Beyond smile dynamics: mimicry and beliefs in judgments of smiles

The judgment that a smile is based on "true," usually positive, feelings affects social interaction. However, the processes underlying the interpretation of a smile as being more or less genuine are not well understood. The aim of the present research was to test predictions of the Simulation of Smiles Model (SIMS) proposed by Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maringer, and Hess (2010). In addition to the perceptual features that can guide the judgment of a smile as genuine, the model identifies the conditions that the judgments rely on: (a) the embodiment of the facial expression and its corresponding state, and (b) beliefs about the situations in which genuine smiles are most often expressed. Results of two studies are consistent with the model in that they confirm the hypotheses that facial mimicry provides feedback that is used to judge the meaning of a smile, and that beliefs about the situations in which a smile occurs guides such judgments when mimicry is inhibited.     

Parsimony and Complexity: Developing and Testing Theories of Affective Intelligence

The theory of affective intelligence posits that an individual's emotions help govern a reliance on political habits or, alternatively, deliberation and attention to new political information. Some of the evidence adduced draws on the fact that voters who are anxious about their own party's candidate do not rely blindly on their partisanship but instead consider policy and personality when they vote. In a provocative paper, Ladd and Lenz (2008 ) argue that emotions reflect an evaluative judgment, akin to likes and dislikes, that has little to say about attention and habit. Here we examine the ANES data from 1980 to 2004 and find that the affective intelligence theory's original findings remain statistically robust. On closer examination, we also learn that Ladd and Lenz reformulated the theoretical test by using a different operationalization of affect and a different dependent variable and found results at variance from ours. We find it an inappropriate test. In the end, we agree with Ladd and Lenz that cross‐sectional data cannot crisply test the short‐term impact of emotions on attention and habit and concur that ultimately experiments will move the debate forward. We further observe that Brader's (2005, 2006 ) powerful field experiments explicitly test the special effect of emotions on attention and judgment and support the affective intelligence model.     

Age Bias in the Workplace: The Impact of Ageism and Causal Attributions1

This study considers the roles of managerial ageism and causal attributions in the age bias process. Specifically, we predicted that employee age and manager ageism would interact in predicting the severity of recommendations made about an employee's performance errors, such that ageist managers would be more likely to engage in age bias. Second, we proposed that age bias is caused partially by differential attributions made about the performance errors of older vs. younger workers. Results indicated that older employees received more severe recommendations for poor performance than did their younger counterparts. Also, some ageist attitudes moderated the relationship between age and performance recommendations. Stability attributions mediated the relationship of employee age on endorsement of the more punitive recommendations.     

Events, Sortals, and the Mind–Body Problem

In recent decades, a view of identity I call Sortalism has gained popularity. According to this view, if a is identical to b, then there is some sortal S such that a is the same S as b. Sortalism has typically been discussed with respect to the identity of objects. I argue that the motivations for Sortalism about objectidentity apply equally well to event-identity. But Sortalism about event-identity poses a serious threat to the view that mental events are token identical to physical events: A particular mental event m is identical with a particular physical event p only if there is a sortal S such that m and p are both Ss. If there is no such sortal, the doctrine of token-identity is not true. I argue here that we have no good reason for thinking that there is any such sortal.     

Anger Mediates the Effects of Fear on Support for the Far Right—A Rejoinder

We are grateful to John Jost for carefully engaging with our work and presenting a different interpretation of our findings on the effects of fear and anger stemming from the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks on the propensity to vote for the far right. Jost advances a model that holds that anger mediates the effect of fear on support for the far right. In this rejoinder, we respond to the issues he raises regarding our model specification, consider his alternative suggestion, and offer some conclusions about how to resolve this debate empirically. We hope this exchange advances the literature on the impact of various societal threats on voting for the far right.     

Multicultural Competence–Focused Peer Supervision: A Multiple Case Study of Clinical and Counseling Psychology Trainees

In this longitudinal, qualitative case study, 21 clinical and counseling psychology trainees met in leaderless peer supervision groups for 1 training year to discuss multicultural aspects of their clinical work. Peer supervision sessions were audio recorded and transcribed, and the content was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that, despite the absence of experts to facilitate discussions, participants were able to focus on multicultural issues and generally benefited from this type of peer supervision. En este estudio de caso longitudinal y cualitativo, 21 alumnos de psicología clínica y consejería se reunieron en grupos de supervisión entre pares sin líderes durante un año de su formación para discutir aspectos multiculturales de su trabajo clínico. Se grabó y transcribió el audio de las sesiones de supervisión entre pares, y luego se analizó el contenido usando un análisis temático. Los resultados indicaron que, a pesar de la ausencia de expertos para facilitar las discusiones, los participantes fueron capaces de centrarse en los temas multiculturales y generalmente se beneficiaron de este tipo de supervisión entre pares.     

Personality Development in Emerging and Young Adulthood: A Study of Age Differences

Early adulthood is a time of substantial personality change characterized by large inter‐individual diversity. To investigate the role of age in this diversity, the present study examined whether emerging adults differ from an older group of young adults in their Big Five personality development. By means of multi‐group latent change modelling, two groups of 16‐ to 19‐year‐olds (n = 3555) and 26‐ to 29‐year‐olds (n = 2621) were tracked over the course of four years and compared regarding four aspects of personality change: mean‐level change, rank‐order change, inter‐individual differences in change, and profile change. In addition, age‐differential socialization effects associated with six first‐time life events were investigated. Analyses revealed substantial age differences in all four aspects of change. As expected, emerging adults showed greater change and diversity in change than young adults. However, the six life events had no age‐differential impact on change in single traits and Big Five profiles. Overall, the results indicate that age differences should be considered even in specific life stages to advance the understanding of personality development. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Dark Side of Morality: Group Polarization and Moral Epistemology

This article argues that philosophers and laypeople commonly conceptualize moral truths or justified moral beliefs as discoverable through intuition, argument, or some other purely cognitive or affective process. It then contends that three empirically well‐supported theories all predict that this “Discovery Model” of morality plays a substantial role in causing social polarization. The same three theories are then used to argue that an alternative “Negotiation Model” of morality—according to which moral truths are not discovered but instead created by actively negotiating compromises—promises to reduce polarization by fostering a progressive willingness to “work across the aisle” to settle moral issues cooperatively. This article then examines potential methods for normatively evaluating polarization, arguing there are prima facie reasons to favor the Negotiation Model over the Discovery Model based on their hypothesized effects on polarization. Finally, I outline avenues for further empirical and philosophical research.     

Rule learning by cotton-top tamarins

Previous work suggests that human infants are capable of rapidly generalizing patterns that have been characterized as abstract algebraic rules (Science 283 (1999) 77), a process that may play a pivotal role in language acquisition. Here we explore whether this capacity is uniquely human and evolved specifically for the computational problems associated with language, or whether this mechanism is shared with other species, and therefore evolved for problems other than language. We used the same materials and methods that were originally employed in tests of human infants to assess whether cotton-top tamarin monkeys can extract abstract algebraic rules. Specifically, we habituated subjects to sequences of consonant-vowel syllables that followed one of two patterns, AAB (e.g. wi wi di) or ABB (le we we). Following habituation, we presented subjects with two novel test items, one with the same pattern as that presented during habituation and one with a different pattern. Like human infants, tamarins were more likely to dishabituate to the test item with a different pattern. We conclude that the capacity to generalize rule-like patterns, at least at the level demonstrated, did not evolve specifically for language acquisition, though it remains possible that infants might use such rules during language acquisition.