Language and the perception of emotion

Three studies assessed the relationship between language and the perception of emotion. The authors predicted and found that the accessibility of emotion words influenced participants' speed or accuracy in perceiving facial behaviors depicting emotion. Specifically, emotion words were either primed or temporarily made less accessible using a semantic satiation procedure. In Studies 1 and 2, participants were slower to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion (i.e., a face depicting anger) after an emotion word (e.g., "anger") was satiated. In Study 3, participants were less accurate to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion after an emotion word was satiated. The implications of these findings for a linguistically relative view of emotion perception are discussed.     

"In the storminess": multi-disciplinary approaches to scriptural images representing ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship

In this qualitative study the authors examine the Scriptural images that 10 Lutheran pastors employed in describing the ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship. The analysis of Scriptural images is part of a larger study on pastors' experiences of a mandatory workshop, "Crossing the Boundaries (CTB),"which is required of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) seminarians. The pastors' images were analyzed from the four perspectives of depth psychology, theology, social ethics, and sociology. In commenting on tensions in the pastors' Scriptural images the authors note commonalities among the four theoretical perspectives and discuss implications for practice and future research.     

What is the relationship between synaesthesia and visuo-spatial number forms?

This study compares the tendency for numerals to elicit spontaneous perceptions of colour or taste (synaesthesia) with the tendency to visualise numbers as occupying particular visuo-spatial configurations (number forms). The prevalence of number forms was found to be significantly higher in synaesthetes experiencing colour compared both to synaesthetes experiencing taste and to control participants lacking any synaesthetic experience. This suggests that the presence of synaesthetic colour sensations enhances the tendency to explicitly represent numbers in a visuo-spatial format although the two symptoms may nevertheless be logically independent (i.e. it is possible to have number forms without colour, and coloured numbers without forms). Number forms are equally common in men and women, unlike previous reports of synaesthesia that have suggested a strong female bias. Individuals who possess a number form are also likely to possess visuo-spatial forms for other ordinal sequences (e.g. days, months, letters) which suggests that it is the ordinal nature of numbers rather than numerical quantity that gives rise to this particular mode of representation. Finally, we also describe some consequences of number forms for performance in a number comparison task.     

Parents' ethnic-racial socialization practices: a review of research and directions for future study

Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly referred to as racial or ethnic socialization. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and children's characteristics and experiences, and its consequences for children's well-being and development. In this article, the authors integrate and synthesize what is known about racial and ethnic socialization on the basis of current empirical research, examining studies concerning its nature and frequency; its child, parent, and ecological predictors; and its consequences for children's development, including ethnic identity, self-esteem, coping with discrimination, academic achievement, and psychosocial well-being. The authors also discuss conceptual and methodological limitations of the literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Personality and aggressive behavior under provoking and neutral conditions: a meta-analytic review

The authors conducted a comprehensive review to understand the relation between personality and aggressive behavior, under provoking and nonprovoking conditions. The qualitative review revealed that some personality variables influenced aggressive behavior under both neutral and provocation conditions, whereas others influenced aggressive behavior only under provocation. Studies that assessed personality variables and that directly measured aggressive behavior were included in the quantitative review. Analyses revealed that trait aggressiveness and trait irritability influenced aggressive behavior under both provoking and neutral conditions but that other personality variables (e.g., trait anger, Type A personality, dissipation-rumination) influenced aggressive behavior only under provoking conditions. The authors discuss possible relations between these patterns of aggressive behavior and the personality dimensions of Agreeableness and Neuroticism and consider implications for theories of aggression.     

Sex differences in correlations between personal incentives and self-motivation, and occurrence of perceived positive changes in feeling states after exercise

Personal incentives for exercising of weight management and appearance improvement were significantly correlated with percentage of positive exercise-induced feeling changes in women (n=23) and men (n=20) initiating 12-wk. exercise programs. No significant differences were found by sex. Self-motivation was also significantly related to occurrence of positive feeling changes for men.     

Intact attentional control of working memory encoding in schizophrenia

This study reports evidence that individuals with schizophrenia (SC) demonstrate intact attentional selection for visual working memory (WM) storage. A group of 62 participants with SC and 55 control participants without SC were studied in a series of 5 experiments that examined the ability to use top-down and bottom-up cues to guide WM encoding, as well as the ability to spontaneously select a subset of representations for storage. Participants with SC exhibited a consistent and robust ability to use selective attention in the control of WM in all 5 experiments, demonstrating a remarkable island of preserved functioning given the broad spectrum of impairments of attention and WM that have been widely reported in those with SC. These findings indicate that attention is not globally impaired in SC and make it possible to delineate more precisely the nature of the specific impairment of attention in this disorder.     

Deficits on the Continuous Performance Test within the schizophrenia spectrum and the mediating effects of family history of schizophrenia

Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders (SSPD) and schizophrenia show similar cognitive impairments. The authors examined the contributions of SSPD symptoms and familial risk for schizophrenia to impairments on the Continuous Performance Test--Identical Pairs Version. Participants included 103 schizophrenia patients, 66 first-degree relatives (29 SSPD), and 103 community controls (26 SSPD) screened for family history of psychosis. Patients and SSPD relatives performed significantly worse than non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. No differences in performance were observed among non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest a continuum in which risk for schizophrenia-related cognitive impairments is highest among patients and SSPD relatives, intermediate among non-SSPD relatives, and lowest among SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest that SSPD in the absence of a family history of psychosis may be a phenocopy.     

The cycle of schizoaffective disorder, cognitive ability, alcoholism, and suicidality

In this study we investigated the putative role of cognitive dysfunction, diagnosis (schizoaffective versus schizophrenia disorder), and alcoholism as risk factors for suicidal behavior among individuals with DSM-TV schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. Subjects received cognitive tests and medical records were reviewed for evidence of a history of suicide attempts or suicidal ideation. Discriminant analysis was used to identify cognitive test performance measures that distinguished those with versus those without suicidal behavior. None of the cognitive measures discriminated between the two groups. The rates of suicidal behavior (suicidal ideation and suicide attempts) did not differ between participants with versus those without comorbid alcohol use. An association was found between suicidal behavior and the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. It was concluded that the history of prominent mood syndromes characteristic of schizoaffective disorder contributes to increased risk of suicidal behaviors. Cognitive dysfunction and/or alcoholism did not contribute additionally to risk in this study.