressions of triumph were consistent with three factors previously found to be associated with the triumph expression (Expansion, Aggression, Attention), with the exception of a finding on one scale in one country. The Japanese were prone to report greater regulation compared to the experience of triumph, whereas Americans and Serbians reported relatively greater experience compared to regulation. Across countries, Aggression was positively correlated with self-reported experience. The self-reported expressions of triumph partially corresponded with nonverbal reactions that had been identified as triumph in previous research.     

Self-affirmation and affective forecasting: Affirmation reduces the anticipated impact of negative events

When forecasting how they will feel in the future, people overestimate the impact that imagined negative events will have on their affective states, partly because they underestimate their own psychological resiliency. Because self-affirmation enhances resiliency, two studies examined whether self-affirmation prior to forecasting reduces the extremity of affective forecasts. Participants in self-affirmation conditions completed a values scale or wrote an essay asserting their most important value, whereas participants in the no-affirmation condition asserted a relatively unimportant value. Participants then predicted their affective reactions to a negative or positive imagined event. In both studies, self-affirmation reduced the unpleasant affect expected to result from a negative event, but had no impact on affective forecasts for a positive event. This pattern was mediated by participants’ cognitive appraisals of the imagined event, but not by differential focus on that event. Results are consistent with self-affirmation activating or enhancing psychological resiliency to counteract immune neglect during affective forecasting of a negative event.     

When Living and Working Well Together in Organizations Changes Into Good Social Coexistence: The Talent Club Case

In our contemporary age, where a combination of individualism and mutual distrust is unhappily common among people and society is “liquid” and disoriented, so-called intermediate units (groups, associations) are a precious resource that promotes positive coexistence within organizations and in local communities, too. The present contribution describes an example of such an intermediate unit, the Talent Club, located in a peripheral neighborhood of a metropolitan area in northern Italy. This case study shows the development of positive living and working together in organizations and their transformation in the tool for community development and good coexistence. Qualitative and quantitative data show that the relational aspect is crucial because it promotes authentic exchange among people, supporting participation and social cohesion against self-referential habits and isolation. Although at present the Talent Club is mostly functioning in a affiliating coexistence among members, seeds of a more generative coexistence are clearly detectable.     

Pictorial Race Activation in Priming Measures

This review explores characteristics of facial primes employed in priming studies of racial prejudice and stereotyping. It addresses the role of perceptual, cue-based processing of visual stimuli characteristics in altering racial typicality, and the effects of different moderators. The authors document the nature of variability in primes and moderators used in priming studies (N = 96) up to 2009. Methodological and conceptual implications are discussed, along with gaps in the field. Better control over facial primes employed, more accuracy in reporting and open access to procedural information are suggested in an effort to improve the state of racial priming research.     

Parents Produce Explicit Cues That Help Toddlers Distinguish Joking and Pretending

While separate pieces of research found parents offer toddlers cues to express that they are (1) joking and (2) pretending, and that toddlers and preschoolers understand intentions to (1) joke and (2) pretend, it is not yet clear whether parents and toddlers consider joking and pretending to be distinct concepts. This is important as distinguishing these two forms of non‐literal acts could open a gateway to understanding the complexities of the non‐literal world, as well as the complexities of intentions in general. Two studies found parents offer explicit cues to help 16‐ to 24‐month‐olds distinguish pretending and joking. Across an action play study (n = 25) and a verbal play study (n = 40) parents showed more disbelief and less belief through their actions and language when joking versus pretending. Similarly, toddlers showed less belief through their actions, and older toddlers showed less belief through their language. Toddlers' disbelief could be accounted for by their response to parents' language and actions. Thus, these studies reveal a mechanism by which toddlers learn to distinguish joking and pretending. Parents offer explicit cues to distinguish these intentions, and toddlers use these cues to guide their own behaviors, which in turn allows toddlers to distinguish these intentional contexts.     

The development of and interaction among alerting,orienting, and executive attention in children

A sex-balanced sample (N = 96) of children from age 6.5 to age 12.5 completed a modified Attention Network Test. Across these ages, we found evidence for developmental changes to alerting and executive control but stable orienting. Additionally, we found that the youngest members of our sample manifested an interaction between alerting and executive control that is opposite to that typically found in adults; a reversal that diminishes with age to achieve the adult pattern by the older end of the age range of our sample.     

Understanding and disagreement in belief ascription

It seems uncontroversial that Dalton wrongly believed that atoms are indivisible. However, the correct analysis of Dalton’s belief and the way it relates to contemporary beliefs about atoms is, on closer inspection, far from straightforward. In this paper, I introduce four features that any candidate analysis is plausibly bound to respect. I argue that theories that individuate concepts at the level of understanding are doomed to fail in this endeavor. I formally sketch an alternative and suggest that cases such as the one presented provide support for the claim that the genuine source for concept individuation is public sharable thought.