The dominance of fear over hope in the life of individuals and collectives

We address the question why fear dominates hope in the life of individuals and collectives on the basis of the accumulated knowledge in the psychology, neurology and sociology of emotions. This knowledge suggests that fear, as primary emotion, is grounded in the experienced present and based on the memorized past, processed both consciously and unconsciously, causes freezing and conservatism, and sometimes leads to pre‐emptive aggression. Hope, in contrast, as a secondary emotion, involves cognitive activity, which requires anticipation and the search for new ideas and thus is based on complex processes of creativity and flexibility. Therefore, hope is often preceded and inhibited by spontaneous, automatically activated and faster fear. Fear and hope can each become a collective emotional orientation, and as such organize society's views and direct its actions. Societies involved in intractable conflict are dominated by a collective fear orientation. This orientation is functional for society's coping with the stressful and demanding situation—but it may serve as a psychological obstacle to any peace process, once it starts. The case of the collective fear orientation in the Jewish Israeli society is presented as an example. The article ends with a presentation of a particular approach, suggesting that individuals and collectives can overcome their fear with much determination, and establish an orientation of hope which allows change in situations dominated by fear. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Broadcasting of violence on Spanish television: a quantitative panorama

A quantitative analysis of broadcasted violence by the main television (TV) channels transmitting for Madrid (Spain) was carried out using a novel method that randomly selects fragments of delimited duration from TV broadcasts. The device selects acts of aggression shown in those TV extracts, and classifies them according to their type. There was a high incidence of aggressive acts, especially physical (particularly leading to death), in TV fiction: films, serials and promos. The device also allowed examination of the prominence of aggression in children's programs, as well as showing minimal variation in the number of aggressive acts over screened time intervals. The pattern of the collected data suggests that the broadcasting of violence on TV emphasizes the conflicting elements of social reality, reproducing it in fiction, news reports and children's shows. Aggr. Behav. 32:137–145. 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION,HEALING, AND ALTRUISM: INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM

This essay introduces the five articles that follow, whose aim is to show how altruism emerges out of spiritual transformation and is integral to healing process in four kinds of ritual healing systems—popular, folk, an indigenous religious healing tradition, and complementary and alternative medicine represented by consciousness transformation movements. In this introduction I situate these largely marginalized religious and spiritual practices within the context of the religion‐science discourse, which has focused for the most part on the relationship between the established, mainstream religions and the dominant biomedical system. Antecedents of two of these types of religious practices, Spiritism and consciousness transformation movements, were part of the development of the psychological sciences in the nineteenth century but lost ground in the twentieth. Despite discrimination and persistent negative attitudes on the part of the established religions and biomedicine, these healing traditions have not only survived through the twentieth century but appear to have gained both followers and interest in the twenty‐first. In future decades, at least for complementary and alternative medical practices and perhaps also for spirit healing centers, there may be a reversal in status through greater acceptance of their unique combination of scientific and religious perspectives.     

The Unhappy Marriage of Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics

The proposal that care ethic(s) (CE) be subsumed under the framework of virtue ethic(s) (VE) is both promising and problematic for feminists. Although some attempts to construe care as a virtue are more commendable than others, they cannot duplicate a freestanding feminist CE. Sander‐Staudt recommends a model of theoretical collaboration between VE and CE that retains their comprehensiveness, allows CE to enhance VE as well as be enhanced by it, and leaves CE open to other collaborations.     

Assessment of sensory substitution prosthesis potentialities in minimalist conditions of learning

Pattern recognition with a prosthesis substituting vision by audition was investigated. During 15 1‐hour sessions, nine blindfolded sighted subjects were trained to recognise 2D patterns by trial and error. In addition to a global assessment, recognition of pattern element nature (vertical bars, horizontal bars…), element size and element spatial arrangement were independently assessed for each pattern. Influence of experimental parameters (complexity level of patterns, exploration number of a pattern) on recognition was studied. Performances improved over sessions. As a rule, patterns element nature was less well recognised than element size and spatial arrangement. Experimental parameters influenced pattern recognition performance. Results are discussed in relation with auditory and visual perception as well as in the perspective to implement a learning protocol for future users of prosthesis. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Activities on Companies With Bad Reputations

Based on theories of attribution and suspicion, three experiments highlight the mediating role of perceived sincerity of motives in determining the effectiveness of CSR activities. CSR activities improve a company's image when consumers attribute sincere motives, are ineffective when sincerity of motives is ambiguous, and hurt the company's image when motives are perceived as insincere. Variables affecting perceived sincerity include the benefit salience of the cause, the source through which consumers learn about CSR, and the ratio of CSR contributions and CSR‐related advertising. High benefit salience of the cause hurts the company, in particular when consumers learn about it from a company source. This backfire effect can be overcome by spending more on CSR activities than on advertising that features CSR.     

Country‐of‐Origin Influences on Product Evaluations: The Impact of Animosity and Perceptions of Industriousness Brutality on Judgments of Typical and Atypical Products

When a product's country of origin has a reputation for manufacturing high‐quality products, there may be a positive impact on product judgments. If people feel animosity toward a country as a result of its political or social policies, they may react negatively to the products it produces. These opposing effects may depend in part on the subset of country‐relevant knowledge that is accessible in memory at the time of judgment. When a product was not one on which Germany or Japan had built its reputation for manufacturing high‐quality products, associating the product with these countries increased its evaluations when industriousness had been activated as part of an unrelated experiment. However, when concepts associated with brutality had been primed, the product's country of origin had a negative effect on judgments. When the product was typical of those manufactured in the country, however, identifying its country of origin increased product evaluations regardless of whether industriousness or brutality had been primed. Thus, animosity toward a product's country of origin had an adverse effect on reactions to it only if the product was not one on which the country's reputation was based.     

EMBRYONIC PERSONHOOD,HUMAN NATURE,AND RATIONAL ENSOULMENT

This essay briefly describes a few of the problems associated with using personhood language to defend the right to life of the pre‐implantation embryo. Arguing that an immaterial soul explains the personal identity of an embryo is problematic for many people because there is no apparent spiritual activity in the unborn. While some scholars argue that the embryo has the potential to act as an adult person and thus should be protected from harm, others contend that potentiality alone is insufficient reason to ascribe special moral worth to the embryo in utero. For Thomas Aquinas, the soul is not only the life‐principle that organizes the human body, but it is also that by which the human being thinks and wills. By making suitable corrections to Aristotle's hylomorphic depiction of the soul–body relation, I suggest that a rational soul must be present from the moment of conception and that it is at the service of the (embryonic) person. What is of critical importance here is to accept that a human being is present from the moment of conception, something the vast majority of embryologists maintain, notwithstanding the inveiglement of those who state that the pre‐implantation blastocyst is simply a disorganized clump of cells.     

Predicting Intention to Save Water: Theory of Planned Behavior,Response Efficacy,Vulnerability, and Perceived Efficiency of Alternative Solutions1

These 2 studies attempted to predict people's intention to save water. Study 1 used a model based on Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) and other variables: vulnerability, 2 collective efficacy variables, and subjective effectiveness of alternative solutions (SEAS) to ease drought impact. Study 2 tested a model similar to that of Study 1, but with 2 personal efficacy variables added. Respondents in both studies were residents of Taiwan (Ns= 166 and 210). Analysis indicated that the modified models (R²>.32) were better than the TPB model (R²<.19), and SEAS and response efficacy had crucial effects on people's intentions to retrofit. The studies also found some significant but inconsistent effects of income, dwelling, and education.