Effects of directiveness of instructions and surveillance on the production and persistence of children's donations

All subjects earned tokens for correct size judgments and observed a model who had previously earned tokens at the same task donate some of her earnings. Children were subsequently given an opportunity to donate some of their tokens to children at another school. The opportunity to give occurred in presence (surveillance) or absence of the experimenter and after being presented with either directive (you must give) or permissive (you can give if you want to) instructions. Directive instructions and surveillance both produced greater initial giving for all children. In a second session with no modeling, no surveillance, and no further instructions, earlier directive instructions also produced greater persistence of giving for all children. Permissive instructions produced greater reductions in giving over time for boys than for girls. The present findings suggest that directive instructions produce greater initial giving and that donating persists better under these more explicit conditions.     

The Battle over Confucius and Classical Chinese Philosophy in European Early Enlightenment Thought (1670-1730)

A profound split is evident during the period 1670–1730 in the way European scholars and commentators attempted to understand and describe classical Chinese thought. For some, Confucianism acknowledged divine creation and divine governance of the world, immortality of the soul and other elements of Natural Theology. The Radical Enlightenment thinkers, however, and also some Christian scholars denied that Confucianism was based on Natural Theology or pervaded by belief in divine providence, characterizing it rather as monist, naturalist and Spinozist. The disagreement proved fundamental in several respects and proved divisive for the Church, as well as European thought more generally, producing a series of lively disputes that continued over several decades.     

Social network members' responses to friends' breakup false alarms

Social networks influence romantic relationships through friends' support or lack of support of the union. However, the consequences of friends repeatedly telling other friends their relationship was going to end but failing to actually terminate the relationship are unclear. Guided by the false alarm effect (FAE), and data from both student (N = 273) and noncollege (N = 226) samples, it was found that breakup false alarms were associated with increases in both positive and negative responses. In addition, when participants were friends with both partners, breakup false alarms were associated with “feeling caught” between the friends. Findings generally support the FAE and paint a complex picture of how social network members react to their close friends' tumultuous relationships.     

Neural correlates of emotion regulation in psychopathology

What can psychopathology and its treatment tell us about cognitive emotional interactions? Standard approaches to interactions between emotion and cognition often adopt a variant of the idea that cognitive processes, subserved by dorsal and lateral cortical circuits, exert control and regulation of ventral, limbic brain areas associated with emotional expression and experience. However, it is becoming clear from studies on depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), that a binary, opponent theory of cognitive emotion interaction (CEI) and the dorsal-ventral model of neurocircuitry do not fully describe the data. We summarize recent research to suggest that networks of direct and indirect pathways exist by which cognition can regulate pathological emotion, and the inter-relationships of specific nodes within the networks need to be characterized.     

Distinctiveness in flashbulb memory: comparative analysis of five terrorist attacks

The purpose of the present study was to find out whether a series of terrorist attacks, which share some common features, elicit flashbulb memories (of the personal circumstances in which the person first learned about these events) that are usually elicited by a single, unexpected, surprising, and personally important event. A total of 131 participants answered questions regarding details of five terrorist attacks that had taken place in Israel during the years 1995-1997. In addition, they assessed, for each of the five events, the number of overt rehearsals, and the degrees of emotional intensity, surprise, novelty, personal importance, and distinctiveness. Data analyses showed that most variables that are usually associated with the formation of flashbulb memories were also found in memories of the terrorist attacks that were judged by the participants as being distinctive. Distinctiveness may therefore be considered an important factor in the formation of flashbulb memories.