A self‐determination model of childhood exposure,perceived prevalence,justification, and perpetration of intimate partner violence

The present research was designed to evaluate self‐determination theory as a framework for integrating factors associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration. The proposed model suggests that childhood exposure to parental violence may influence global motivational orientations which, in turn, results in greater cognitive biases (overestimating the prevalence of IPV and justification of IPV) which, in turn, contribute to an individual's decision to use abusive behavior. Participants included 124 men who had engaged in abusive behavior toward an intimate partner. Results provided reasonable support for the proposed model and stronger support for a revised model suggesting that controlled orientation, rather than autonomy orientation, appears to play a stronger role in the association between childhood exposure to parental violence and cognitive biases associated with abusive behavior.     

Post‐Secularism,Secular Theology,and the Names of the Real

This article disputes the common view of religious and secular as oppositional terms. Our contemporary world is post‐secularist, because secularism is a modern ideology that imagines a strict separation of the religious and the political, where religion becomes a purely private affair. This situation is compromised by the “return” of religion in political terms. Constructively, following Jacques Lacan, we can say that secular theology concerns the Real; and with François Laruelle, we can think about a non‐theology that complements what he calls non‐philosophy. Finally, I speculate on three names of the Real: energy, capital, and nomos.     

Reward priming of temporal preparation

Recent studies have demonstrated a strong impact of reward on the expectancy of future target locations or features. In this study, we examined whether reward would have similar effects on temporal preparation. In two experiments, participants completed a reaction time task with a variable interval between a warning stimulus and the target stimulus. After each trial they were awarded either low or high reward which was converted to cash after the experiment. Crucially, reward magnitude was assigned randomly and was unrelated to task performance. Nevertheless, across experiments, the results revealed that reward modified future temporal preparation, especially in participants that could be identified as highly motivated. These findings generalize the principles of reward priming to the temporal domain.     

Is the Free Market Acceptable to Everyone?

In this paper we take issue with two central claims that John Tomasi makes in Free Market Fairness (2012). The first claim is that Rawls’s difference principle can better be realized by free market institutions than it can be by state interventionist regimes such as property-owning democracy or liberal socialism. We argue that Tomasi’s narrow interpretation of the difference principle, which focuses largely on wealth and income, leaves other goods (such as control of the workplace and access to economic assets) worryingly unsatisfied. The second claim is that a wide set of economic liberties ought to be protected because they realize responsible ‘self-authorship.’ We argue that this claim also fails because, crucially, whether economic liberties serve individuals in pursuing their ambitions will depend on the nature of those ambitions and how the use of those liberties by others would affect their pursuit of them. If an expansion of liberty is good for us in some ways, but bad in others, we need to assess whether, all things considered, we would be better off with or without such expanded economic rights. We argue that the expansion Tomasi proposes is likely to fail this test.     

Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) conceal caches from onlookers

Animals that cache food risk having their stored food pilfered by conspecifics. Previous research has shown that a number of food-caching species of corvid use strategies that decrease the probability of conspecifics pilfering their caches. In this experiment, we investigated whether Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) would choose between caching behind an opaque and caching behind a transparent barrier whilst being observed by a conspecific. If caching in out-of-sight locations is a strategy to prevent conspecifics from pilfering these caches, then the jays should place a greater proportion of caches behind the opaque barrier when being observed than when caching in private. In accordance with this prediction, jays cached a greater proportion of food behind the opaque barrier when they were observed than when they cached in private. These results suggest that Eurasian jays may opt to cache in out-of-view locations to reduce the likelihood of conspecifics pilfering their caches.     

Tool-use and instrumental learning in the Eurasian jay (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Garrulus glandarius</Emphasis>)

Recent research with Rooks has demonstrated impressive tool-using abilities in captivity despite this species’ classification as a non-tool-user in the wild. Here, we explored whether another non-tool-using corvid, the Eurasian Jay, would be capable of similar feats and investigated the relative contributions of causal knowledge and instrumental conditioning to the birds’ performance on the tasks. Five jays were tested on a variety of tasks involving water displacement. Two birds reliably interacted with the apparatuses. In these tasks, both birds showed a preference for inserting stones into a tube containing liquid over a tube containing a solid or a baited ‘empty’ tube and also for inserting sinkable items over non-sinkable items into a tube of water. To investigate the contribution of instrumental conditioning, subjects were then tested on a series of tasks in which different cues were made available. It was found that, in the absence of any apparent causal cues, these birds showed a clear preference for the rewarded tube when the food incrementally approached with every stone insertion, but not when it simply “appeared” after the correct number of stone insertions. However, it was found that subjects did not prefer to insert stones into a tube rewarded by the incremental approach of food if the available causal cues violated the expectations created by existing causal knowledge (i.e. were counter-intuitive). An analysis of the proportion of correct and incorrect stone insertions made in each trial across tasks offering different types of information revealed that subjects were substantially more successful in experiments in which causal cues were available, but that rate of learning was comparable in all experiments. We suggest that these results indicate that Eurasian jays use the incremental approach of the food reward as a conditioned reinforcer allowing them to solve tasks involving raising the water level and that this learning is facilitated by the presence of causal cues.     

Implicit coping and enhancement motives predict unique variance in drinking in Asian Americans

Automatic cognitive processes have been shown to be unique predictors of drinking behavior and can be assessed using implicit measures. Drinking motives (e.g., enhancement and coping motives), which are also predictive of alcohol use, have not been studied using implicit measures. Moreover, in the US, implicit measures have been studied in samples largely consisting of Caucasian or White Americans. This study adapted the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to examine automatic analogues of enhancement and coping drinking motives and approach/avoid tendencies in 56 Asian American undergraduates. Enhancement and coping IATs were correlated with self-reported drinking motives and predicted unique variance in drinking frequency and heavy drinking when controlling for self-reported motives. Approach IAT scores were neither associated with self-reported approach/avoid tendencies nor predictive of drinking behaviors. These findings provide initial support for the unique predictive utility of drinking motives in Asian Americans, an understudied population.     

Beliefs About Cognitive Gender Differences: Accurate for Direction, Underestimated for Size

Although stereotype accuracy is a large, and often controversial, area of psychological research, surprisingly little research has examined the beliefs people have about gender differences in cognitive abilities. This study investigates the accuracy of these beliefs in a sample of 106 highly educated U.S. adults. Participants provided estimates of male and female performance for 12 cognitive tasks and games. These estimates were compared with published data on gender differences on the same 12 cognitive tasks and games. Results showed that participants were generally accurate about the direction of gender differences, but underestimated the size of gender differences.