Serious delinquent behavior,sensation seeking,and electrodermal arousal

Low tonic skin conductance level (SCL) has been related, inconsistently, to both delinquency and sensation-seeking. This study tests the hypothesis that there is an interaction such that high sensation seeking delinquents, in particular, have low SCLs. Participants consisted of 335 boys from the Pittsburgh Youth Study classified as serious delinquents or controls based upon 10 years of prospectively collected self-report delinquency data. Participants' skin conductance was evaluated at age 16 along with several personality and neuropsychological measures. Both delinquency and sensation seeking were characterized by low SCL. However, there was no evidence to suggest that the presence of both of these factors together lead to especially low skin conductance levels. This finding is not explained by differences between the groups on measures of negative emotionality, IQ, socioeconomic status, or impulsivity.     

From model minority to yellow peril: How threat perceptions and disgust predict anti-Asian prejudice during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hate crimes against Asians sharply increased in the United States. We investigated whether the threat of contracting COVID-19 and specific negative emotions (disgust, anxiety, fear, and anger) regarding COVID-19 predicted anti-Asian prejudice in a 3-wave longitudinal study of non-Asian American adults (N = 486) in the early days of the pandemic in 2020. In all 3 timepoints, participants who believed that they may have already contracted COVID and those who expressed greater disgust reported more anti-Asian attitudes, evaluated Asians as less than human, tolerated anti-Asian prejudice, and blamed Asians for spreading COVID-19. In a well-fitting longitudinal path model, we found longitudinal evidence for these associations, such that the belief that one had already contracted COVID-19 in March 2020 predicted greater disgust one month later, in April 2020, which in turn predicted greater anti-Asian prejudice in May 2020.     

Automatic identification of storytelling responses to past-behavior interview questions via machine learning

Structured interviews often feature past-behavior questions, where applicants are asked to tell a story about past work experience. Applicants often experience difficulties producing such stories. Automatic analyses of applicant behavior in responding to past-behavior questions may constitute a basis for delivering feedback and thus helping them improve their performance. We used machine learning algorithms to predict storytelling in transcribed speech of participants responding to past-behavior questions in a simulated selection interview. Responses were coded as to whether they featured a story or not. For each story, utterances were also manually coded as to whether they described the situation, the task/action performed, or results obtained. The algorithms predicted whether a response features a story or not (best accuracy: 78%), as well as the count of situation, task/action, and response utterances. These findings contribute to better automatic identification of verbal responses to past-behavior questions and may support automatic provision of feedback to applicants about their interview performance.     

Sex Really Does Sell: The Recall of Sexual and Non‐sexual Television Advertisements in Sexual and Non‐sexual Programmes

The present study examined memory for advertisements as a function of both advertisement content and the contextual programme content. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: in one condition, they watched a sexual programme and in the other a non‐sexual programme. Embedded within each programme were the same highly sexual and non‐sexual advertisements that had been matched in pairs for five products. Memory for the advertisements and involvement in the programmes was measured. It was found that on three indices (free recall, brand recognition and prompted recall), memory for the sexual advertisements was superior to that for non‐sexual advertisements. There was no effect of the programme content on advertisement recall and no relationship between programme involvement and advertisement recall. The results are discussed with reference to extant literature on memory for advertisements. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reconsidering Foucault’s dialogue with Buddhism

Against the backdrop of various interpretations and criticisms of Michel Foucault’s engagement with Buddhism, the focus of this article falls on the specific type of Zen Buddhism which he studied during his 1978 trip to Japan, and the possible relationship between its dynamics and those of his own research trajectory following the publication of The Will to Knowledge. In this regard, Foucault’s eschewal of the Engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Zen Buddhism of Taisen Deshimaru—both of which had risen to prominence in France by the late 1970s— and his concomitant interest instead in the teachings of Zen Master Omori Sōgen, in which Zen and the samurai code of bushidō were closely aligned, will be examined. Moreover, it will be argued that such preference on Foucault’s part was indicative of his eminently practical, rather than general philosophical, interest in Buddhism as a technology for the adversarial repositioning of subjectivity in relation to discourse. Finally, the implications of this for the abovementioned various interpretations and criticisms of Foucault’s engagement with Buddhism, will be considered.     

Understanding Creativity,One Metaphor at a Time

Any effort to clarify the meaning of creativity, although productive, risks limiting this important concept to a singular definition at the exclusion of other valuable interpretations. This article presents generative redefinitions of creativity by surveying a range of metaphors that are used to describe creativity. To explore the polysemic possibilities of creativity, 12 common metaphorical frameworks are examined for the ways in which they expand conceptual understanding, including metaphors such as incubation, illumination, evolution, divergence, investment, algorithm, boundary, organism, and democratic attunement. The purpose of this exploration is not to arrive at a singular understanding of creativity, but to acknowledge, examine, and celebrate the diverse ways it can be conceptualized. This article posits that using the language of metaphor as a tool for comparison and understanding helps sift through the complexity of conceptual differences. The argument concludes that considering multiple metaphors for creativity can generate new ways of appreciating the range of possibility implicit in creativity research.     

Rebound or Resignation: Developing a Predictive Model of Return to Subjective Wellbeing Set-Point

Though subjective wellbeing (SWB) is generally stable and consistent over time, it can fall below its set-point in response to adverse life events. However, deviations from set-point levels are usually only temporary, as homeostatic processes operate to return SWB to its normal state. Given that income and close interpersonal relationships have been proposed as powerful external resources that are coincident with higher SWB, access to these resources may be an important predictor of whether or not a person is likely to recover their SWB following a departure from their set-point. Under the guiding framework of SWB Homeostasis Theory, this study considers whether access to a higher income and a committed partner can predict whether people who score lower than normal for SWB at baseline will return to normal set-point levels of SWB (rebound) or remain below the normal range (resigned) at follow-up. Participants were 733 people (53.3 % female) from the Australian Unity Longitudinal Wellbeing Study who ranged in age from 20 to 92 years (M = 59.65 years; SD = 13.15). Logistic regression analyses revealed that participants’ demographic characteristics were poor predictors of whether they rebounded or resigned. Consistent with homeostasis theory, the extent of departure from the proposed normal SWB set-point at baseline was significantly associated with rebound or resignation at time 2. These findings have implications for the way that SWB measures can be used in professional practice to identify people who are particularly vulnerable to depression and to guide the provision of appropriate and effective therapeutic interventions.