Forgiveness in Javanese collective culture: The relationship between rumination,harmonious value,decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness

Forgiveness in Javanese collective culture is examined by considering harmonious value (HV) a subjective value on maintaining social harmony and rumination. In Study 1, we conducted an exploratory sequential mixed‐method study to develop a scale measuring HV. In‐depth interviews with eight Javanese adolescents revealed three major domains of HV (Study 1a). In a second quantitative study (Study 1b), we developed items and assessed 347 Javanese adolescents in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported three factors: cooperation during conflict, forbearing and resolving conflict. After confirming that the translated scales had acceptable reliability, we conducted Study 2 with 424 Javanese adolescents from both urban and village settings. Using hierarchical multiple regression, we found that HV accounted for a variance in decisional forgiveness above and beyond rumination. In addition, decisional forgiveness also accounted for variance in emotional forgiveness above and beyond rumination. In fact, HV accounted for variance in emotional forgiveness above and beyond both rumination and decisional forgiveness together. This revealed the importance of valuing social harmony in this collectivistic culture. Moreover, decisional forgiveness was also important in predicting the Javanese collectivists’ emotional forgiveness.     

Developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in the hissing cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa

Consistent individual differences in the tendency to accept risk have been demonstrated in invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals, including humans. These individual differences have been associated with size, growth rate, survival, and reproductive success. Little research, however, has investigated the effect of developmental environment on individual differences in risk-acceptance. Competing hypotheses offer different explanations of how variation in the quality of the developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in adults. The first hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor quality environments take risks because such behavior is their only means of obtaining adequate fitness returns. The second hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor environments avoid risk because their poor physical condition makes them especially vulnerable to injury or death. We measured several forms of risk-accepting behavior (exploration, foraging, and recovery after disturbance) in male hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) that had developed in nutritional and social environments of varying quality. Individuals raised on poor nutrition diets exhibited lower levels of risk-acceptance than those raised on high nutrition diets. Risk-acceptance among individuals that developed on poor nutrition diets was negatively correlated with body size. We conclude that quality of developmental environment affects risk-acceptance across behavioral contexts in male hissing cockroaches. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that condition-dependent vulnerability mediates the relationship between developmental environment and risk-acceptance.     

Marriage Matters: A Description and Initial Examination of a Church-Based Marital Education Program

Marital education is helpful for treating marital distress. Religious organizations have been identified as a particularly useful outlet for the dissemination of marital education. We describe and present initial evidence for the effectiveness of Marriage Matters, a church-based marital education program. Participants (N = 731) reported a high level of satisfaction with the program and also reported feeling better about their marriage at the end of the program compared to the beginning of the program.     

The living legacy of the Harvard Pigeon Lab: quantitative analysis in the wide world

From the Harvard Pigeon Lab of the 1960s arose a behavior-analytic approach that was quantitative and rigorous, rooted in Herrnstein's matching law. Researchers modified the matching law to describe choice behavior in a variety of different settings and examined its relations with other quantitative models. Beginning in the early 1970s, researchers began using the Harvard Pigeon Lab's quantitative framework to study in the laboratory specific aspects of the world outside the laboratory. Much of this work concerned investigations of self-control-choice of a larger, more delayed reinforcer over a smaller, less delayed reinforcer. Experiments using a quantitative framework derived from the matching law have also been conducted outside the laboratory; however, these have been far less frequent. Current and future researchers will benefit the field by devising new, creative ways to investigate the matching law and related quantitative models outside the laboratory. Such research can help to demonstrate the validity of these models as basic principles of behavior, can enhance public opinion of and rewards for such research, and can stimulate further development of the Harvard Pigeon Lab's quantitative approach by using that approach with new variables.     

Success and succession

The etymology of the word success and its relationship to succession is elucidated. Linkage is made to the consequences of unconscious "legitimate" and "illicit" fulfillments in life. This is explored in the writings of Freud and others. Emphasis is placed on guilt, a major factor blocking the attainment of success. This guilt derives from unconscious parricide, which permeates and contaminates themes of succession. How early objects, particularly oedipal ones, are "killed off" in the process of gaining autonomy and achievement without literally invoking unconscious murder is explored. The retaliatory aspects of failure are also addressed. Illustrations employing case material are used to highlight these theoretical constructs.     

Development of allocentric spatial recall from new viewpoints in virtual reality

Using landmarks and other scene features to recall locations from new viewpoints is a critical skill in spatial cognition. In an immersive virtual reality task, we asked children 3.5–4.5 years old to remember the location of a target using various cues. On some trials they could use information from their own self‐motion. On some trials they could use a view match. In the very hardest kind of trial, they were ‘teleported’ to a new viewpoint and could only use an allocentric spatial representation. This approach provides a strict test for allocentric coding (without either a matching viewpoint or self‐motion information) while avoiding additional task demands in previous studies (it does not require them to deal with a small table‐top environment or to manage stronger cue conflicts). Both the younger and older groups were able to point back at the target location better than chance when they could use view matching and/or self‐motion, but allocentric recall was only seen in the older group (4.0–4.5). In addition, we only obtained evidence for a specific kind of allocentric recall in the older group: they tracked one major axis of the space significantly above chance, r(158) = .28, but not the other, r(158) = ?.01. We conclude that there is a major qualitative change in coding for spatial recall around the fourth birthday, potentially followed by further development towards fully flexible recall from new viewpoints.     

Interpersonal regulation of relationship partners’ security: A causal chain analysis

Security in relationship partners’ positive regard promotes high-quality close relationships, and insecurity in partners’ regard undermines relationship quality. Hence, people may be motivated to dispel their close partners’ insecurity. The current research used an experimental-causal-chain design to test a novel model of the interpersonal regulation of relationship partners’ security. Manipulated perceptions of relationship partners’ insecurity increased the activation of security regulation goals (i.e., goals to improve partners’ security and dispel their insecurity) and selective attention to threat-relevant information (Study 1). In turn, manipulated security regulation goals increased the expression of positive regard for relationship partners, particularly in negatively evaluated and important domains (Study 2). In turn, manipulated expression of positive regard increased partners’ relationship security and satisfaction, particularly when partners had chronic doubts about the extent to which they were valued (Study 3). These studies provide compelling causal evidence for a relationship-protective response to detection of partner insecurity; people try to dispel the relationship threat posed by an insecure partner by adopting security regulation goals, which motivate expressions of positive regard that increase partner security.     

Perpetrators’ reactions to perceived interpersonal wrongdoing: The associations of guilt and shame with forgiving,punishing, and excusing oneself

We describe a model in which guilt and shame associate with reactions to wrongdoing among perpetrators of interpersonal harm. Individuals who reported wronging another person (N = 410) completed measures of perceived transgression severity, guilt and shame, and possible reactions to perpetration of wrongdoing (i.e., forgiving, punishing, and excusing oneself). Guilt positively predicted forgiving and punishing oneself, and negatively predicted excusing oneself of blame. Shame, in contrast, negatively predicted forgiving oneself and positively predicted punishing and excusing oneself. The observed patterns of associations between guilt and shame with perpetrators’ reactions to wrongdoing provide further support for the dual-process model of self-forgiveness. Implications for future basic and applied investigations are discussed.     

Attachment and trait forgivingness: The mediating role of angry rumination

Integrating theories of attachment and forgiveness, we predicted that secure attachment reduces angry rumination and promotes forgiveness. To examine this prediction, in Study 1 (n = 213), participants completed the Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) and the Trait Forgiveness Scale (TFS; Berry, Worthington, O’Connor, Parrott, & Wade, 2005). Individuals who were classified as securely attached displayed greater dispositional forgivingness than did insecurely attached individuals. In Study 2 (n = 218) we included the Dissipation-Rumination Scale (DRS; Caprara, 1986). Results from Study 2 replicated the association between attachment security and greater dispositional forgivingness and confirmed the mediating role of angry rumination in the attachment–forgivingness relation.