Conceiving Emotions: Martha Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought

In Upheavals of Thought , Martha Nussbaum offers a theory of the emotions. She argues that emotions are best conceived as thoughts, and she argues that emotion-thoughts can make valuable contributions to the moral life. She develops extensive accounts of compassion and erotic love as thoughts that are of great moral import. This paper seeks to elucidate what it means, for Nussbaum, to say that emotions are forms of thought. It raises critical questions about her conception of the structure of emotion, and about her conception of compassion, in particular. Finally, the paper seeks to show how analyzing the structure, as well as the moral value, of the emotions ultimately requires entering the realm of religious ethics.     

Part‐set cuing of texts,scenes, and matrices

In four experiments, we extended the study of part‐set cuing to expository texts and pictorial scenes. In Experiment 1, recall of expository text was tested with and without part‐set cues in the same order as the original text; cues strongly impaired recall. Experiment 2 repeated Experiment 1 but used cues in random order and found significant but reduced impairment with cuing. Experiments 3 and 4 examined the part‐set cuing of objects presented in a scene or matrix and found virtually no effect of cuing. More objects were recalled from the scene than from the matrix, indicating that the scene's organization aided memory, but the cues did not assist recall. These results extend the domains in which part‐set cues have either impaired or failed to improve recall. Implications for education and eyewitness accounts are briefly considered.     

Constructing personality scales under the assumptions of an ideal point response process: toward increasing the flexibility of personality measures

The main aim of this article is to explicate why a transition to ideal point methods of scale construction is needed to advance the field of personality assessment. The study empirically demonstrated the substantive benefits of ideal point methodology as compared with the dominance framework underlying traditional methods of scale construction. Specifically, using a large, heterogeneous pool of order items, the authors constructed scales using traditional classical test theory, dominance item response theory (IRT), and ideal point IRT methods. The merits of each method were examined in terms of item pool utilization, model-data fit, measurement precision, and construct and criterion-related validity. Results show that adoption of the ideal point approach provided a more flexible platform for creating future personality measures, and this transition did not adversely affect the validity of personality test scores.     

Cognitive consequences of motivational orientation: perceived similarity between objects

Recent findings suggest that the unconscious activation of the motivational orientations of approach and avoidance is accompanied by the adoption of a more global and a more local processing style, respectively. A global processing style, in turn, is assumed to instigate a focus on similarities whereas a local processing style is assumed to instigate a focus on differences. Integrating these two ideas, the present research examines the hypothesis that participants under approach perceive objects as more similar to each other than participants under avoidance. To test this assumption, we induced the two motivational orientations and elicited judgments of similarities (Experiments 1 and 2) and differences (Experiment 2) for pairs of pictures. Results confirmed the hypothesis. We propose that the relative attunement to similarities/differences under approach/avoidance is functional because it allows for a flexible conceptualization of the environment/an ability to discern slight deviations from what is expected.     

Semantic Similarity of Alternatives Fostered by Conversational Negation

Conversational negation often behaves differently from negation as a logical operator: when rejecting a state of affairs, it does not present all members of the complement set as equally plausible alternatives, but it rather suggests some of them as more plausible than others (e.g., “This is not a dog, it is a wolf/*screwdriver”). Entities that are semantically similar to a negated entity tend to be judged as better alternatives (Kruszewski et al., 2016). In fact, Kruszewski et al. (2016) show that the cosine similarity scores between the distributional semantics representations of a negated noun and its potential alternatives are highly correlated with the negated noun-alternatives human plausibility ratings. In a series of cloze tasks, we show that negation likewise restricts the production of plausible alternatives to similar entities. Furthermore, completions to negative sentences appear to be even more restricted than completions to an affirmative conjunctive context, hinting at a peculiarity of negation.     

Conditions for the clean slate effect after success or failure

The act of physically cleaning one’s hands may reduce the impact of past experiences, termed clean-slate effect. Cleaning was found to affect negative, neutral, and mildly positive states. We extend this influence to success, a self-serving state. We manipulated success vs. failure and measured changes in optimism (Experiment 1) or self-esteem (Experiment 2). Moreover, we examined boundary conditions for the clean-slate effect. Experiment 1 indicates that the influence of performance on optimism diminishes if participants knew (compared to did not know) they were cleaning their hands. Experiment 2 indicates that the influence of performance on self-esteem diminishes if participants cleaned themselves (compared to an object). These results suggest that the clean-slate effect requires both awareness and self-reference of the cleaning act. Thus, the clean-slate effect seems to depend on both conscious inferences and automatic processes. A meta-analysis across the experiments confirms a moderate-sized clean-slate effect.     

Effect size estimates: current use, calculations, and interpretation

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2001, American Psychological Association, 2010) calls for the reporting of effect sizes and their confidence intervals. Estimates of effect size are useful for determining the practical or theoretical importance of an effect, the relative contributions of factors, and the power of an analysis. We surveyed articles published in 2009 and 2010 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, noting the statistical analyses reported and the associated reporting of effect size estimates. Effect sizes were reported for fewer than half of the analyses; no article reported a confidence interval for an effect size. The most often reported analysis was analysis of variance, and almost half of these reports were not accompanied by effect sizes. Partial η2 was the most commonly reported effect size estimate for analysis of variance. For t tests, 2/3 of the articles did not report an associated effect size estimate; Cohen's d was the most often reported. We provide a straightforward guide to understanding, selecting, calculating, and interpreting effect sizes for many types of data and to methods for calculating effect size confidence intervals and power analysis.     

Exposure to intimate partner violence and children's psychological adjustment,cognitive functioning,and social competence: A review

Research over the past 30 years has established that exposure to intimate partner violence poses significant risks to children's adjustment and functioning. It is also clear, however, that there is considerable variability in children's outcomes, and research in the past decade has increasingly focused on understanding this variability. This paper provides a review of recent research that examines relations between children's exposure to intimate partner violence and their psychological adjustment, cognitive functioning, and social competence. Emphasis is placed on studies that examine risk and protective factors for children's functioning in the context of exposure to intimate partner violence. In addition to highlighting strengths of recent studies, limitations of existing research and future directions are considered.     

Approach/Avoidance Orientations Affect Self-Construal and Identification with In-group

Approach and avoidance are two basic motivational orientations. Their activation influences cognitive and perceptive processes: Previous work suggests that an approach orientation instigates a focus on larger units as compared to avoidance. Study 1 confirms this assumption using a paradigm that more directly taps a person's tendency to represent objects as belonging to small or large units than prior studies. It was further predicted that the self should also be represented as belonging to larger units, and hence be more interdependent under approach than under avoidance. Study 2 supports this prediction. As a consequence of this focus on belonging to larger units, it was finally predicted that approach results in a stronger identification with one's in-group than avoidance. Studies 3 and 4 support that prediction.     

On the V(I)Erge: Jean‐Luc Nancy,Christianity, and Incompletion

This article explores how Jean‐Luc Nancy attempts to gain critical traction on Christianity by proscribing thinking of completion. First, it describes Nancy's deconstruction of Christianity as stemming from his aesthetic redirection of Heidegger's thinking of finitude. Second, it further details Nancy's noetic declension of Heidegger via Kant and Lyotard, where the imagination and aesthetic communication are deemed impossible. Third, it examines Nancy's treatment of paintings of the Virgin Mary who, for Nancy, exemplifies his brand of incompletion. Nancy's work on Mary reveals both the oversights and the insights of his deconstruction of Christianity, which Catholic theology should seriously engage.