Samaritanism and Civil Disobedience

In this paper, I defend the existence of a moral duty to disobey the law and engage in civil disobedience on the basis of one of the grounds of political obligation—the Samaritan duty. Christopher H. Wellman has recently offered a ‘Samaritan account’ of state legitimacy and political obligation, according to which the state is justified in coercing each citizen in order to rescue all from the perilous circumstances of the state of nature; and each of us is bound to obey the law, as the state demands, because we each have a responsibility to help rescue others when this assistance is not unreasonably costly. Though Wellman recognizes that there can be reasons for disobeying the law and resisting injustice in otherwise legitimate states, he overlooks the possibility that at least some of these reasons could be Samaritan in nature, grounded in the duty to rescue people from peril. As I shall argue, the Samaritan duty supports obligations to disobey the law, when the law prohibits Samaritan rescues, and to engage in civil disobedience, when unjust laws and practices contribute to endangering people. The discussion proceeds as follows. After a brief overview of the Samaritan duty, I articulate my case for Samaritan duties to disobey the law, and duties to engage in civil disobedience when unjust laws, institutions, or practices enable what I call ‘persistent Samaritan perils’. I then examine and respond to several objections to my account: first, that the costs of law-breaking are unreasonable, and thus cannot be morally required; second, that individuals’ particular acts of protest and civil disobedience do not appear to make any difference to the rescue, and thus cannot be required; third, that I stretch the Samaritan duty beyond recognition; and fourth, that the Samaritan duty binds us to help people in need or peril anywhere, not particularly at home. I consider in conclusion the advantages and limits of my account of citizens’ Samaritan duties in the face of injustice.     

Group reactions to dishonesty

Groups and individuals were compared for their willingness to incur financial costs in order to punish dishonest behavior by others. Study 1 demonstrated that dishonesty was punished more often by groups than by individuals and that groups’ higher willingness to punish dishonesty was mediated by stronger negative affect. Study 2 provided evidence that the increase in negative affect in groups was driven by exposure to other group members’ negative feelings and opinions during group discussions. Overall, the results suggest that being part of a group increases negative emotions toward dishonest others and leads to a greater willingness to engage in costly punishment.     

Asymmetric binding in serial memory for verbal and spatial information

As the number of studies showing that items can be retained as bound representations in memory increases, researchers are beginning to investigate how the different features are bound together. In the present study, we examined the relative importances of the verbal and spatial features in serial memory for visual stimuli. Participants were asked to memorize the order of series of letters presented visually in different locations on the computer screen. The results showed that manipulating the phonological similarity of the letters affected recall of their spatial locations, but that increasing the complexity of the spatial pattern had no effect on recall of the letters. This finding was observed in both order reconstruction (Exps. 1 and 2) and probe serial recall (Exps. 3 and 4), suggesting that verbal–spatial binding in serial memory for visual information is asymmetric.     

Sleep Disturbances Among Combat Military Veterans: A Comparative Study Using Subjective and Objective Sleep Assessments

The sleep characteristics of 37 military veterans and active-duty service members (17 with PTSD and 20 without PTSD) of recent wars were analyzed to determine if combat deployment, with its associated sleep restriction, may be an alternative explanation for the sleep complaints found among combat veterans with PTSD (as determined by PTSD Checklist Military Version scores). Over a 1-week period, sleep data were collected using sleep actigraphy and self-report. Across the entire sample, subjective and objective assessment methods of sleep were strongly correlated, although there were some notable within-group differences. Specifically, although sleep duration between groups did not differ based on actigraphy, veterans without PTSD reported sleeping 1 h and 11 min (p = .002) longer than did veterans with PTSD. In an effort to determine why individuals without PTSD might be overreporting sleep, we found that symptoms of emotional arousal (anger, anxiety, and nightmares) were significantly correlated with self-reported sleep duration, suggesting a pattern of higher autonomic arousal found in veterans with PTSD. Thus, although sleeping for 6 h, the higher levels of emotional arousal reported by veterans with PTSD may mean that they do not perceive their sleep as restful. Further research is necessary to determine if the sleep architecture of veterans with PTSD is actually different from that of combat veterans without PTSD and if such differences are actually amenable to standard behavioral treatments for this disorder.     

When do children trust the expert? Benevolence information influences children's trust more than expertise

How do children use informant niceness, meanness, and expertise when choosing between informant claims and crediting informants with knowledge? In Experiment 1, preschoolers met two experts providing conflicting claims for which only one had relevant expertise. Five‐year‐olds endorsed the relevant expert's claim and credited him with knowledge more often than 3‐year‐olds. In Experiment 2, niceness/meanness information was added. Although children most strongly preferred the nice relevant expert, the children often chose the nice irrelevant expert when the relevant one was mean. In Experiment 3, a mean expert was paired with a nice non‐expert. Although this nice informant had no expertise, preschoolers continued to endorse his claims and credit him with knowledge. Also noteworthy, children in all three experiments seemed to struggle more to choose the relevant expert's claim than to credit him with knowledge. Together, these experiments demonstrate that niceness/meanness information can powerfully influence how children evaluate informants.     

The Power of Pictures: Vertical Picture Angles in Power Pictures

Conventional wisdom suggests that variations in vertical picture angle cause the subject to appear more powerful when depicted from below and less powerful when depicted from above. However, do the media actually use such associations to represent individual differences in power? We argue that the diverse perspectives of evolutionary, social learning, and embodiment theories all suggest that the association between verticality and power is relatively automatic and should, therefore, be visible in the portrayal of powerful and powerless individuals in the media. Four archival studies (with six samples) provide empirical evidence for this hypothesis and indicate that a salience power context reinforces this effect. In addition, two experimental studies confirm these effects for individuals producing media content. We discuss potential implications of this effect.     

Beyond words: Sensory properties of depressive thoughts

Verbal thoughts (such as negative cognitions) and sensory phenomena (such as visual mental imagery) are usually conceptualised as distinct mental experiences. The present study examined to what extent depressive thoughts are accompanied by sensory experiences and how this is associated with symptom severity, insight of illness and quality of life. A large sample of mildly to moderately depressed patients (N = 356) was recruited from multiple sources and asked about sensory properties of their depressive thoughts in an online study. Diagnostic status and symptom severity were established over a telephone interview with trained raters. Sensory properties of negative thoughts were reported by 56.5% of the sample (i.e., sensation in at least one sensory modality). The highest prevalence was seen for bodily (39.6%) followed by auditory (30.6%) and visual (27.2%) sensations. Patients reporting sensory properties of thoughts showed more severe psychopathological symptoms than those who did not. The degree of perceptuality was marginally associated with quality of life. The findings support the notion that depressive thoughts are not only verbal but commonly accompanied by sensory experiences. The perceptuality of depressive thoughts and the resulting sense of authenticity may contribute to the emotional impact and pervasiveness of such thoughts, making them difficult to dismiss for their holder.     

Parenting in mothers with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The authors examined the impact of maternal attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on parenting behaviors. Sixty mothers between the ages of 31 and 50 with (n = 30) and without (n = 30) ADHD and their 8- to 14-year-old children with ADHD completed self-report and laboratory measures of monitoring of child behavior, consistency in parenting, and parenting problem-solving abilities. These parenting behaviors were selected because of their established links to the development of child behavior problems. As predicted, mothers with ADHD were found to be poorer at monitoring child behavior and less consistent disciplinarians compared with mothers without ADHD. There was some evidence to support the prediction that mothers with ADHD were less effective at problem solving about childrearing issues than control mothers. The differences between the 2 groups of mothers persisted after child oppositional and conduct-disordered behavior were controlled. These results indicate that parenting is an area of functioning that requires more attention in adult ADHD research.     

The time course of spatial memory distortions

Four experiments investigated the memory distortions for the location of a dot in relation to two horizontally aligned landmarks. In Experiment 1, participants reproduced from memory a dot location with respect to the two landmarks. Their performance showed a systematic pattern of distortion that was consistent across individual participants. The three subsequent experiments investigated the time course of spatial memory distortions. Using a visual discrimination task, we were able to map the emergence of spatial distortions within the first 800 msec of the retention interval. After retention intervals as brief as 50 msec, a distortion was already present. In all but one experiment, the distortion increased with longer retention intervals. This early onset of spatial memory distortions might reflect the almost immediate decay of detailed spatial information and the early influence of an enduring spatial memory representation, which encodes spatial information in terms of the perceived structure of space.