Forgiveness in personal relationships: Its malleability and powerful consequences

The present chapter examines the nature and consequences of forgiveness. First we provide an overview of studies suggesting that the level of forgiveness tends to be quite malleable, as indicated by a number of empirical findings demonstrating that situational cues can subtly influence an individual's level of forgiveness. Extending the general view on forgiveness as a deliberative and intentional act, we review evidence indicating that forgiveness is at least partly determined by automatic and unconscious processes. In the second part of the chapter we provide an overview of studies demonstrating that, despite the notion that level of forgiveness can be malleable, seemingly small fluctuations in forgiveness can still have profound consequences both at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, and may have generalised effects on prosocial behaviour over people and situations. We conclude by proposing a model that not only summarises many of the findings reviewed in this chapter, but also may serve as a heuristic framework for testing predictions about the impact of forgiveness on individuals, relationships, and beyond.     

Instructing Young Children in the Use of Memorizing Strategies: Effects at Study and Recall

This study examined preschool children's abilities to apply a newly learned organizational study-recall strategy in posttraining tasks that employed stimulus items from different media and that were administered by an unfamiliar experimenter. Fortyeight 4- and 5-year-old children were assigned to training and control conditions that alternated the presentation of pictures and objects on baseline, training, and test tasks. Samemedium tasks required children to study and recall items of the same stimulus medium (pictures or objects) as that depicting items in the training tasks. Different-medium tasks required performance with items presented in the alternate medium. Training included demonstration and practice in using a study-sorting strategy to organize the stimuli, encouragement to apply the strategy in new tasks, presenting a rationale for using the strategy, giving feedback about the effectiveness of using the strategy, and providing incentive for effortful performance. Subjects in the training groups showed marked increases in the use of sorting activities in posttraining tasks but failed to show corresponding significant improvements in item recall.     

Vandalism of public telephones according to paragraph 204 of the federal penal code. Coin slot/coin return tray of a coin-operated telephone--vaginal substitute for abnormal sexual gratification

Sexually motivated misuse of coin box apparatus by a 75-year-old man suffering deterioration of the brain. This uncommon sexual-pathological deviation was the cause of the hitherto blameless individual's vandalisation of the telephone communication system.     

Social anxiety and evaluation of social crowds: explicit and implicit measures

To investigate whether social anxiety disorder is indeed characterized by a biased negative evaluation of facial expressions, 25 highly socially anxious (SA) participants and 30 non-anxious controls (NACs) were asked to respond to different ratios of neutral-angry or happy-angry face combinations (crowds). In an indirect Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), participants used a joystick to pull the crowds towards themselves (approach) or push them away (avoidance). SAs showed faster avoidance of neutral-angry crowds when the number of angry faces in the crowd increased. The happy-angry crowds were generally avoided, independent of the ratio of the two emotions. NACs did not show any specific response tendency. When directly rating the friendliness of the crowds, the two groups did not differ.     

No control,no drive: how noise may undermine conservation behavior in a commons dilemma

Sometimes people may no longer engage in conservational behavior (e.g., to reduce emissions) because their attempts to do so have been thwarted by “negative noise”, or external forces that may cause otherwise cooperative intentions to translate into non‐cooperative action (e.g., strikes prevented to commute by public transport rather than by car). The purpose of the present research is to examine whether experiences with negative noise in a commons dilemma may undermine conservational motivation and behavior, even in a subsequent commons dilemma that is free of noise. Participants first interacted in a commons dilemma task—with noise versus without noise—in which the common pool was sustained versus deteriorating. Afterwards, participants were involved in an identical second task in the same pool size condition but noise‐free for everybody. Consistent with hypotheses, participants who faced noise and a deteriorating resource in the first task exhibited lower levels of conservation in the second task than did participants who were always acting free of noise. This pattern was mediated by a reduced motivation to preserve the common pool, suggesting that the experience of noise in combination with a decline in collective resources may especially undermine cooperative motivation and behavior. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Longitudinal development of manual motor ability in autism spectrum disorder from childhood to mid‐adulthood relates to adaptive daily living skills

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit motor difficulties, but it is unknown whether manual motor skills improve, plateau, or decline in ASD in the transition from childhood into adulthood. Atypical development of manual motor skills could impact the ability to learn and perform daily activities across the life span. This study examined longitudinal grip strength and finger tapping development in individuals with ASD (n = 90) compared to individuals with typical development (n = 56), ages 5 to 40 years old. We further examined manual motor performance as a possible correlate of current and future daily living skills. The group with ASD demonstrated atypical motor development, characterized by similar performance during childhood but increasingly poorer performance from adolescence into adulthood. Grip strength was correlated with current adaptive daily living skills, and Time 1 grip strength predicted daily living skills eight years into the future. These results suggest that individuals with ASD may experience increasingly more pronounced motor difficulties from adolescence into adulthood and that manual motor performance in ASD is related to adaptive daily living skills.     

自主定向与依赖定向的群际帮助在动机与后果上的差异

群际帮助指施助者作为某个群体成员对另一群体成员的帮助, 分为自主定向和依赖定向的帮助两类。自主定向的群际帮助被施助者求同需要所驱动, 提供给受助者自己解决问题的方式方法, 会缩小受助者与施助者之间的差异; 而依赖定向的群际帮助被施助者差别化需要所驱动, 直接提供给受助者满足需求的物质, 会维持甚至扩大受助者与施助者之间的差异并使前者长期依赖后者。     

Cognitive Influences on the Perception of Somatic Change During a Feigned Chemical Release1

The role of psychological processes in the perception of bodily symptoms was investigated during a feigned chemical release. Somatic change was manipulated through exercise, while chemical pollutant cues were used to provide explanatory frameworks for illness perceptions. Experimental participants were informed that they would be exposed to a common urban chemical pollutant while they exercised or rested in an atmosphere‐controlled chamber. In actuality, no pollutant was released. Control participants were informed correctly that they would be exposed only to room air in the chamber. Results showed that the presence of a chemical cue resulted in more attributions of symptoms to a chemical cause, in addition to the report of a greater number of symptoms. However, only during states of arousal induced by the exercise did the chemical cue have an effect on symptom intensity reporting. Participants who exercised in the context of salient chemical pollutant cues reported heightened levels of chemical‐exposure‐type symptoms (e.g., dizziness, dry throat) as compared to control participants and participants whose exercise arousal had diminished. Findings show that individuals will use a chemical explanatory framework for symptoms when conditions suggest toxic exposure, and that adoption of these explanatory frameworks modifies the experience of somatic change.