The effect of relationship status on communicating emotions through touch

Research into emotional communication to date has largely focused on facial and vocal expressions. In contrast, recent studies by Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, and Jaskolka (2006) and Hertenstein, Holmes, McCullough, and Keltner (2009) exploring nonverbal communication of emotion discovered that people could identify anger, disgust, fear, gratitude, happiness, love, sadness and sympathy from the experience of being touched on either the arm or body by a stranger, without seeing the touch. The study showed that strangers were unable to communicate the self-focused emotions embarrassment, envy and pride, or the universal emotion surprise. Literature relating to touch indicates that the interpretation of a tactile experience is significantly influenced by the relationship between the touchers (Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006). The present study compared the ability of romantic couples and strangers to communicate emotions solely via touch. Results showed that both strangers and romantic couples were able to communicate universal and prosocial emotions, whereas only romantic couples were able to communicate the self-focused emotions envy and pride.     

Handling the stigma of handling the dead: Morticians and funeral directors

This paper analyzes the ways in which morticians and funeral directors—people who make their living by handling the dead—attempt to overcome the stigma associated with their work. It reflects over 2 years of field work involving extensive ethnographic interviews with 19 morticians and funeral directors in four different states. The qualitative analysis reveals that morticians and funeral directors are acutely aware of the stigma associated with their work, most of which comes from handling the dead and being viewed as profiting from death and grief. Within the general theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism, the author identifies and examines the symbolic and dramaturgical techniques employed by morticians and funeral directors to neutralize and diminish the stigma associated with their work. Among these are symbolically redefining their work, practicing role distance, emphasizing professionalism, cloaking themselves in the “shroud of service,” and enjoying socioeconomic status over occupational prestige. Morticians and funeral directors make special efforts to shift the emphasis of their work away from the handling of the dead to providing important and necessary services for the living.     

Television Cartoons: Do Children Notice It's a Boy's World?

This study involved structured interviews with 89 children ranging in age from 4 to 9 years to determine how they perceived the presentation of male and female characters in cartoons. Approximately 85% of the respondents were Caucasian, and 15% were African American. Consistent with a recent content analysis of cartoons, the children perceived most cartoon characters in stereotypical ways—boys were violent and active and girls were domestic, interested in boys, and concerned with appearances. Significant relationships were observed between noticing gender-stereotypic behaviors in the cartoon characters and reporting more traditional job expectations for self and others. The type of cartoon preferred by the children and whether their mother worked outside the home seemed to be related to their perceptions.     

Promoting Favorable Attitudes Toward Personnel Surveys: The Role of Follow-Up

Periodic command climate assessments and other such surveys are typical in most military organizations. In today's era of dwindling response rates, empirical guidance is needed for leaders and practitioners attempting to understand the factors that affect personnel's attitudes toward surveys and their intentions to complete recurrent questionnaires. The present study addressed this problem by assessing 236 military and civilian workers' reactions to a recurring command climate survey. As hypothesized, personnel who witnessed data feedback, problem identification, and survey-based action after the administration of the survey were particularly inclined to deem the survey useful. Moreover, personnel considered action more important than feedback when evaluating the survey's utility. By shaping perceptions of survey usefulness, awareness of follow-up actions impacted intentions to complete future questionnaires. Overall, the results of this study document the importance of visible, post-survey actions and highlight the repercussions of failing to adequately communicate survey-based change initiatives to the workforce.     

How images may or may not represent flowers: picture–object correspondence in bumblebees (Bombus impatiens)?

Studies of bee cognition frequently use two-dimensional stimuli referred to as floral patterns, and yet how bees perceive pictorial representations is not known. An investigation of bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) picture–object correspondence was undertaken according to the theory of Fagot et al. (Picture perception in animals. Psychology Press Ltd, East Sussex, pp 295–320, 2000) that pictures and objects may be confused, perceived as independent or equivalent. In three experiments, bumblebees were given discrimination training and unrewarded testing in a radial maze. In the first experiment, preferences between artificial flowers and photographs of those flowers revealed a significant learned preference for the stimulus rewarded during training: no confusion following training. In the second experiment, bees did transfer learning from artificial flowers to photographs: some commonality between an object and photograph was perceived. In the third experiment, bees spontaneously generalized a learned preference for one artificial flower to its silhouette, but only for one of two flowers used in training. No generalization was obtained to drawn images. Some transfer between image and object is exhibited, likely by low-level feature matching, but transfer is poor with degraded images, cautioning against extrapolation of picture-based responding to natural correspondents. Despite evidence that bees exhibit some transfer while retaining discrimination, it is likely that the observed response is due to generalization more akin to confusion than true equivalence. Furthermore, although 2D patterning cues (line, edge and shade) provide discriminable cues for bees between 2D stimuli, it is not here supported that such features are perceived as equivalent to the intended floral structures.     

Memory for unique personal events: Effects of pleasantness

College students recorded unique personal events for a 3-month period. At the time of recording, they rated the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the event. Subsequent memory ratings showed no effect of type of affect (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant events) but a strong influence of intensity of affect. In contrast, the data for estimating the date of occurrence of events showed an effect of type of affect, with pleasant events estimated more accurately than unpleasant events. A detailed analysis of the data indicated that the effect could not be attributed to the predictability of pleasant events. A red-letter day effect was proposed as an explanation for the estimation data.     

Theme Articles: Luther,Feminism, Friendship and the Future

Abstract : This article traces the author's journey of becoming a Lutheran feminist theologian. Drawing on insights from both Lutheran and feminist traditions, the author proposes a shift in Christian vocation imagery from that of servant to friend. She then argues that call to friendship includes subverting global structures of domination. The article ends with an invitation to join the expanding conversation about how Lutheran and feminist frameworks address the needs of our contemporary world.