Empathy,Selfism, and Coping as Elements of the Psychology of Forgiveness: A Preliminary Study

This research expanded understanding of forgiveness by (a) distinguishing forgiveness from unforgiveness and their respective correlates (empathy and selfism) and (b) examining coping style and its impact on the process of forgiveness and unforgiveness. Participants were 92 students in a large northeastern urban public university. Correlates of forgiveness and unforgiveness were distinctly different. With respect to forgiveness, 42% of the variance was explained by the variables under study. Emotion‐focused coping was associated with forgiving. Clinically relevant issues were raised, specifically regarding the role of selfism and emotion‐focused coping and contextual variables such as financial resources, age, gender, and religiosity.     

Emotion and false memory: How goal-irrelevance can be relevant for what people remember

Elaborating on misleading information concerning emotional events can lead people to form false memories. The present experiment compared participants’ susceptibility to false memories when they elaborated on information associated with positive versus negative emotion and pregoal versus postgoal emotion. Pregoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure is anticipated but has not yet occurred (e.g., hope and fear). Postgoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure has already occurred (e.g., happiness and devastation). Participants watched a slideshow depicting an interaction between a couple and were asked to empathise with the protagonist's feelings of hope (positive pregoal), happiness (positive postgoal), fear (negative pregoal), or devastation (negative postgoal); in control conditions, no emotion was mentioned. Participants were then asked to reflect on details of the interaction that had occurred (true) or had not occurred (false), and that were relevant or irrelevant to the protagonist's goal. Irrespective of emotional valence, participants in the pregoal conditions were more susceptible to false memories concerning goal-irrelevant details than were participants in the other conditions. These findings support the view that pregoal emotions narrow attention to information relevant to goal pursuit, increasing susceptibility to false memories for irrelevant information.     

The Latent Structure of Spatial Skills and Mathematics: A Replication of the Two-Factor Model

In a previous study, Mix et al. (2016) reported that spatial skill and mathematics were composed of 2 highly correlated, domain-specific factors, with a few cross-domain loadings. The overall structure was consistent across grade (kindergarten, 3rd grade, 6th grade), but the cross-domain loadings varied with age. The present study sought to replicate these patterns. Using the data from Wave 1 (n = 854) and data collected from a 2nd sample of kindergarten (n = 251), 3rd-grade (n = 247), and 6th-grade students (n = 241) with the same measures as in Wave 1, we carried out a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis to compare the 2 waves. We also completed several analyses of the Wave 2 data alone. The overall pattern obtained in Wave 1—2 highly correlated domain-specific factors—was clearly replicated in Wave 2. However, more subtle effects involving cross-domain loading were only partially replicated and generally appear fragile and context-specific. In Wave 2, we also included 2 new measures (i.e., proportion matching and fraction identification) that were analyzed in a separate model. Including these new measures did not change the overall pattern of factors and domain-specific factor loadings but did alter some of the cross-domain loadings.     

Conjoining Mathematical Empiricism with Mathematical Realism: Maddy’s Account of Set Perception Revisited

Penelope Maddy’s original solution to the dilemma posed by Benacerraf in his (1973) ‘Mathematical Truth’ was to reconcile mathematical empiricism with mathematical realism by arguing that we can perceive realistically construed sets. Though her hypothesis has attracted considerable critical attention, much of it, in my view, misses the point. In this paper I vigorously defend Maddy’s (1990) account against published criticisms, not because I think it is true, but because these criticisms have functioned to obscure a more fundamental issue that is well worth addressing: in general – and not only in the mathematical domain – empiricism and realism simply cannot be reconciled by means of an account of perception anything like Maddy’s. But because Maddy’s account of perception is so plausible, this conclusion raises the specter of the broader incompatibility of realism and empiricism, which contemporary philosophers are frequently at pains to forget.     

Constraints on infants' musical rhythm perception: effects of interval ratio complexity and enculturation

Effects of culture-specific experience on musical rhythm perception are evident by 12 months of age, but the role of culture-general rhythm processing constraints during early infancy has not been explored. Using a habituation procedure with 5- and 7-month-old infants, we investigated effects of temporal interval ratio complexity on discrimination of standard from novel musical patterns containing 200-ms disruptions. Infants were tested in three ratio conditions: simple (2:1), which is typical in Western music, complex (3:2), which is typical in other musical cultures, and highly complex (7:4), which is relatively rare in music throughout the world. Unlike adults and older infants, whose accuracy was predicted by familiarity, younger infants were influenced by ratio complexity, as shown by their successful discrimination in the simple and complex conditions but not in the highly complex condition. The findings suggest that ratio complexity constrains rhythm perception even prior to the acquisition of culture-specific biases.     

When reasons matter: Quality of support affects reactions to increasing and consistent agreement

Evidence indicates that moving from a minority to a majority position has little impact on group identification. The present study investigated how reactions of former minorities and stable minorities to the group as a whole and their own faction were moderated by the quality of support they received for their position (genuine vs. superficial vs. unexplained). Former minorities identified more strongly with the group when others converted to their position for genuine than for superficial (or unexplained) reasons. The group identification of stable minorities did not vary as a function of the quality of support. Both former minorities and stable minorities identified more with their own faction when they received genuine than superficial (or unexplained) support. These findings clarify the important role of quality of support in group and faction identification. Moreover, they show that former minorities do identify with the group when they receive support they can trust.