What do humans feel with mistreated humans,animals, robots,and objects? Exploring the role of cognitive empathy

Motivation and Emotion - The aim of this paper is to present a study in which we compare the degree of empathy that a convenience sample of university students expressed with humans, animals,...     

Cross‐national comparisons of attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons in university students from 12 countries

This paper reports the results of a comparative investigation of attitudes to suicide and suicidal persons in 5,572 university students from 12 countries. Participants filled out two scales measuring attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons, a measure of psychological distress together with the questions about suicidal behavior. Results showed that the highest suicide acceptance scores were observed in Austrian, UK, Japanese and Saudi Arabian samples and the lowest scores were noted in Tunisian, Turkish, Iranian and Palestinian samples. While the highest social acceptance scores for a suicidal friend were noted in Turkish, US, Italian and Tunisian samples, the lowest scores were seen in Japanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian and Jordanian samples. Compared to participants with a suicidal past, those who were never suicidal displayed more internal barriers against suicidal behavior. Men were more accepting of suicide than women but women were more willing to help an imagined suicidal peer. Participants with accepting attitudes towards suicide but rejecting attitudes towards suicidal persons reported more suicidal behavior and psychological distress, and were more often from high suicide rate countries and samples than their counterparts. They are considered to be caught in a fatal trap in which most predominant feelings of suicidality such as hopelessness or helplessness are likely to occur. We conclude that in some societies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia it might be difficult for suicidal individuals to activate and make use of social support systems.     

It’s About Time: The Role of Locomotion in Withdrawal Behavior

Introduction

Locomotion is defined as a self-regulatory orientation that involves committing personal resources to initiate and maintain goal-directed activities Kruglanski et al. (J Personal Social Psychol 79: 793, 2000). This article examines the relation between locomotion and withdrawal behaviors in organizational setting.

Materials and Methods

In the first study, police officers’ (N = 203) locomotion was negatively related to self-report measures of absenteeism and lateness. In the second study, bank employees’ (N = 297) locomotion was negatively related to withdrawal behaviors as evinced by organizational records including hours of absenteeism, lateness, and early departures. In the third study, a two-wave research design replicated the results of Study 2 by demonstrating that telecommunication employees’ (N = 69) locomotion measured at Time 1 was negatively related to their respective withdrawal behaviors 3 months later at Time 2.

Conclusion

Overall, these three studies support the notion that locomotion impacts a plurality of withdrawal behaviors in different organizational settings. Consequently, locomotion can be a pertinent and valuable psychometric tool for managers and human resources interested in improving organizational effectiveness.

     

Identity Processes in Collective Action Participation: Farmers' Identity and Farmers' Protest in the Netherlands and Spain

This study tested the assumption that a sense of collective identity stimulates participation in collective action. Contextual circumstances supposedly make a collective identity more salient and compel people to act as members of the group; protest participation is more likely among people with a strong collective identity. Group identification and participation in identity organizations were used as indicators of collective identity in a study of 248 farmers from Galicia (Spain) and 167 farmers from the Netherlands. The farmers were interviewed three times at intervals of 1 year. The longitudinal design also allowed a test of causality. A sense of collective identity appeared to stimulate preparedness to take part in farmers' protest. Action preparedness leads to action participation, which in turn appears to foster collective identity.     

Moral foundations,worldviews, moral absolutism and belief in conspiracy theories

In the present research, we examined whether individual differences in basic moral concerns might be related to a greater endorsement of conspiracy theories. Building on the notion that conspiracy theories often deal with super‐individual relevant events in which a group perspective is central, we proposed that individual differences in moral concerns pertaining to group‐ and community‐concerns (i.e., binding moral foundations) rather than to individual well‐being (i.e., individualising moral foundations) would be positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. We further hypothesised that such relations would be totally mediated by beliefs in a dangerous world and by embracing moral absolutism. We found support for these predictions in two community samples (Ns: 319; 514). Theoretical implications were discussed.     

What kind of evaluative states are emotions? The attitudinal theory vs. the perceptual theory of emotions

This paper argues that Deonna and Teroni's attitudinal theory of emotions faces two serious problems. The first is that their master argument fails to establish the central tenet of the theory, namely, that the formal objects of emotions do not feature in the content of emotions. The second is that the attitudinal theory itself is vulnerable to a dilemma. By pointing out these problems, our paper provides indirect support to the main competitor of the attitudinal theory, namely, the perceptual theory of emotions.     

Decisions Under Temporal AND Emotional Pressure: The Hidden Relationships Between the Unconscious,Personality, and Cognitive Styles

The existence of an unaware psychic space that influences the way we think, perceive, and decide has been known for over a century. This space, defined by Freud as the “unconscious,” contains in itself unaware psychic contents. Its sophisticated adaptive functions, implicit and unaware, allow individuals to transform an enormous amount of information into explicit behaviors, influencing their behaviors. In this article, we advance the hypothesis that there is a strong relationship between the unconscious, personality styles, and decisions under conditions of temporal and emotional pressure. The fact that an increase in the quality of a performance follows an increase in excitation, at least up to a certain threshold, clarifies the concept. Beyond this level of activation, not only are the benefits starting to diminish, but we also notice the onset of dysfunctional conditions that consist of anxiety, inner tension, difficulty in concentration, and inability to decide.     

Gender stereotypes and contact with gay men and lesbians: The mediational role of sexism and homonegativity

This study is grounded in Allport's intergroup contact theory and Herek's sexual prejudice theory. We aimed at (a) investigating the mediational role of sexism and homonegativity on the relation between gender, age, and contact with gay and lesbian people with gender stereotypes about gay men and lesbians; and (b) replicating and corroborating the direct associations found in previous research among these variables. The present research used secondary data from a survey conducted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics and comprehending a representative sample of 5,863 Italian adults. The results from path analysis indicated that both homonegativity and sexism partially mediated the effect of gender and age on gender stereotypes, whereas they totally mediated the effect of contact with gay and lesbian persons. Findings suggest that reducing sexist and homonegative attitudes and increasing contact with gay and lesbian people may reduce stereotypical beliefs about homosexual people.