Forgiveness in Javanese collective culture: The relationship between rumination,harmonious value,decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness

Forgiveness in Javanese collective culture is examined by considering harmonious value (HV) a subjective value on maintaining social harmony and rumination. In Study 1, we conducted an exploratory sequential mixed‐method study to develop a scale measuring HV. In‐depth interviews with eight Javanese adolescents revealed three major domains of HV (Study 1a). In a second quantitative study (Study 1b), we developed items and assessed 347 Javanese adolescents in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported three factors: cooperation during conflict, forbearing and resolving conflict. After confirming that the translated scales had acceptable reliability, we conducted Study 2 with 424 Javanese adolescents from both urban and village settings. Using hierarchical multiple regression, we found that HV accounted for a variance in decisional forgiveness above and beyond rumination. In addition, decisional forgiveness also accounted for variance in emotional forgiveness above and beyond rumination. In fact, HV accounted for variance in emotional forgiveness above and beyond both rumination and decisional forgiveness together. This revealed the importance of valuing social harmony in this collectivistic culture. Moreover, decisional forgiveness was also important in predicting the Javanese collectivists’ emotional forgiveness.     

Prenatal cocaine exposure and infant cognition

The present study examined the relationship of prenatal cocaine exposure to infant information processing in the first year of life.In a prospective, longitudinal study of 177 cocaine-exposed and 175 non-exposed infants, the Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence (FTII) was used to measure attention, visual recognition memory and information processing speed at 6.5 and 12 months of age. Groups were compared over time using mixed linear model analyses.Prenatal cocaine exposure predicted poorer visual recognition memory at 12 months, with exposed infants obtaining lower mean scores and a higher percentage of scores in the risk range. Across exposure groups, information processing speed increased with age, demonstrating a developmental effect. Tobacco and marijuana exposures were related to faster looking times, which did not relate to visual recognition memory.Cognitive deficits and attentional problems noted in prior studies of cocaine-exposed children at later ages may be detectable in infancy.     

Rationality, Reason and the History of Thought

Philosophers over the course of the last century, including Edmund Husserl, Chaim Perelman, and Jacques Derrida, have attempted to unravel the tangled relationship between the rational and the reasonable in order to understand how the history of thought progresses. Critical political theorists, including Michel Foucault and Ernesto Laclau have also investigated this issue from a range of perspectives, especially as it relates to the relationship between ideational limits and their transgression and the universal and the particular. This essay compares these perspectives to locate the rational dimensions of the reasonable, and to relate that “meta-reason” to the irrational and unreasonable aspects of identity formation and the unfolding of world history.     

Personality traits as predictors of intentions to seek online information about STDs and HIV/AIDS among junior and senior college students in Taiwan.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to examine how personality traits such as sensation- seeking and impulsive decision-making affect Taiwanese college students' intentions to seek online information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Five hundred thirty-five (n = 535) junior and senior college students in Taiwan were recruited and completed self-report questionnaires. This study found high sensation-seekers were more likely to seek information about STDs and HIV/AIDS on the Internet than low sensation-seekers. Impulsive decision-makers were less likely than rational decision-makers to seek information about STDs and HIV/AIDS on the Internet. These findings suggest that personality needs to be considered as an exploratory factor which potentially influences intentions to seek STD and HIV/AIDS information on the Internet among Taiwanese college students.     

The organization of words and environmental sounds in the second year: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

The majority of research examining early auditory‐semantic processing and organization is based on studies of meaningful relations between words and referents. However, a thorough investigation into the fundamental relation between acoustic signals and meaning requires an understanding of how meaning is associated with both lexical and non‐lexical sounds. Indeed, it is unknown how meaningful auditory information that is not lexical (e.g., environmental sounds) is processed and organized in the young brain. To capture the structure of semantic organization for words and environmental sounds, we record event‐related potentials as 20‐month‐olds view images of common nouns (e.g., dog) while hearing words or environmental sounds that match the picture (e.g., “dog” or barking), that are within‐category violations (e.g., “cat” or meowing), or that are between‐category violations (e.g., “pen” or scribbling). Results show both words and environmental sounds exhibit larger negative amplitudes to between‐category violations relative to matches. Unlike words, which show a greater negative response early and consistently to within‐category violations, such an effect for environmental sounds occurs late in semantic processing. Thus, as in adults, the young brain represents semantic relations between words and between environmental sounds, though it more readily differentiates semantically similar words compared to environmental sounds.     

Comparison-level preferences after performance: is downward comparison theory still useful?

Although often credited with prompting a paradigm shift in social comparison theory, T. A. Wills's (1981) downward comparison (DC) theory has received some criticism recently. In particular, several recent studies have failed to find support for T. A. Wills's (1981) contention that threat and accompanying negative affect lead to a desire for DC. These apparent failures have led some investigators to question basic principles of the theory. To resolve this controversy, 5 studies were conducted examining preferred comparison level (PCL) after performance; 4 of the studies also assessed change in this preference. Results supported DC theory, but with modifications. Specifically, individuals who performed poorly lowered their PCLs. Under some circumstances, this "downward shift" included an increased interest in "true" DC--comparing with worse-off others. A reconciliation of these results with those of previous studies is offered.     

Mood and emotion in sport: a response to Jones, Mace, and Williams (2000)

Examination of the mood and performance relationship in sport has been an important line of investigation in sport psychology for over 20 years. Recent research has challenged the notion that the Profile of Mood States is the instrument of choice. It has also moved away from the notion that successful performance is associated with an 'iceberg' profile (Morgan, 1980), arguing that researchers should consider mood and emotion as distinguishable constructs (Jones, Mace, & Williams, 2000; Lane & Terry, 2000. In the present paper, I expand the discussion on mood research in sport by re-examining some of the findings of Jones, et al. in the light of recent work.