Religion,Religious Tradition,and Nationalism: Jewish Revival in Poland and “Religious Heritage” in Québec

This article uses and develops Martin Riesebrodt's distinction between religion and religious tradition to shed light on the making of various articulations of religious identities and political projects. Based on extensive research on the Polish and Québécois cases, I show how social and state actors in these societies reactivate past religious traditions to respond to current social transformations and articulate societal projects and advance political agendas in the present. In both cases, religion and religious tradition are juxtaposed to articulate new national identities or fortify older ones, and to respond more specifically to the challenges posed by “pluralism.” I suggest that sociologists who work at the intersection of religion and politics can contribute to our understanding of the various registers through which religion, religious action, and religious tradition are rendered meaningful to social actors, used for different goals (religious and not) and transformed in the process.     

Living in a multicultural world: Intergroup ideologies and the societal context of intergroup relations

In a relatively short time span, issues of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity have become central topics of discussion in various nations. As a result, the role of broad ideologies that frame and structure relations between groups has received increasing attention by social psychologists. Of particular concern has been the role of these intergroup ideologies in promoting intergroup harmony and reducing prejudice. In this article, we appraise the evidence related to three main intergroup ideologies, assimilation, colourblindness, and multiculturalism. We argue that research in this area has paid insufficient attention to the social and political context. Intergroup ideologies have been studied and conceptualised as being located solely within individual minds. We suggest that the potentially vital aspect of these ideologies is that they are sometimes widely shared by members of a social group. Integrating sociological and political analyses, we discuss the fact that intergroup ideologies are institutionalised as policies and that, as such, they often vary across countries and across time. We present a series of studies to illustrate the theoretical implications of studying the shared nature of these intergroup ideologies, providing insights into the question of when and why national policies can shape individuals’ intergroup attitudes and beliefs and improve intergroup relations.     

Hemispheric lateralization in aging: Interest of the verbal-manual concurrency paradigm

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the classic asymmetry seen in hemispheric functioning is modified in older adults by using a verbal-manual concurrency task. Method: Thirty-five right-handed participants divided into two groups according to age (15 older participants, mean age: 68 ± 8 years, without cognitive decline and 20 younger participants, mean age: 23 ± 2 years) had to perform a 30-second uni-manual tapping task, in both a single task (tapping alone) and dual task (tapping and performing a letter fluency task together) condition. Results: In younger participants, the letter fluency task disrupted the right hand more than the left hand whereas, in older participants, the letter fluency task disrupted both hands equally. Conclusion: These results should be considered preliminary data using a behavioral dual task condition, which might be useful for studying lateralized hemispheric functioning and the processes of divided attention during aging.     

Processing of musical structure by high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Enhanced pitch perception and memory have been cited as evidence of a local processing bias in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This bias is argued to account for enhanced perceptual functioning (Mottron &; Burack, 2001 Mottron, L. and Burack, J. A. 2001. “Enhanced perceptual functioning in the development of autism”. In The development of autism: Perspectives from theory to research, Edited by: Burack, J. A., Charman, T., Yirmiya, N. and Zelazo, P. R. 131–147. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar]; Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, Hubert, &; Burack, 2006 Mottron, L., Dawson, M., Soulières, I., Hubert, B. and Burack, J. 2006. Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: An update, and eight principles of autistic perception. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1): 27–43. doi:10.1007/s10803-005-0040-7[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and central coherence theories of ASD (Frith, 1989 Frith, U. 1989. Autism: Explaining the enigma, Oxford: United Kingdom: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]; Happé &; Frith, 2006 Happé, F. and Frith, U. 2006. The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1): 5–25. doi:10.1007/s10803-005-0039-0[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). A local processing bias confers a different cognitive style to individuals with ASD (Happé, 1999 Happé, F. 1999. Autism: Cognitive deficit or cognitive style?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3(6): 216–222. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01318-2[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), which accounts in part for their good visuospatial and visuoconstructive skills. Here, we present analogues in the auditory domain, audiotemporal or audioconstructive processing, which we assess using a novel experimental task: a musical puzzle. This task evaluates the ability of individuals with ASD to process temporal sequences of musical events as well as various elements of musical structure and thus indexes their ability to employ a global processing style. Musical structures created and replicated by children and adolescents with ASD (10–19 years old) and typically developing children and adolescents (7–17 years old) were found to be similar in global coherence. Presenting a musical template for reference increased accuracy equally for both groups, with performance associated to performance IQ and short-term auditory memory. The overall pattern of performance was similar for both groups; some puzzles were easier than others and this was the case for both groups. Task performance was further found to be correlated with the ability to perceive musical emotions, more so for typically developing participants. Findings are discussed in light of the empathizing-systemizing theory of ASD (Baron-Cohen, 2009 Baron-Cohen, S. 2009. Autism: The Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) Theory. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156: 68–80. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04467.x[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and the importance of describing the strengths of individuals with ASD (Happé, 1999 Happé, F. 1999. Autism: Cognitive deficit or cognitive style?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3(6): 216–222. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01318-2[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Heaton, 2009 Heaton, P. 2009. Assessing musical skills in autistic children who are not savants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, 364: 1443–1447. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0327[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Categorical flexibility in preschoolers: contributions of conceptual knowledge and executive control

The current study evaluated the relative roles of conceptual knowledge and executive control on the development of categorical flexibility, the ability to switch between simultaneously available but conflicting categorical representations of an object. Experiment 1 assessed conceptual knowledge and executive control together; Experiment 2 differentiated conceptual knowledge from costly executive processes. In Experiment 1, 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds were given a three‐choice (taxonomic, thematic, and nonassociate) match‐to‐sample task and asked to match two associates. In Experiment 2, same‐aged children were assessed on another match‐to‐sample task that reduced executive costs by presenting thematic and taxonomic associates on separate trials. By comparing performance across tasks, age‐related changes resulting from conceptual knowledge and executive control indicated that conceptual knowledge of superordinate relations showed gains between 3 and 4 years, whereas gains in executive control were seen between 4 and 5 years, suggesting a décalage in the development of conceptual and executive processes underlying categorical flexibility.     

Passion for Driving and Aggressive Driving Behavior: A Look at Their Relationship

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the relationship between passion for driving and aggressive driving behavior in 3 studies. Study 1 examined the association between passion and aggressive driving behavior in a sample of undergraduate students. Results showed that an obsessive passion for driving was associated with aggressive driving behavior, while harmonious passion was not. Study 2 replicated these results with an ecologically valid sample of community‐dwelling drivers. Finally, Study 3 replicated the results obtained in Studies 1 and 2 in a laboratory setting using a driving simulator under controlled frustrating driving situations with judges' assessment of aggressive driving behavior. Study 3 also showed that the emotion of anger mediated the obsessive‐passion/aggressive‐driving‐behavior relationship.     

The influence of suggestibility on memory

We provide a translation of Binet and Henri's pioneering 1894 paper on the influence of suggestibility on memory. Alfred Binet (1857-1911) is famous as the author who created the IQ test that bears his name, but he is almost unknown as the psychological investigator who generated numerous original experiments and fascinating results in the study of memory. His experiments published in 1894 manipulated suggestibility in several ways to determine effects on remembering. Three particular modes of suggestion were employed to induce false recognitions: (1) indirect suggestion by a preconceived idea; (2) direct suggestion; and (3) collective suggestion. In the commentary we suggest that Binet and Henri's (1894) paper written over 115 years ago is still highly relevant even today. In particular, Binet's legacy lives on in modern research on misinformation effects in memory, in studies of conformity, and in experiments on the social contagion of memory.     

Social judgment of abortion: a black-sheep effect in a Catholic sheepfold.

French Catholic participants (N = 340) with high or low religious identification read 1 of 8 scenarios presented as an interview with a female target 2 months after she had had an abortion. The experimental device varied situational pressure (pressure vs. no pressure), the target's religious social identity (Catholic vs. neutral), and the consequences of abortion for the target (positive vs. negative). The participants then rated the acceptability of the target's decision. The participants judged abortion more negatively in the no-pressure condition. Moreover, the participants with high religious identification judged abortion more negatively than did those with low religious identification. In partial support of a black-sheep effect, the participants with high religious identification judged the Catholic target more negatively than they judged the neutral one in some conditions (pressure, negative consequences). In other conditions (no pressure, both positive and negative consequences), the participants with low religious identification judged the Catholic target more positively than they judged the neutral one.     

Don’t Ever Do That! Long-term Duties in <Emphasis Type="Italic">PD</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis></Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis>

This paper studies long-term norms concerning actions. In Meyer’s Propositional Deontic Logic (PD _e L), only immediate duties can be expressed, however, often one has duties of longer durations such as: “Never do that”, or “Do this someday”. In this paper, we will investigate how to amend PD _e L so that such long-term duties can be expressed. This leads to the interesting and suprising consequence that the long-term prohibition and obligation are not interdefinable in our semantics, while there is a duality between these two notions. As a consequence, we have provided a new analysis of the long-term obligation by introducing a new atomic proposition I (indebtedness) to represent the condition that an agent has some unfulfilled obligation. Presented by Jacek Malinowski     

Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenance

Preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in maintaining currently relevant information. In Experiment 1, a new task tapping attentional switching was designed to isolate the difficulty of overriding an initial representation, that is, perseverative processing ('Perseveration' version), and the difficulty of activating a previously ignored representation, that is, activation deficit ('Activation-deficit' version). Three-year-olds' performance suggested that inflexibility may primarily stem from an activation deficit. Control experiments confirmed that the difficulty of the 'Activation-deficit' version could not be attributed to the effect of attraction to novelty. In Experiment 2, 'distraction' errors, alleged to reflect a failure to maintain a relevant representation, and 'perseverative' errors were distinguished. The results highlighted the important role of representation maintenance in flexibility. The present study indicates that preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility is multi-determined and prompts us to reconsider the role of perseveration.