The influence of emotion type,social value orientation and processing focus on approach-avoidance tendencies to negative dynamic facial expressions

Facial expressions of anger and fear have been seen to elicit avoidance behavior in the perceiver due to their negative valence. However, recent research uncovered discrepancies regarding these immediate motivational implications of fear and anger, suggesting that not all negative emotions trigger avoidance to a comparable extent. To clarify those discrepancies, we considered recent theoretical and methodological advances, and investigated the role of social preferences and processing focus on approach-avoidance tendencies (AAT) to negative facial expressions. We exposed participants to dynamic facial expressions of anger, disgust, fear, or sadness, while they processed either the emotional expression or the gender of the faces. AATs were assessed by reaction times of lever movements, and by posture changes via head-tracking. We found that—relative to angry faces-, fearful and sad faces triggered more approach, with a larger difference between fear and anger in prosocial compared to individualistic participants. Interestingly, these findings are in line with a recently developed concern hypothesis, suggesting that—relative to other negative expressions—expressions of distress may facilitate approach, especially in participants with prosocial preferences.     

Action: a bridge between vocational and mental health counselling*

A theory of goal-directed action is proposed as a conceptual link between vocational and mental health counselling. Originally emerging from the vocational counselling field, contextual action theory is presented as a critical conceptual link not only between mental health and occupational life but also between counselling practices in these domains. This specific application of goal-directed action to vocational and mental health counselling is addressed by describing counselling as goal-directed action, the five tasks of counselling it invites, and tools for supporting client goals, such as the self-confrontation interview.     

Auditory attentional blink: masking the second target is necessary, delayed masking is sufficient.

When two target items (T1 and T2) are presented in rapid succession among fillers, processing T2 is often impaired. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (AB). Within the visual modality, this second-target deficit generally occurs only if T2 is masked by a trailing item. The current study was designed to examine whether masking of T2 also plays a critical role in the auditory AB. Results showed a reliable AB effect even when the item following T2 was replaced by silence. However, the AB deficit was abolished when T2 was the last presented stimulus. Our results suggest that, as in vision, T2 masking is necessary for the AB to take place in audition, but that masking is effective even when delayed, providing evidence that the phenomenon shares some functional mechanisms across sensory modalities.     

Deciding to give to charity: a focus group study in the context of the household economy

Research on charitable giving has tended to examine either the individual characteristics of donors, or those of households. However, both approaches overlook the interactive processes that take place within households which may influence charitable donation in a variety of ways. For example, the system of financial organisation adopted by a couple can set limits on the degree of individual financial autonomy, and this in turn can influence the financial decision‐making of each partner. This paper presents the results of a study that examined charitable decision‐making within the context of household financial behaviour. It investigated whether such decisions tend to be individual or joint, and the extent to which they are regarded as an integral part of household financial management. Six focus groups were carried out with people who were currently married or living with a partner. The results suggest that charitable giving is dealt with in accordance with the style of money management of the household, although it occupies a more marginal position than other items of expenditure. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characteristics of men who have sex with men on the internet but identify as heterosexual, compared with heterosexually identified men who have sex with women.

We compared men who have sex with other men on the Internet with the remainder of the sample of men who reported only sex with women on the Internet, in a sample of 1,846 Swedish men recruited from a major Swedish portal. We report on the self-identified heterosexual men in the sample who reported engaging in cybersex in the past year, and for whom there was complete data on sexual identity and the gender of cybersexual partners. Of the 244 cases with full data, 76% were heterosexual in both identity and behavior, 16% were gay or bisexual in identity and reported both male and female cybersexual contacts on the Internet, and 8% indicated their sexual preference was heterosexual but also reported at least one male sexual partner on the Internet. Thus, 11% of self-identified heterosexual men had sex with other men online. Comparing the two groups, the men who had sex with men (MSM) who did not identify (MSM-NI) spent significantly more time per week online, although a similar amount of time on sexual pursuits, as the heterosexual men. The MSM-NI were significantly more likely to agree that their online sexuality had affected their sexuality in a positive way, to have bought sex from prostitutes, to agree that they do things online that they would not do offline, have cybersex more often, use a web-camera and microphone more often, flirt and visit contact sites more often, and agree more often that sexual thoughts and behaviors are causing problems, desire to have sex creates problems, and sometimes fail to meet commitments due to their sexual behavior. These data taken together suggest that MSM-NI online are not uncommon and are characterized by the extent of their cybersexual involvement that sometimes extends to other men. Such men may rationalize this cybersex with other men as not, or minimally, sexual in much the same way as Humphreys characterized MSMs in public restrooms.     

Being grateful for being: Being, reverence and finitude

Atheists are rarely associated with holiness, yet they can have deeply spiritual experiences. Once such experience of the author exemplified ‘the holy’ as defined by Otto. However, the subjectivism of Otto’s Kantianism undermines Otto’s otherwise fruitful approach. While the work of Hegel overcomes this, it is too rationalistic to account for mortal life. Seeking to avoid these shortcomings, this paper places ‘holiness’ within a self-differentiating ontological unity, the Heideggerian ‘fourfold’. This unity can only be experienced by confronting groundless finite mortality, and the resulting existential disposition is characterized as ‘reverence’. Reverence is gratitude for mortal existence, and existence itself. Moreover, it is as much political as it is ontological, atheistic as it is theistic.     

Reglobalizing Realism by Going Local, or (How) Should Our Formulations of Scientific Realism be Informed about the Sciences?

In order to examine the fit between realism and science, one needs to address two issues: the unit of science question (realism about which parts of science?) and the contents of realism question (which realism about science?). Answering these questions is a matter of conceptual and empirical inquiry by way local case studies. Instead of the more ordinary abstract and global scientific realism, what we get is a doubly local scientific realism based on a bottom-up strategy. Representative formulations of the former kind are in terms of the truth and reality of the posits of current science, in terms of warranted belief, in terms of mind-independent unobservable entities. Using illustrations mainly from the social sciences, doubly local scientific realism denies the global applicability of such formulations and seeks to make adjustments in their elements in response to information about local units of science: It is sufficient for a realist to give the existence of an entity (and the truth of a theory) a chance, while in some areas we may be in s position to make justified claims about actual existence (and truth). Logical inquiry-independent existence is sufficient for the social and human sciences, while mind-independence will be fine for many other domains. It should not be insisted that the theoretical posits of realist science be strict unobservables in all areas: most theoretical posits of the social sciences are idealized commonsensibles, such as elements in folk psychology. Unsurprisingly, this sort of local strategy will create space for realism that is able to accommodate larger areas of science without sacrificing traditional realist intuitions.     

大学生英语学习过程中认知因素与情感因素对学业成绩的影响

利用调查问卷法对152名大学生就英语学习中的认知因素(以学习风格和学习策略为核心)和情感因素(以成就动机和学习意愿为核心)对于学习成绩的影响进行了相关研究,继而通过多元回归方法与路径分析技术,探讨了三者之间的因果关系。研究结果表明,学习意愿、成就动机、学习风格与英语成绩之间具有显著性相关,而学习策略与英语成绩之间的相关不显著。学习风格作为中介变量在对学生的英语学习有着重要的影响。学习意愿与成就动机通过学习风格而问接地作用于英语学习绩效。