Unveiling phonological universals: A linguist who asks "why" is (inter alia) an experimental psychologist

Evans and Levinson are right to hold theories of language accountable for language diversity, but typological data alone cannot determine the structure of mental phonological grammars. Grammatical universals are nonetheless testable by formal and experimental methods, and the growing research in experimental phonology demonstrates the viability of a comparative experimental evaluation of the UG hypothesis.     

Individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events

Numerous studies have related neuroticism to negative emotional outcomes of adverse life events, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, the nature of the relationship between neuroticism and post-trauma symptoms is unclear. The purpose of this study was to prospectively examine whether individuals high in neuroticism, relative to low neuroticism individuals, show a larger increase in symptoms after an adverse event. A sample of infantry troops completed questionnaires before deployment to Iraq (n = 214) and about five months (n = 170; 76%) thereafter. The findings showed that, after controlling for an indicator of trauma severity, (a) higher neuroticism individuals reported more PTSD symptoms, depression symptoms, and somatic problems after negative events, and (b) these relationships disappeared after controlling for pre-trauma symptoms. There were no significant differences between individuals high and low in neuroticism in the increase in symptoms from pre to post-trauma. This suggests that individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events.     

OAKESHOTT ON THE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: NEED THERE BE A CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION?

Michael Oakeshott reflected on the character of religious experience in various writings throughout his life. In Experience and Its Modes (1933) he analyzed science as a distinctive “mode,” or account of experience as a whole, identifying those assumptions necessary for science to achieve its coherent account of experience in contrast to other modes of experience whose quests for coherence depend on different assumptions. Religious experience, he thought, was integral to the practical mode. The latter experiences the world as interminable tension between what is and what ought to be. The question, Is there a conflict between science and religion? is, in Oakeshott's approach, the question, Is there a conflict between the scientific mode of experience and the practical mode? Insofar as we tend to treat every question as a practical one, these questions seem to make sense. But Oakeshott's analysis leads to the view that scientific experience and religious experience are categorically different accounts of experience abstracted from the whole of experience. They are voices of experience that may speak to each other, but they are not ordered hierarchically. Nor can either absorb the other without insoluble contradictions.     

Alcohol intake in selected lines of mice: importance of sex and genotype.

Mice selected by McClearn and Kakihana for differences in ethanol-induced sleep time were used as subjects. In Experiment 1, mice from the long-sleep (LS) and short-sleep (SS) lines were offered a choice of water or solution GS consisting of 3% glucose and .16% sodium saccharin (w/v); or a choice of water or solution GS + E that contained GS solution plus 4% ethanol (w/v). In Experiment 2, mice from the first experiment were provided with a three-way choice among water, solution GS, and solution GS + E. In both experiments, SS mice (alcohol-insensitive) consumed more GS + E than LS mice (alcohol-sensitive). In addition, female mice drank considerably more GS + E solution than male mice. Thus, consumption of sweetened ethanol in both a two-way choice (water and GS + E) and a three-way choice (water, GS, and GS + E) is dependent on both genotype and sex. High genetic sensitivity to ethanol was associated with low consumption, and vice versa. Although females consumed more alcohol than males, famales of these lines have not been previously found to show lower sensitivity to acute alcohol administration.     

Personality and paired-associate learning1

Eysenck has theorized that introverts are high in arousal and should show the pattern of results which has been displayed in several experiments by subjects confronted with high-arousal stimulus materials: poor performance on short-term and good performance on long-term measures of retention. Extraverts, on the other hand, are thought to be low in arousal and should show the reverse pattern as displayed by subjects confronted with low-arousal stimulus materials. The relevant experiments conducted in Britain confirm these predictions. The relevant United States studies do not. The method used in the present study, in which Americans were subjects, is that of an experiment of Kleinsmith and Kaplan (1964) which found the patterns of retention predicted on the basis of the subjects' exposure to high- or low-arousal stimulus materials. But, as in the other tests of Eysenck's predictions, arousal was measured in terms of introversion and extraversion. The results failed to support Eysenck's formulation.     

Effects of Trait Self‐Control on Response Conflict About Healthy and Unhealthy Food

Self‐control leads to positive life outcomes, but it is poorly understood. While previous research has focused on self‐control failure, self‐control success remains unexplored. The current studies aim to shed more light on the mechanisms of self‐control by focusing on the resolution of response conflict as a key component in self‐control success. Trait self‐control was measured, and participants reported on the magnitude of response conflict they experienced about healthy and unhealthy foods in Study 1 (N = 146; M_age = 33.03; 59 females, 83 males, 4 unknown). The response conflict process was assessed in Study 2 (N = 118; M_age = 21.45; 68 females, 41 males, 9 unknown). Outcomes showed that self‐reported evaluative response conflict about food items was smaller for people high in trait self‐control. Study 2 revealed that higher trait self‐control predicted faster resolution of self‐control conflict, and an earlier peak of the response conflict. Taken together, these results provide insight into what makes people with high trait self‐control successful, namely, how they handle response conflict. Implications for self‐control theories and future directions are discussed.     

Pleasure,Arousal, Dominance: Mehrabian and Russell revisited

This paper presents a discursive review of the dimensions pleasure, arousal and dominance that Mehrabian and Russell developed in 1974 to assess environmental perception, experience, and psychological responses. Since then numerous researchers applied these dimensions to assess the experience of the physical environment and its perceived qualities. Although the dimensions appeared to be useful, there is a long-lasting debate going on among environmental psychologists about the interpretation of pleasure, arousal and dominance and its underlying mechanisms. Due to the lack of clarity researchers use different adjectives to describe environmental experiences, which makes any comparison between research findings difficult. This paper shows that the three dimensions can be linked to the current ABC Model of Attitudes: pleasure, arousal and dominance can be respectively related to affective, cognitive and conative responses, i.e. Affect, Cognition and Behaviour (ABC). In addition, connecting the three dimensions to the triad feeling, thinking and acting, can also help to improve our understanding, interpretation and measurement of pleasure, arousal and dominance. Based on this review, it is proposed to re-introduce the three dimensions and to replace the nowadays often used two dimensional model with pleasure and arousal by a three dimensional model, including dominance as a third dimension, to represent the complete range of human responses.     

Schizotypy and verbal memory in the adolescent general population

The following study examines the relationship between verbal memory deficits and schizotypal traits measured psychometrically from a non- clinical adolescent population. In this transversal analytical study participated 139 subjects. They were secondary school students, with ages ranging from 13 to 16 years old (mean= 14, 35; Sta.Dev.= 0, 548). After administrating the scales O-LIFE (psychometrical schizotypy), CVLT (verbal memory), and Letters and Numbers subtest of WAIS-III (working memory), data was analyzed utilizing Pearson correlations and mean comparison test. Results showed lack of relations between schizotypy measures and working memory. Nonetheless, some of the O-LIFE dimensions correlated with verbal memory. These findings support partly the literature reviewed. Yet, more work focused on schizotypy and cognitive deficits as risk factors are suggested.     

Perceived organizational support and perceived external prestige: predicting organizational attachment for university faculty, staff, and administrators

The present article introduces a social-exchange model of organizational attachment incorporating both direct exchange and indirect exchange. Participants were 325 university employees. The present results indicated that perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived external prestige (PEP) both contribute to organizational attachment. Further, the results showed that the extent to which POS and PEP are related to organizational attachment is moderated by occupational proxies of cosmopolitan-local role orientation. POS was more strongly related to the affective commitment and withdrawal cognitions of staff and administrators than to those of faculty. PEP was more strongly related to affective commitment and withdrawal cognitions of university faculty than to those of university staff and administrators. The authors discussed the need to incorporate relational variables such as PEP into other social-exchange frameworks.     

Construed external image and organizational identification: a test of the moderating influence of need for self-esteem

According to Social Identity Theory (cf., J. G. March & H. A. Simon, 1958), individuals tend to identify with prestigious or high-status groups. Researchers (J. E. Dutton, J. M. Dukerich, & C. V. Harquail, 1994) have revealed that organizational members also identify with organizations that have attractive public images. To gain a better understanding of the theoretical reasons underlying the relationship between image and identification in organizations, the authors examined this relationship in a healthcare setting. In addition, they investigated need for esteem as a moderator of the relationship between construed external image and organizational identification. Consistent with previous findings, the present results indicated that construed external image is positively related to organizational identification. Perhaps it is more important that the present findings also supported need for esteem as a moderator of the relationship between construed external image and organizational identification.