In Between States: NationalIdentity Practices Among German Jewish Immigrants

Recent critiques of the identity literature have bemoaned the lack of clarity in conceptualizations of identity. R. W. Connell's (1987) theory of practice and Dorothy Smith's (1987, pp. 88–97) notion of "the everyday as problematic" provide the foundation for articulating the construct of identity practices. Identity practices refer to the routine actions and ways of thinking, as well as the representations of those acts and thoughts, that enable people to claim collective identities. Although identity practices mark group membership, they also signal marginality to or exclusion from other groups. This paper explores the importance of understanding identity practices at micro levels of interaction as well as macro-level structures and dominant culture narratives. The specific empirical focus—on German Jewish immigrants who fled Nazi Germany and arrived in the United States by 1945—enables an interrogation of the meanings associated with national identity practices.     

Better late than never? On the dynamics of online regulation of sadness using distraction and cognitive reappraisal

Real-life emotion regulation often occurs at some point after an emotion-triggering event (ETE) has been introduced, but most previous research has involved regulation before or after the ETE. In a series of experiments, the authors examined online regulation via distraction and cognitive reappraisal by manipulating the strategy initiation point in sadness-evoking films. Distraction was effective even when initiated late, presumably because it involves diluting the ETE contents by mixing them with a nonsad input. By contrast, reappraisal was less effective when initiated late, suggesting a possible point of no return for this strategy: Adopting a detached view late in the ETE may be difficult because it involves continued focus on the ETE and hence requires overcoming a previously formed tendency of identifying with the emotional content.     

Construing Consumer Decision Making

Understanding how consumers represent outcomes and weigh different decision criteria is critical to consumer behavior research. Construal‐level theory articulates how psychological distance alters the mental representation of inputs and the effective weight given to “high‐level” and “low‐level” criteria. Trope, Liberman, and Wakslak (2007) provide a review of this literature. In this commentary, we illustrate the relevance of construal‐level theory to issues in consumer psychology, particularly consumer decision making. We highlight specific questions that researchers could address by considering consumer behavior within the framework of changes in construal. We focus our discussion on how construal levels affect consideration sets and how shifts in weight from high‐level to low‐level features might lead to consumer regret and dissatisfaction. Construal level can help us understand follow‐through on stated intentions for “really new” products and illuminate public‐policy issues such as consumer saving for retirement and nonredemption of rebates. We identify open issues related to how construal levels for the same object evolve over time and whether resources differ in terms of how susceptible they are to psychological distance effects.     

Can massive but passive exposure to faces contribute to face recognition abilities?

Recent studies have suggested that individuation of other-race faces is more crucial for enhancing recognition performance than exposure that involves categorization of these faces to an identity-irrelevant criterion. These findings were primarily based on laboratory training protocols that dissociated exposure and individuation by using categorization tasks. However, the absence of enhanced recognition following categorization may not simulate key aspects of real-life massive exposure without individuation to other-race faces. Real-life exposure spans years of seeing a multitude of faces, under variant conditions, including expression, view, lighting and gaze, albeit with no subcategory individuation. However, in most real-life settings, massive exposure operates in concert with individuation. An exception to that are neonatology nurses, a unique population that is exposed to--but do not individuate--massive numbers of newborn faces. Our findings show that recognition of newborn faces by nurses does not differ from adults who are rarely exposed to newborn faces. A control study showed that the absence of enhanced recognition cannot be attributed to the relatively short exposure to each newborn face in the neonatology unit or to newborns' apparent homogeneous appearance. It is therefore the quality--not the quantity--of exposure that determines recognition abilities.     

Backing Into the Fray: Commentary on Paper by Katherine Oram

The following is a discussion of a case presentation by Katherine (Kate) Oram in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. The discussion focuses on the issue of aggression expressed by the patient and the analyst from the perspective of interpersonal theory. How aspects of unspoken anger and resentment are woven through an abiding connection and development of trust is addressed. The relevance of aggression to the particular features of this case's termination and posttermination phase are explored as well.     

REDUCTION OF STATE-ANXIETY BY PETTING ANIMALS IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENT

The effect on anxiety of petting an animal and the underlying mechanisms of such an effect were examined by a repeated-measures, within-session experiment with 58 non-clinical participants. Participants were exposed to a stressful situation in the laboratory – the presence of a Tarantula spider, which they were told they might be asked to hold – and then randomly assigned to one of five groups: petting a rabbit, a turtle, a toy rabbit, a toy turtle or to a control group. Participants’ attitudes towards animals were measured as potential moderators. State-anxiety was assessed at baseline, after the stress manipulation, and after the experimental manipulation. The main findings showed that petting an animal reduced state-anxiety. This effect could not be attributed to the petting per se, since it was observed only with animals and not with matched toys. The anxiety-reducing effect of petting an animal applied to both the soft cuddly animals and the hard-shelled ones. The anxiety-reducing effect applied to people with different attitudes towards animals and was not restricted to animal lovers. The discussion addresses possible emotional and cognitive foundations of the observed effects and their implications.     

PATH: a program to build resilience and thriving in undergraduates

We developed and tested a brief three‐session program to build resilience (protection from depressive symptoms) and thriving (positive growth) in undergraduates by teaching adaptive explanatory styles. In Study 1, a pretest–posttest waiting list control experiment with 28 undergraduates found that our Program for Accelerated Thriving and Health (PATH) significantly increased optimistic and personal control explanatory styles (Attributional Style Questionnaire), resilience (Beck Depression Inventory‐II), and thriving (Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale 10). In Study 2, a placebo control experiment with 63 undergraduates found a modified version of the program to significantly increase resilience. All effects were at least moderate in size. As predicted, a personal control explanatory style significantly predicted thriving in both studies. Predictors of resilience and thriving were discussed in terms of differentiating the constructs.     

The Attraction of Africanized Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.) to Soft Drinks and Perfumes

The attraction of Africanized bees to soft drinks and perfumes was investigated. In the first experiment, the ability of bees to discriminate between two perfumes (Realm for Men and Realm for Women) was assessed. The results indicated that the scents could be used as conditioned stimuli. In the second experiment, bees were divided into individual groups and confined to small metal tubes. Groups were fed either Diet Pepsi, spring water (control), Diet Guaraná, Diet Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, Guaraná, Sukita Orange, Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, or sucrose (control). The dependent variable was the amount of time the bee's proboscis was in contact with a strip of filter paper saturated with the substance. The results indicated little or no contact with the diet soft drinks and spring water, 45–65 s of contact with Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, Guaraná, and Sukita Orange, and 75–140 s of contact with Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, and sucrose (sucrose elicited the most contact of the substances tested). In a third experiment, the ability of bees to associate an odor with a soft drink was assessed in a discrimination task. With Citral and Geraniol as conditioned stimuli, conditioning was best to sucrose, Guaraná, and Fanta Orange. Little conditioning was observed with Pepsi, and no conditioning was observed with Diet Pepsi.