Religious Quest Orientation and Anti‐Gay Sentiment: Nuancing the Relationship Between Religiosity and Negative Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Among Young Muslims and Christians in Flanders

Public opinion research has repeatedly shown that religious people generally report more prejudice against homosexuality. However, previous research exploring the general mechanisms that underpin this relationship mostly relied on Christian samples in North America. Studies outside North America are few in number and limited in the forms of religiosity they address. Of all indicators that have been studied so far, a religious quest orientation was found to be the only one negatively related to anti‐gay sentiments. This leaves open the question whether the mechanisms for different forms of religiosity can also be found outside North America. Against that background this research note assesses how religious quest orientation, self‐rated religiosity, religious behavior, and authoritarianism are related to prejudice against homosexuality among Christian and Muslim youth aged 14–23 in Flanders (N = 2,834). This study is the first that investigates the relationship between religious quest orientation and anti‐gay sentiments among Muslims. For both Christians and Muslims, we found that even taking into account a wide range of social background and religious characteristics, having a religious quest orientation is related to less prejudice toward homosexuality.     

A Decision Support System for Prioritizing Investments in an Energy Efficiency Program in Favelas in the City of Rio de Janeiro

This study proposes an integrated qualitative and quantitative assessment of expert opinions aiming at ranking a set of five shantytowns (favelas) located in the city of Rio de Janeiro. These communities are candidates for investments in an energy efficiency program implemented by the local electric utility company. The city, state, and federal governments want to eliminate domination of these areas by organized criminal gangs and present the city as a peaceful metropolis while hosting two big sports events: the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. In recent years, some favelas were chosen to be prototypes for an ambitious project to reshape Rio de Janeiro. This involves first sending in special tactics police to drive drug gangs out, then installing the Pacifying Police Unit in the favela. Once security has been established, it is possible to improve general living conditions in these areas, including by providing public services such as health clinics, formal electricity connections and cable television. The core of the energy efficiency program was to convert informal customers to formal ones, because such communities were responsible for approximately 40% of the commercial losses (stolen energy) in the city. The model specification presented in this paper was set up with ten relevant criteria for decision making, identified through an in‐depth interview with the decision maker. The relative importance of the criteria and the performance of each favela regarding each criterion were measured by the Simos method. The preferences resulting from this method were translated into a nine‐point scale. The imprecision of subjective judgment was partially compensated by using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process. Some criteria were ordinal, such as ‘Fair Relationship with the Community’ and ‘Complexity to Rebuild the Distribution Lines’, whereas other were cardinal, like ‘Percentage of Clients in Default’ and ‘Commercial Loss Due to Energy Theft’. At the end, the model was efficient in ranking the five favelas, therefore contributing to a rational and transparent approach for capital investment in social projects. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of task preference in the effectiveness of response interruption and redirection

Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) is a common treatment for automatically reinforced vocal stereotypy; it involves the contingent presentation of task instructions. Tasks that are included in RIRD are typically selected based on caregiver report, which may affect the efficacy of RIRD. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the role of task preference in the efficacy of RIRD for four participants who engaged in vocal stereotypy. We conducted task-preference assessments and selected tasks of varying preferences to include in RIRD. For three out of four participants, the results showed that RIRD with higher preference tasks was not effective at reducing vocal stereotypy, whereas RIRD with lower preference tasks was effective for all participants.     

Culture and the distinctiveness motive: constructing identity in individualistic and collectivistic contexts

The motive to attain a distinctive identity is sometimes thought to be stronger in, or even specific to, those socialized into individualistic cultures. Using data from 4,751 participants in 21 cultural groups (18 nations and 3 regions), we tested this prediction against our alternative view that culture would moderate the ways in which people achieve feelings of distinctiveness, rather than influence the strength of their motivation to do so. We measured the distinctiveness motive using an indirect technique to avoid cultural response biases. Analyses showed that the distinctiveness motive was not weaker-and, if anything, was stronger-in more collectivistic nations. However, individualism-collectivism was found to moderate the ways in which feelings of distinctiveness were constructed: Distinctiveness was associated more closely with difference and separateness in more individualistic cultures and was associated more closely with social position in more collectivistic cultures. Multilevel analysis confirmed that it is the prevailing beliefs and values in an individual's context, rather than the individual's own beliefs and values, that account for these differences.     

A computerized multidimensional measurement of mental workload via handwriting analysis

The goal of this study was to test the effect of mental workload on handwriting behavior and to identify characteristics of low versus high mental workload in handwriting. We hypothesized differences between handwriting under three different load conditions and tried to establish a profile that integrated these indicators. Fifty-six participants wrote three numerical progressions of varying difficulty on a digitizer attached to a computer so that we could evaluate their handwriting behavior. Differences were found in temporal, spatial, and angular velocity handwriting measures, but no significant differences were found for pressure measures. Using data reduction, we identified three clusters of handwriting, two of which differentiated well according to the three mental workload conditions. We concluded that handwriting behavior is affected by mental workload and that each measure provides distinct information, so that they present a comprehensive indicator of mental workload.     

The Effect of Rehabilitation on Positive Interpretations of Illness

Postoperative patients received one of the three, alternative pain-management treatments: patient-controlled analgesia (PCA); perceived PCA (PPCA without actual control) and continuous intravenous infusion of analgesics (CII). Pain reports, morphine consumption and satisfaction of the groups were compared, and influences of individual differences in preferences for control and trait anxiety were tested. The main findings were: (1) PCA patients consumed less morphine and reported more pain and somewhat higher satisfaction; (2) PPCA patients were intermediate between the other two groups in pain reports and morphine consumption and lowest in satisfaction and (3) individual differences did not moderate the effects of PCA. The findings were interpreted as indicating that the main effect of PCA is increased pain tolerance, and that a bio-psycho-social framework is most appropriate to explain these effects.     

La Psicología en la escritura: una visión general

Resumen

En este trabajo, tras una breve introducción en la que se considera la naturaleza e importancia de la escritura, se exponen las ideas generales sobre el estudio de su desarrollo, tanto desde un punto de vista histórico como ontogenético. Seguidamente, se propone una clasificación de los campos de estudio psicológico de la escritura. Por último, se expone un posible marco integrador del área de estudio de la escritura desde un punto de vista cognitivo.     

Emotional time distortions: The fundamental role of arousal

An emotion-based lengthening effect on the perception of durations of emotional pictures has been assumed to result from an arousal-based mechanism, involving the activation of an internal clock system. The aim of this study was to systematically examine the arousal effect on time perception when different discrete emotions were considered. The participants were asked to verbally estimate the duration of emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The pictures varied either in arousal level, i.e., high/low-arousal, for the same discrete emotion (disgust or sadness) or in the depicted emotion, e.g., disgust/fear for pictures matched for arousal (high-arousal). The results systematically revealed a lengthening effect on the perception of the duration of the emotional compared to the neutral pictures and indicated that the magnitude of this effect increased with arousal level. Nevertheless, variations in time perception were observed for one and the same arousal level, with the duration of disgust-inducing pictures (e.g., body mutilation) being judged longer than that of fear-inducing pictures (e.g., snake). These results suggest that arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception. However, the effect cannot be reduced to arousal, since the impact of the content of pictures also plays a critical role.     

We are human,they are not: Driving forces behind outgroup dehumanisation and the humanisation of the ingroup

Mostly invigorated by infrahumanisation theory, our knowledge on processes of dehumanisation in intergroup relations has grown considerably in the last decade. Building on these earlier endeavours, the present chapter reviews some recent empirical extensions that highlight the importance of differentiating between ingroup humanisation and outgroup dehumanisation because they are often moderated by specific variables. The role of these separate processes is discussed as a function of the main structural elements that define intergroup behaviour; that is, the defining boundaries of the groups, the relation between the groups at hand, and the ideologies of its members. Finally, the role of the different senses of humanness is discussed, suggesting that the folk conception of humanness differs between cultures.