Dream symbolization in light of analytic and experiential thinking

This paper compares the analytic and experiential approaches to dreams in order to illuminate the intrinsic and necessary relationships between the two understandings. It describes how dream work reflects the bimodalness of symbolism, thought and ultimately human consciousness. An extended example of dream work reflecting both analytic and experiential modalities is presented.     

Whom would you rather help: an acquaintance not responsible for her plight or a responsible sibling?

When 2 persons--an acquaintance who could not have avoided a problem and a close relative who is responsible for her own plight--ask for help, attribution theory and sociobiology conflict about who will receive help. Attribution theorists assume that the nonresponsible acquaintance will be supported, but sociobiologists argue that the responsible sibling will receive help. The authors tested the hypothesis that characteristics of the situation affect which theory better predicts help giving. The results confirmed that in situations that do not affect life and death, a nonresponsible acquaintance would receive more help than a responsible sibling. But in life-or-death situations, inasmuch as the reproductive fitness of the person in need is in danger, a responsible sibling would be supported more than a nonresponsible acquaintance.     

The timing of verbal/vocal communications between mothers and their infants: a longitudinal cross-cultural comparison

Early dialogues between parent and child constitute an important factor for the acquisition of culture and hence verbal interaction is considered to be a universal parenting system. Parenting strategies and socialization practices are strongly influenced by the cultural conception of the self, prototypically defined as the model of independence and interdependence. Our study focuses on the temporal organization of spontaneous verbal/vocal behavior of 20 German middle-class and 28 Cameroonian Nso mother–infant dyads. The infants and their mothers were observed weekly in a 5 min free-play interaction scene from 0 to 3 months of age. We hypothesized to find different amounts of vocalization time, synchronous vocalizations, and contingent maternal responses in the verbal/vocal patterns of the two samples. The findings indicate cross-cultural differences in the temporal structure of verbal/vocal interactions already during the first three months of life, reflecting underlying differences in the culture-specific modes of verbal interaction.     

An Information Processing Theory of Ambivalence

This paper analyzes the sources of ambivalence toward political parties and candidates. We propose and test an information-processing theory of ambivalence in which systematic processing is hypothesized to heighten partisan and candidate ambivalence. We show that ambivalence is linked to several dispositional sources of systematic processing, including individuals' information, motivation, and cognitive style. Specifically, we find that ambivalence tends to be greater among the well informed and those who are high in need for cognition while it tends to be lower among those motivated by directional goals. Collectively, our results suggest that levels of partisan and candidate ambivalence are greatest among those most likely to engage in effortful processing of information and that these effects are independent of value conflict. The results further suggest that the effects of effortful processing on ambivalence are moderated by attitude commitment.