Trait anger moderates the impact of anger-associated rumination on social well-being

In this study, we examined whether people’s social well-being is influenced by hostile versus nonhostile goals that people report pursuing when experiencing anger-associated rumination. Moreover, we investigated the impact of trait anger and trait anger rumination on the relationship between anger rumination and perceived social well-being. Participants were 93 students who were equipped with hand-held computers for 28 days to assess anger-related rumination and its social consequences in daily life. Results showed that hostile goal pursuit per se did not affect perceived social well-being. However, impairment of social well-being following hostile rumination was moderated by trait anger. Findings are consistent with recent cognitive models of trait anger and anger rumination.     

Group-centrism in the absence of group norms: The role of need for closure in social projection

The need for closure (NFC) promotes group-centrism, referring to the pursuit of a shared reality in a group, commonly achieved through conformity to and introjection of group norms. The present study expands this perspective by examining how NFC motivates projection of one’s own norms on groups, as an alternative means to achieve epistemic security in the absence of clear group norms. In Study 1 (N?=?261), individual differences in NFC predicted social projection onto an incidental crowd, providing evidence for the generic effect of NFC on social projection. In line with the assertion that the epistemic value of a collectivity is a function of the degree to which the collectivity matters for the individual, Study 2 (N?=?239) and Study 3 (N?=?223) revealed that NFC effects on social projection were strengthened for in-groups and disappeared for out-groups. Furthermore, mediation analyses demonstrated that essentialist entitativity beliefs mediate the relationship between NFC and in-group projection.     

Self-Affection and Pure Intuition in Kant

Are the pure intuitions of space and time, for Kant, dependent upon the understanding's activity? This paper defends the recently popular Self-Affection Thesis (SAT): namely, that the pure intuitions require an activity of self-affection—an influence of the understanding on the inner sense. Two systematic objections to this thesis have been raised: The Independence objection claims that SAT undermines the independence of sensibility; the Compatibility objection claims that certain features of space and time are incompatible with being the products of the understanding's activity. I show that the resources to rebut these objections can be found in Kant's account of causal influence.     

What day is today? A social-psychological investigation into the process of time orientation.

Social-psychological research on time has pointed to the social construct of time rather than a mere physical entity that we reflect cognitively. Using two paradigms (day retrieval process and goal priming), the authors show that the time orientation is strongly prone to social influences and argue that a self-regulatory process underlies these findings. The degree of social comparison orientation in Study 1 and the degree of identification with groups for which the landmark is relevant (Study 2) both moderate the functionality of the landmarks within time orientation. Consistent with these findings, Studies 3 and 4 offer evidence that the activation of a personally relevant goal activates the day of goal attainment, a process that again can be moderated by social comparison orientation and identification. Overall, these results suggest a socially regulated time orientation. The internal clock (if any) is at least partly a "social clock."     

Spacing and the transition from calculation to retrieval

Many arithmetic problems can be solved in two ways—by a calculation involving several steps and by direct retrieval of the answer. With practice on particular problems, memory retrieval tends to supplant calculation—an important aspect of skill learning. We asked how the distribution of practice on particular problems affects this kind of learning. In two experiments, subjects repeatedly worked through sets of multiple-digit multiplication problems. The size of the trained problem set was varied. Using a smaller set size (with shorter average time between problem repetitions) showed faster responses and an earlier transition to retrieval during training. However, in a test session presented days later, the pattern reversed, with faster responses and more retrieval for the large set size. Evidently, maximizing the occurrence of direct retrieval within training is not the best way to promote learning to retrieve the answer. Practical implications are discussed.     

Echoing the emotions of others: empathy is related to how adults and children map emotion onto the body

ABSTRACT

Empathy involves a mapping between the emotions observed in others and those experienced in one’s self. However, effective social functioning also requires an ability to differentiate one’s own emotional state from that of others. Here, we sought to examine the relationship between trait measures of empathy and the self-other distinction during emotional experience in both children and adults. We used a topographical self-report method (emBODY tool) in which participants drew on a silhouette of a human body where they felt an emotional response while watching film and music clips, as well as where they believed the character in the film or performer was feeling an emotion. We then assessed how the degree of overlap between the bodily representation of self versus other emotions related to trait empathy. In adults, the degree of overlap in the body maps was correlated with Perspective Taking. This relationship between cognitive empathy and degree of overlap between self and other was also found with children (8–11 years old), even though children performed worse on the task overall. The results suggest that mapping emotions observed or imagined in other’s bodies onto our own is related to the development of empathy.     

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.     

A plea for pragmatics

Let intentionalism be the view that what proposition is expressed in context by a sentence containing indexicals depends on the speaker’s intentions. It has recently been argued that intentionalism makes communicative success mysterious and that there are counterexamples to the intentionalist view in the form of cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct interpretation. In this paper, I argue that these objections can be met, once we acknowledge that we may distinguish what determines the correct interpretation from the evidence that is available to the audience, as well as from the standards by which we judge whether or not a given interpretation is reasonable. With these distinctions in place, we see that intentionalism does not render communicative success mysterious, and that cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct one can easily be accommodated. The distinction is also useful in treating the Humpty Dumpty problem for intentionalism, since it turns out that this can be treated as an extreme special case of mismatch.