Late Abrahamic reunion? Religious fundamentalism negatively predicts dual Abrahamic group categorization among Muslims and Christians

Although extensive research has documented the effectiveness of common or dual in‐groups on improving intergroup relations, little is known about how individual‐difference variables affect people's willingness to make such re‐categorizations in the first place. Here, we demonstrate that individual differences in religious fundamentalism predict willingness to categorize in terms of the common Abrahamic religious origins of Christianity and Islam among Christians and Muslims. Study 1 (n = 243 Christians, 291 Muslims) uses multigroup structural equation modeling and Study 2 (n = 80 Christians) an experimental manipulation to show that religious fundamentalism causes lower dual Abrahamic categorization, which, in turn, predicts more positive attitudes toward the respective out‐group, mediating the negative effects of religious fundamentalism on religious intergroup bias. While making the general case that individual differences may play important roles for dual categorizations, these results also highlight the specific positive potential of dual ecumenical categorizations for improving interreligious relations. Research and societal implications are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of testing on subsequent re‐encoding and long‐term forgetting of action‐relevant materials: On the influence of recall type

Testing one's memory of previously studied information reduces the rate of forgetting, compared to restudy. However, little is known about how this direct testing effect applies to action phrases (e.g., “wash the car”) – a learning material relevant to everyday memory. As action phrases consist of two different components, a verb (e.g., “wash”) and a noun (e.g., “car”), testing can either be implemented as noun‐cued recall of verbs or verb‐cued recall of nouns, which may differently affect later memory performance. In the present study, we investigated the effect of testing for these two recall types, using verbally encoded action phrases as learning materials. Results showed that repeated study–test practice, compared to repeated study–restudy practice, decreased the forgetting rate across 1 week to a similar degree for both noun‐cued and verb‐cued recall types. However, noun‐cued recall of verbs initiated more new subsequent learning during the first restudy, compared to verb‐cued recall of nouns. The study provides evidence that testing has benefits on both subsequent restudy and long‐term retention of action‐relevant materials, but that these benefits are differently expressed with testing via noun‐cued versus verb‐cued recall.     

Metaphysics Within Science: Against Radical Naturalism

In Every Thing Must Go James Ladyman and Don Ross argue for a radical version of naturalistic metaphysics and propose that contemporary analytic metaphysics is detached from science and should be discontinued. The present article addresses the issues of whether (i) science and metaphysics are separable, (ii) intuitions and understanding should be excluded from scientific theory, and (iii) Ontic Structural Realism satisfies the criteria of the radical version of naturalism advanced by Ladyman and Ross. The point underlying those topics is that successful scientific research presupposes metaphysics, and that basic epistemic virtues common to metaphysics and science may allow us—as opposed to what Ladyman and Ross suggest—to increase our understanding of the world and to put constraints on allowable metaphysical theories.     

Rousseau on Sex-Roles,Education and Happiness

Over the last decade, philosophers of education have begun taking a renewed interest in Rousseau’s educational thought. This is a welcome development as his ideas are rich with educational insights. His philosophy is not without its flaws, however. One significant flaw is his educational project for females, which is sexist in the highest degree. Rousseau argues that females should be taught to “please men…and make [men’s] lives agreeable and sweet.” The question becomes how could Rousseau make such strident claims, especially in light of his far more insightful ideas concerning the education of males. This paper attempts to make sense of Rousseau’s ideas on the education of females. While I maintain that Rousseau’s project for Sophie ought to be rejected, I argue that we should try to understand how this otherwise insightful thinker could make such surprising claims. Is it a bizarre inconsistency in his philosophical reasoning or an expression of his unabashed misogyny, as so many have claimed? I argue that it is neither. Rather, it is a product of his conception of human happiness and his belief in the irreducible role human sexual relations has in achieving and prolonging that happiness. For Rousseau, sex, love and happiness are inextricably connected, and he believes that men and women will be happiest when they inhabit certain sex roles—not because sex roles are valuable in themselves, but because only through them can either men or women hope to be happy.     

On having very long arms: how the availability of technological means affects moral cognition

Modern technological means allow for meaningful interaction across arbitrary distances, while human morality evolved in environments in which individuals needed to be spatially close in order to interact. We investigate how people integrate knowledge about modern technology with their ancestral moral dispositions to help relieve nearby suffering. Our first study establishes that spatial proximity between an agent's means of helping and the victims increases people's judgement of helping obligations, even if the agent is constantly far personally. We then report and meta-analyse 20 experiments elucidating the cognitive mechanisms behind this effect, which include inferences of increased efficaciousness and personal involvement. Implications of our findings for the scientific understanding of ancestral moral dispositions in modern environments are discussed, as well as suggestions for how these insights might be exploited to increase charitable giving. Our meta-analysis provides a practical example for how aggregating across all available data, including failed replication attempts, allows conclusions that could not be supported in single experiments.     

From state neuroticism to momentary task performance: A person × situation approach

The goal of this article was to investigate the mechanisms through which personality relates to task performance. We argue that perceptions of work pressure and task complexity trigger momentary levels of neuroticism (i.e., state neuroticism) and that these momentary levels of neuroticism predict momentary task performance. Moreover, we hypothesized that the relationship between momentary job demands and state neuroticism is moderated by trait neuroticism. To test this model, we conducted an event reconstruction study and a day reconstruction study. The results revealed that trait neuroticism indeed moderated the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship, and in three out of four cases state neuroticism was found to mediate the relationship between momentary job demands and momentary task performance. From a practical point-of-view our results suggest that employees’ task performance can be improved by enhancing the way in which individuals perceive job demands. This strategy would be particularly helpful for individuals for whom the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship is the strongest (i.e., employees high in trait neuroticism).     

Affective forecasting in an orangutan: predicting the hedonic outcome of novel juice mixes

Affective forecasting is an ability that allows the prediction of the hedonic outcome of never-before experienced situations, by mentally recombining elements of prior experiences into possible scenarios, and pre-experiencing what these might feel like. It has been hypothesised that this ability is uniquely human. For example, given prior experience with the ingredients, but in the absence of direct experience with the mixture, only humans are said to be able to predict that lemonade tastes better with sugar than without it. Non-human animals, on the other hand, are claimed to be confined to predicting—exclusively and inflexibly—the outcome of previously experienced situations. Relying on gustatory stimuli, we devised a non-verbal method for assessing affective forecasting and tested comparatively one Sumatran orangutan and ten human participants. Administered as binary choices, the test required the participants to mentally construct novel juice blends from familiar ingredients and to make hedonic predictions concerning the ensuing mixes. The orangutan’s performance was within the range of that shown by the humans. Both species made consistent choices that reflected independently measured taste preferences for the stimuli. Statistical models fitted to the data confirmed the predictive accuracy of such a relationship. The orangutan, just like humans, thus seems to have been able to make hedonic predictions concerning never-before experienced events.