Willingness to express emotion depends upon perceiving partner care

Two studies document that people are more willing to express emotions that reveal vulnerabilities to partners when they perceive those partners to be more communally responsive to them. In Study 1, participants rated the communal strength they thought various partners felt toward them and their own willingness to express happiness, sadness and anxiety to each partner. Individuals who generally perceive high communal strength from their partners were also generally most willing to express emotion to partners. Independently, participants were more willing to express emotion to particular partners whom they perceived felt more communal strength toward them. In Study 2, members of romantic couples independently reported their own felt communal strength toward one another, perceptions of their partners’ felt communal strength toward them, and willingness to express emotions (happiness, sadness, anxiety, disgust, anger, hurt and guilt) to each other. The communal strength partners reported feeling toward the participants predicted the participants’ willingness to express emotion to those partners. This link was mediated by participants’ perceptions of the partner’s communal strength toward them which, itself, was a joint function of accurate perceptions of the communal strength partners had reported feeling toward them and projections of their own felt communal strength for their partners onto those partners.     

Behavioral Self‐Regulation,Early Academic Achievement,and the Effectiveness of Urban Schools for Low‐Income Ethnic Minority Children

The independent and joint associations between child behavioral self‐regulation ability and school effectiveness in relation to academic achievement were examined in a sample of low‐income African American (n = 132) and Latino (n = 198) children attending kindergarten and first grade across a large metropolitan area. Child behavioral self‐regulation and school effectiveness were positively associated with both reading and mathematics performance. School effectiveness moderated the effect of behavioral self‐regulation on reading but not math achievement. Lower child behavioral self‐regulation during early elementary school was associated with lower reading achievement the following year but only among children attending less effective schools. Behavioral self‐regulation was not related to reading achievement among children attending more effective schools. Implications of these findings for policies addressing disparities in early academic achievement are discussed.     

EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: ORIGINS AND BUILDING BLOCKS

The large, ancient ape population of the Miocene reached across Eurasia and down into Africa. From this genetically diverse group, the chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans evolved from populations of successively reduced size. Using the findings of genomics, population genetics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and archaeology, the authors construct a theoretical framework of evolutionary innovations without which religious capacity could not have emerged as it did. They begin with primate sociality and strength from a basic ape model, and then explore how the human line came to be the most adaptive and flexible of all, while coming from populations with reduced genetic variability. Their analysis then delves into the importance of neurological plasticity and a lengthening developmental trajectory, and points to their following article and the last building block: the expansion of the parietal areas, which allowed visuospatial reckoning, and imagined spaces and beings essential to human theologies. Approximate times for the major cognitive building blocks of religious capacity are given.     

EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: COGNITIVE TIME SEQUENCE

Intrigued by the possible paths that the evolution of religious capacity may have taken, the authors identify a series of six major building blocks that form a foundation for religious capacity in genus Homo. Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens idaltu are examined for early signs of religious capacity. Then, after an exploration of human plasticity and why it is so important, the analysis leads to a final building block that characterizes only Homo sapiens sapiens, beginning 200,000–400,000 years ago, when all the other cognitive and neurological underpinnings gradually came together. Because the timing of cognitive evolution has become an issue, the authors identify the time periods for these building blocks based on findings from modern cognitive science, neuroscience, genomic science, the new cognitive archaeology, and traditional stones‐and‐bones archaeology. The result is a logical, and even a likely story 55–65 million years long, which leads to the evolution of religious capacity in modern human beings.     

EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: TRAIT COMPLEXITY IN ACTION THROUGH COMPASSION

In this third and last article on the evolution of religious capacity, the authors focus on compassion, one of religious expression's common companions. They explore the various meanings of compassion, using Biblical and early related documents, and derive general cognitive components before an evolutionary analysis of compassion using their model. Then, in taking on neural reuse theory, they adapt a model from linguistics theory to understand how neural reuse could have operated to fix religious capacity in the human genome. They present a teaching tool on “Religious Capacity in Action,” and develop an example of compassionate decision making in very early Homo sapiens in North Africa. They round out their analysis of compassion by exploring theory in neuroscience on a standard decision‐making model, and investigate what goes on in the human brain when a values‐based decision is made.     

The relationship between conformity to gender norms,sexual orientation,and gender identity for sexual minorities

The current study examined how dimensions of masculinity and femininity were expressed for sexual minorities. Cluster analysis was used to determine the number of latent classes for conformity to masculine and feminine norms for sexual minorities. A four-class solution was the best fit to the data. Cluster 1 (labeled Relating to others through equality and caring, n = 41) was characterized by low dominance and power over women and high involvement with kids and have nice relationships norms. Cluster 2 (labeled Relating to others through avoidance and misogyny, n = 38) was characterized by low risk-taking and have nice relationships and high power over women and disdain for homosexuality. Cluster 3 (labeled Relating to others through power, n = 34) was characterized by high winning, pursuit of status, and appearance and low modesty. Cluster 4 (labeled Relating to others through sex, n = 27) was characterized by low involvement in romantic relationships and sexual fidelity while endorsing high playboy attitudes. Results indicate that conforming to gender norms tends to follow categories of interpersonal beliefs and behaviors rather than being based in gender identity or sexual orientation. Implications of the results for future research and clinical practice are examined.     

Re-enactments in their developmental context

The power of the repetition compulsion is felt in an especially keen way during re-enactments within psychodynamic psychotherapy. In this paper, the authors recommend greater attention to the developmental aspects of re-enactments as providing valuable information about the affective character of the crisis being brought to life in the treatment. Specifically, the authors suggest that the current developmental stage of the patient influences the experience and expression of the core developmental conflict that lies at the heart of the re-enactment in the treatment dyad. Re-enactments in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, as well as at midlife and in the later years, each have different signatures. Thus, increased knowledge and awareness of both developmental stage and developmental core conflict is important for the following reasons: It provides a firmer theoretical foundation for understanding what is, by definition, a formidable moment in treatment; it adds another dimension and thus enhanced flexibility to the clinician’s clinical stance during a time of greater countertransference potential; and it adds to the theoretical perspective that the compulsion to repeat functions, at least in part, as an attempt to master an intrapsychic, affectively charged, previous experience of defeat. Clarifying the developmental nature of re-enactments for both patient and therapist can serve an orienting function during what is often a confusing and destabilizing time in the treatment relationship, and it can help differentiate developmentally appropriate behaviour from re-enacted conflict.