Social representations of history,cultural values,and willingness to fight in a war: A collective‐level analysis in 40 nations

This study explores at the national level beliefs about world history and their relationship with cultural values and attitudes towards a national war. A country‐level analysis of university samples from 40 nations involving 7279 students showed that beliefs about history as a superior plan, as social progress, and lawful processes were positively associated with lower human development, and materialistic and power distance values, as well as with willingness to fight in a future national war. Further, beliefs about history as a superior plan, as social progress, and as lawful process were positively related with a stronger disposition to fight, even after controlling for cultural values and human development. Results are discussed in the framework of conceptualizing social representations of history as part of national political cultures.     

Harbour seals (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Phoca vitulina</Emphasis>) are able to time precisely

Time along with space is one of the two fundamental dimensions of life. Whereas spatial aspects have been considered in experiments with marine mammals, research has so far not focused on timing per se although it is most likely involved in many behaviours such as foraging or navigation. This study investigated whether harbour seals possess a sense of time and how precisely they are able to discriminate time intervals. Experiments took place in a chamber that allowed keeping ambient illumination constant at 40 lx. The animal was presented with a white circle on a black background on a monitor displayed for a preset time interval. In a two-alternative forced-choice experiment, the animal had to indicate the presence of the standard or a longer comparison time interval by moving its head to one out of two response targets. Time difference thresholds were assessed for various standard intervals between 3 to 30 s adopting a staircase procedure. The experimental animal found access to the task easily and discriminated time intervals with difference thresholds partly in the millisecond range. Thus our study revealed a well-developed sense of time in a pinniped species. Time, besides information provided by the classical senses, is thus most likely an important parameter seals can rely on for various tasks including navigation and foraging.     

Self-esteem,motivation and school attendance among sub-Saharan African girls: A self-determination theory perspective

Sub-Saharan samples are severely under-represented in the psychological literature. Taking an ecological approach, the current study examines key propositions derived from self-determination theory in a sample of adolescent girls in Mozambique. As a framework theory, self-determination theory consists of six sub-theories. We test the main premises of two of these theories: organismic integration theory and basic psychological need theory. In line with organismic integration theory, we assess the role of intrinsic, extrinsic, introjected and identified motivation for school attendance. We also test the possible moderating role of the ecological variable resource scarcity. The second part of the study focuses on the main premise of the basic psychological need sub-theory, which states that satisfaction of the needs for relatedness, competence and autonomy underlies intrinsic motivation, goal-directed behaviour (school attendance) and well-being (self-esteem). The study also assesses the moderation of resource scarcity in these relationships. Results provide support for both sub-theories of self-determination theory. Resource scarcity is not found to moderate the relationships between motivation and attendance or between need satisfaction and well-being, motivation and attendance. Implications for the universality claim of self-determination theory, as well as for the field of international development aid, are discussed.     

Visual timing abilities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and a South African fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) for sub- and supra-second time intervals

Animal Cognition - Timing is an essential parameter influencing many behaviours. A previous study demonstrated a high sensitivity of a phocid, the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), in discriminating...     

Socioeconomical and sociopolitical correlates of interpersonal forgiveness: A three‐level meta‐analysis of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory across 13 societies

We report a meta‐analysis on the country‐level correlates of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), to address (1) whether there are differences in forgiveness between societies, (2) what society‐level context variables can account for these differences, and (3) whether conceptual relationships of forgiveness found at the individual level can be replicated at the societal level. We found sizeable differences between societies that are associated with democracy, peacefulness, socioeconomic development, and postmaterialism indices of a society. Replicating individual‐level results, subjective wellbeing was positively related to forgiveness. We discuss the importance of macro‐level contextual variables for understanding levels of forgiveness.     

Psychoanalytic considerations about the anti‐oedipal condition in Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea and in the analysis of Miss M1

Based on Heinrich von Kleist’s drama Penthesilea and a clinical case, this study seeks to demonstrate a theoretical concept that is developed and identified as the anti‐oedipal condition. This state involves a regressive insistence on suffocating any form of oedipal maturation and, with it, any form of genital–sexual desire; it damages, even destroys, any form of intellectual–creative curiosity. A specific form of defensive organization, the anti‐oedipal condition, is sought out when psychic development, when oedipal–genital maturation requires re‐establishing contact with a sort of inner terra cremata, an emotional domain that once had been supposed to be eliminated due to catastrophic experiences that could not be integrated. This defensive organization dominated Kleist’s Amazons as well as Miss M. What happened first in both instances was a regression to and fixation at the anti‐oedipal condition, but the paths leading out of this incapsulation were antipodal.     

Implied-Meaning Analysis of the Currian Conditional

Expanding on the recent research of Stephen Read and Catarina Dutilh Novaes concerning Thomas Bradwardine's theory of truth, the present paper makes an effort to analyse the Currian conditional in terms of the so-called ‘Bradwardine principle’, i.e. the principle that meaning is closed under entailment. Based upon two possible applications of this approach, alternative solutions to the issues of semantic pathology and trivialisation of deductive systems are presented.     

Jesuit Probabilistic Logic between Scholastic and Academic Philosophy

There is a well-documented paradigm-shift in eighteenth century Jesuit philosophy and science, at the very least in Central Europe: traditional scholastic version(s) of Aristotelianism were replaced by early modern rationalism (Wolff's systematisation of Leibnizian philosophy) and early modern science and mathematics. In the field of probability, this meant that the traditional Jesuit engagement with probability, uncertainty, and truthlikeness (in particular, as applied to moral theology) could translate into mathematical language, and can be analysed against the background of the accounts of probability, pre-mathematical Jesuit logic, Wolff's conceptual analysis, and Bernoullian mathematisation. The works of two Jesuit philosophers, Berthold Hauser and Sigismund Storchenau, can be related to this context. The core of their logic of (epistemic) probability is the account of negation (or ‘contradiction’) and implication (or ‘argument’), in particular, the algorithms for computing the reliability of one piece of evidence when compared to the respective counter-evidence and for computing the probability of a conclusion given the probability of its premises.     

Cultural and Institutional Determinants of Social Dominance Orientation: A Cross‐Cultural Meta‐Analysis of 27 Societies

We investigate macrocontextual antecedents of national levels of Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). The majority of previous research, in contrast, has tended to focus on individual‐level correlates of SDO. We extend research on Social Dominance Theory by modelling national‐level differences in institutional discrimination, macroeconomic development, and value ideologies as broad situational factors affecting SDO mean levels in previous studies. Our hypotheses were tested in a three‐level meta‐analysis of aggregate data from 50,971 individuals in 95 samples from 27 different societies. Strong effects for hierarchy‐attenuating legitimizing ideologies and gender empowerment were found. Aggregate discrimination against arbitrary‐set groups was less consistently linked to SDO, suggesting that these hierarchies are context‐specific. Using mixed‐effects three‐level modelling, the patterns can be generalized to new contexts and suggest a particular institutional and social climate that fosters high SDO.