Aggressiveness and Perceived Marital Quality: The Moderating Role of a Family-Supportive Work Climate

In this article, we examined the impact of language (i.e., native English speakers vs. non-native English speakers) on two aspects of information processing associated with multinational coalition operations in a simulated precrisis, command and control (C2) headquarters (HQ). First, we examined the impact of language on situation awareness (SA) and confidence in the participants' SA responses. Second, we examined the participants' responses to questions about various aspects of language, information sharing, decision-making, identity, and cultural issues that exist within a multinational coalition operation C2 HQ. The primary findings from this work revealed that there was very little impact of language on SA and confidence and that both language groups overwhelmingly shared the same views on information sharing, decision-making, and organizational/cultural issues.     

The induction of shared identity: the positive role of individual distinctiveness for groups

This article examines inductive processes of social identity formation, the bottom-up processes by which individual group members influence a social identity, integrating it with work on entitativity. Three studies tested the prediction that feelings of individual distinctiveness mediate the relation between inductive social identity formation and entitativity and that entitativity in turn predicts identification. The studies provided consistent support for this theoretical model over alternative models, using a range of different social groups and methods. Study 1 found support for the model in self-selected small groups. Study 2 supported it with a much broader set of groups that were not self-selected. Finally, Study 3 varied levels of inductive social identity formation systematically by varying group size and provided direct support for the hypothesized causal relations.     

Output order reflects the cognitive accessibility of goals

Goal accessibility--the ease or speed with which a goal is activated--increases the likelihood that it will be acted on. The present studies validate output order as a measure of goal accessibility that can be applied to goal lists in both laboratory and naturalistic settings. In three studies, output order (the order in which goals are listed in a free-response format) was related to self-reported goal value but was not redundant with it. Furthermore, output order was affected by motivational priming whereas value was not, and order associated with typical student goals (e.g., achievement) compared with atypical goals (e.g., power). Output order is well suited to bring the study of accessibility to naturalistic studies of goals and goal pursuit.     

Unlike a Fool, He Is Not Defiled: Ascetic Purity and Ethics in the Samnyāsa Upanisads

The authors of the Samnyāsa Upanisads, manuals of ascetic lifestyle and practice, recommend that wanderers renounce behavioral standards of their formerly Brahmin householder life, including ritual purity and familial duties. Patrick Olivelle argues that these ascetics are thereafter considered impure and corpse– or ghoul–like, clearly lacking in dharma. However, these Upanisads counsel pursuing mental purity and moral behavior, and modeling oneself after the perfection of the Absolute. This essay investigates ascetic notions of purity and identity, and virtues such as non–violence and kindness cultivated in forest isolation. Is ascetic dharma universal in intent, and is it conceptually opposed to householder dharma? What type of ethics is admired by the authors, what type deprecated? Olivelle’s position is reevaluated, as is Jeffrey Kripal’s notion that monistic mysticism does not support ethics adequately.     

Global Dominance Outside the Focus of Attention

Identification of the local aspect of a relevant compound stimulus has been found to be delayed by the presence of target-set members at the global aspect of an irrelevant compound stimulus, whereas identification of the global aspect is unaffected by the presence of local target-set members within the irrelevant object (Paquet & Merikle, 1988). This effect has been termed the global category effect , and it suggests that global dominance occurs for objects located outside the attentional focus, as well as within an attended hierarchical object. In the present experiments, attention was directed to the relevant one of two compound stimuli by using either shape information (Experiments 1 and 2) or a 100-msec peripheral rapid onset precue (Experiment 3). Results revealed a global category effect even when the physical features of the displays containing global target-set members within the irrelevant object were closely matched with those of the control displays. Critically, the magnitude of the global category effect was affected by how well attention could be focused on the relevant compound stimulus. These findings suggest (a) that the analysis of global information for irrelevant objects is more elaborate than the simple detection of features; and (b) that both perceptual and attentional mechanisms are involved in global dominance.     

To see or not to see: effects of exercising in mirrored environments on sedentary women's feeling states and self-efficacy.

Effects of a mirrored exercise environment and body image concerns on changes in exercise-induced feeling states and self-efficacy were examined among 58 sedentary women (mean age = 20.7 years). Participants performed a 20-min bout of exercise in front of either a mirrored or a nonmirrored wall. Feeling states and self-efficacy were measured pre- and postexercise. Multilevel linear modeling indicated that regardless of their level of body image concern, women in the mirrored condition felt worse after exercising than women in the unmirrored condition. There were no effects of the environment or body image on self-efficacy. Results are consistent with predictions of objective self-awareness theory and have implications for promoting exercise among sedentary women.     

Mode and tempo relative contributions to “happy-sad” judgements in equitone melodies

Judgement of emotion conveyed by music is determined notably by mode (major-minor) and tempo (fast-slow). This suggestion was examined using the same set of equitone melodies, in two experiments. Melodies were presented to nonmusicians who were required to judge whether the melodies sounded “happy” or “sad” on a 10-point scale. In order to assess the specific and relative contributions of mode and tempo to these emotional judgements, the melodies were manipulated so that the only verying characteristic was either the mode or the tempo in two “isolated” conditions. In two further conditions, mode and tempo manipulations were combined so that mode and tempo either converged towards the same emotion (Convergent condition) or suggested opposite emotions (Divergent condition). The results confirm that both mode and tempo determine the “happy-sad” judgements in isolation, with the tempo being more salient, even when tempo salience was adjusted. The findings further support the view that, in music, structural features that are emotionally meaningful are easy to isolate, and that music is an effective and reliable medium to study emotions.