Transient convergence and relational sensibility: Beyond the modern constitution of nature

The paper builds on the critique of what Latour (1993) terms the ‘modern constitution’ and its configuration of nature as an independent and external entity to human culture and politics. The paper suggests that, firstly, moving beyond the modern constitution to a world of amodern or postnature (Braun, 2004, Hayles, 1999) marks a shift from ontological stability to ontological instability, where ‘nature’ is now constituted by merging and emerging ontologies. In this unstable new world order, the paper argues that postnature should be understood as a transient convergence in a context of flow, union, and divergence. This perspective emphasises the role that emotions play in this relationship, arguing that they are both part and product of the transient convergence of postnature. ‘Humans’ are now constituted in and with the temporary coincidences that form ‘nature’, and the relational sensibility that is produced through this convergence is vital to fully understand the post-natural world. The paper concludes by suggesting that this postnature can provide new premises for protecting the world of which we are a part.     

Abusive supervision, intentions to quit, and employees’ workplace deviance: A power/dependence analysis

We conducted a two-study examination of relationships between abusive supervision and subordinates’ workplace deviance. Consistent with predictions derived from power/dependence theory, the results of a cross-sectional study with employees from three organizations suggest that abusive supervision is more strongly associated with subordinates’ organization deviance and supervisor-directed deviance when subordinates’ intention to quit is higher. The results also support the prediction that when intention to quit is higher, abusive supervision is more strongly associated with supervisor-directed deviance than with organization-directed deviance. These results were replicated in a second study, a two-wave investigation of people employed in a variety of industries and occupations.     

Childhood and Age in the Bible

Biblical studies has often avoided the children in the biblical text, to the detriment of the discipline. The topic of childhood in the Bible provides a particular opportunity for dialogue between biblical studies (including historical, theological, and social approaches), psychology of religion, and pastoral psychology. This article examines three biblical stories: Adam and Eve, David, and Jesus. In each case, I inquire about the ages of the characters, the interpretive assumptions at work in biblical studies, and the psychological insights that may be brought to bear on the biblical text.     

The implicit cognition of relationship maintenance: Inattention to attractive alternatives

The temptation of alternative mating partners can threaten satisfaction with and commitment to an existing romantic relationship. Consequently, people exhibit cognitive processes that help protect their relationship when faced with desirable relationship alternatives. Previous studies have focused primarily on processes that involve explicit, higher-order cognitive mechanisms such as overt judgments and choices (e.g., judging the alternative as less attractive). The current studies, in contrast, examined automatic, early-stage attentional processes that may help protect against threats posed by exposure to alternative mating partners. Whereas single participants responded to implicit mating primes by increasing early-stage attention to physically attractive opposite sex targets, participants in a committed romantic relationship were inattentive to those attractive alternatives. This research provides a novel approach for studying implicit cognitive mechanisms involved in maintaining close relationships.     

Marginally perceptible outcome feedback, motor learning and implicit processes

Participants struck 500 golf balls to a concealed target. Outcome feedback was presented at the subjective or objective threshold of awareness of each participant or at a supraliminal threshold. Participants who received fully perceptible (supraliminal) feedback learned to strike the ball onto the target, as did participants who received feedback that was only marginally perceptible (subjective threshold). Participants who received feedback that was not perceptible (objective threshold) showed no learning. Upon transfer to a condition in which the target was unconcealed, performance increased in both the subjective and the objective threshold condition, but decreased in the supraliminal condition. In all three conditions, participants reported minimal declarative knowledge of their movements, suggesting that deliberate hypothesis testing about how best to move in order to perform the motor task successfully was disrupted by the impoverished disposition of the visual outcome feedback. It was concluded that sub-optimally perceptible visual feedback evokes implicit processes.     

Testing the feasibility of developmental asset measures on college students to guide health promotion efforts

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the reliability and validity of eight developmental asset measures among a stratified, random sample (N = 540) of college students to guide health promotion efforts. The sample was randomly split to produce exploratory and confirmatory samples for factor analysis using principal axis factoring and varimax rotation and structural equation modeling techniques. Items were retained on factors if they had high loadings greater than .40 and were not complex. Concurrent validity was examined among substance use (including alcohol and tobacco) and sexual risk-taking variables. Exploratory and confirmatory samples did not differ on demographics. Parallel analysis confirmed the eight theorized constructs. Exploratory factor loadings were greater than .40. Concurrently, validity analyses were in the predicted direction. Cronbach alphas were .70 or greater with the exception of the Future Aspirations asset. Preliminary analyses support the reliability and validity of measuring developmental assets among emerging adults. Implications and potential uses are discussed.     

Metaethical Internalism: Another Neglected Distinction

‘Internalism’ is used in metaethics for a cluster of claims which bear a family resemblance. They tend to link, in some distinctive way—typically modal, mereological, or causal—different parts of the normative realm, or the normative and the psychological. The thesis of this paper is that much metaethical mischief has resulted from philosophers’ neglect of the distinction between two different features of such claims. The first is the modality of the entire claim. The second is the relation between the items specified in the claim. In part one I explain this distinction and the problems neglecting it may cause. In part two I show that it has been neglected, and has caused those problems, at least with respect to one version of internalism. That is judgment internalism, which claims that moral beliefs are necessarily related to pro- or con-attitudes; e.g., that if you believe you ought to x you must have some motivation to x. The considerations standardly adduced in favor of judgment internalism support only a version which lacks the metaethical implications typically attributed to it, at least so far as anyone has shown. Proponents and opponents of judgment internalism fail to realize this because of their neglect of the modality/relation distinction. I illustrate by considering discussions of judgment internalism by Russ Shafer-Landau, Simon Blackburn, James Dreier, David Brink, and others.

A standardized set of 260 pictures for Modern Greek: Norms for name agreement, age of acquisition, and visual complexity

The appropriate selection of both pictorial and linguistic experimental stimuli requires a previous languagespecific standardization process of the materials across different variables. Considering that such normative data have not yet been collected for Modern Greek, in this study normative data for the color version of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (Rossion & Pourtois, 2004) were collected from 330 native Greek adults. Participants named the pictures (providing name agreement ratings) and rated them for visual complexity and age of acquisition. The obtained measures represent a useful tool for further research on Greek language processing and constitute the first picture normative study for this language. The picture norms from this study and previous ones may be downloaded from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.