A processing model for children's sentence comprehension: A discussion of two studies by Janellen Huttenlocher

Huttenlocher and coworkers studied children's comprehension of sentences by looking at the times required by these children to put an object in the place specifiec by the sentence. The explanations offered by these investigators for their data are discussed. A model which assumes that three processing stages are involved in comprehension is proposed to explain Huttenlocher's data. In these stages, the experimenter's sentence is transformed so as to derive an active sentence in which the to-be-moved object is the grammatical subject, and which specifies the relative position to which this object has to be moved. The model yields reaction time predictions which seem to fit the data well.     

On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation

Religious and conspiracy beliefs share the feature of assuming powerful forces that determine the fate of the world. Correspondingly, they have been theorized to address similar psychological needs and to be based on similar cognitions, but there exist little authoritative answers about their relationship. We delineate two theory-driven possibilities. If conspiracy theories and religions serve as surrogates for each other by fulfilling similar needs, the two beliefs should be negatively correlated. If conspiracy and religious beliefs stem from the same values and cognitions, this would speak for a positive correlation that might be diminished—for example—by controlling for shared political ideologies. We approached the question with a meta-analysis (N = 10,242), partial correlations from large Christian-dominated datasets from Germany, Poland, and the United States (N = 12,612), and a preregistered U.S. study (N = 500). The results indicate that the correlations between religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement were positive, and political orientation shared large parts of this covariance. Correlations of religiosity with the more need-related conspiracy mentality differed between countries. We conclude that similarities in the explanatory style and ideologies seem to be central for the relation between intrinsic religiosity and endorsing conspiracy theories, but psychological needs only play a minor role.     

The Development of Charismatic Leaders

This paper explores the origins of leadership potential and motivation for leadership, primarily with regard to two types of leaders: personalized and socialized charismatic leaders. Bowlby's attachment theory (1969, 1973) provides a theoretical basis for determining an individual's potential to be in leadership positions. The "internal working model," formed (according to Bowlby) in the course of attachment processes in infancy, has a considerable impact on self-perception, which may later affect the development of "ego resources" required for leadership. The motivation to be a leader is analyzed with the help of various psychodynamic concepts and models.     

What do I think you're doing? Action identification and mind attribution

The authors examined how a perceiver's identification of a target person's actions co-varies with attributions of mind to the target. The authors found in Study 1 that the attribution of intentionality and cognition to a target was associated with identifying the target's action in terms of high-level effects rather than low-level details. In Study 2, both action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, and in Study 3, they were reduced for a target suffering misfortune. In Study 4, it was again found that action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, but like that for the self or a liked other, positive actions were identified at higher levels than negative actions, with the reverse being true for disliked others. In Study 5, the authors found that instructing participants to adopt the target's perspective did not affect mind attribution but did lead to higher level identifications of the target's actions.     

Accurate identification of fear facial expressions predicts prosocial behavior

The fear facial expression is a distress cue that is associated with the provision of help and prosocial behavior. Prior psychiatric studies have found deficits in the recognition of this expression by individuals with antisocial tendencies. However, no prior study has shown accuracy for recognition of fear to predict actual prosocial or antisocial behavior in an experimental setting. In 3 studies, the authors tested the prediction that individuals who recognize fear more accurately will behave more prosocially. In Study 1, participants who identified fear more accurately also donated more money and time to a victim in a classic altruism paradigm. In Studies 2 and 3, participants' ability to identify the fear expression predicted prosocial behavior in a novel task designed to control for confounding variables. In Study 3, accuracy for recognizing fear proved a better predictor of prosocial behavior than gender, mood, or scores on an empathy scale.     

Social Neuroscience: Progress and Implications for Mental Health

ABSTRACT— Social neuroscience is a new, interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior. Social neuroscience capitalizes on biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social behavior, and it uses social and behavioral constructs and data to inform and refine theories of neural organization and function. We focus here on the progress and potential of social neuroscience in the area of mental health. Research in social neuroscience has grown dramatically in recent years. Among the most active areas of research we found are brain-imaging studies in normal children and adults; animal models of social behavior; studies of stroke patients; imaging studies of psychiatric patients; and research on social determinants of peripheral neural, neuroendocrine, and immunological processes. We also found that these areas of research are proceeding along largely independent trajectories. Our goals in this article are to review the development of this field, examine some currently promising approaches, identify obstacles and opportunities for future advances and integration, and consider how this research can inform work on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.     

Relationship of Inglehart's and Schwartz's value dimensions revisited

This study examines the relationship between Inglehart's and Schwartz's value dimensions—both at the individual and the country levels. By rotating one set of items towards the other, we show that these value dimensions have more in common than previously reported. The ranking of countries (N = 47) based on Schwartz's Embeddedness—Autonomy and the Survival—Self‐Expression dimensions reached a maximum of similarity, r = .82, after rotating Inglehart's factor scores 27 degrees clockwise. The correlation between the other pair of dimensions (Schwartz's Hierarchy‐Mastery—Egalitarianism‐Harmony and Inglehart's Traditional—Secular‐Rational values) was near zero before and after rotation. At the individual level (N = 46,444), positive correlations were found for Schwartz's Conservation—Openness dimension with both of Inglehart's dimensions (Survival—Self‐Expression and Traditional—Secular‐Rational values). The highest correlation with this Schwartz dimension was obtained at the Secular‐Rational/Self‐Expression diagonal, r = .24, after rotating the factor scores 45 degrees clockwise. We conclude that Schwartz's and Inglehart's originally proposed two‐dimensional value structures share one dimension at the country level and some commonality at the individual level, whereas the respective other pair of dimensions seem to be more or less unrelated.     

Propositional discourse logic

A novel normal form for propositional theories underlies the logic pdl, which captures some essential features of natural discourse, independent from any particular subject matter and related only to its referential structure. In particular, pdlallows to distinguish vicious circularity from the innocent one, and to reason in the presence of inconsistency using a minimal number of extraneous assumptions, beyond the classical ones. Several, formally equivalent decision problems are identified as potential applications: non-paradoxical character of discourses, admissibility of arguments in argumentation networks, propositional satisfiability, and the existence of kernels of directed graphs. Directed graphs provide the basis for the semantics of pdl and the paper concludes by an overview of relevant graph-theoretical results and their applications in diagnosing paradoxical character of natural discourses.     

Reflexivity in Teams: A Review and New Perspectives

Team reflexivity posits that the extent to which teams reflect upon and adapt their functioning is positively related to team performance. While remarkable progress has been made to provide evidence of this relationship, the underlying framework is missing elements of current theoretical streams for analyzing and describing teamwork, leaving the diversity of effects of team reflexivity often untouched. In this article, we present an update for this framework, by reviewing previous research on reflexivity, addressing gaps in the literature, and revising the original model by integrating feedback and dynamic team effectiveness frameworks for describing temporal developments of reflexivity. We furthermore propose a new dimensional structure for reflexivity, relying on prior work conceptualizing teams as information-processing systems that learn and advance through social-cognitive elements. Our model is therefore not only suitable for explaining the diverse set of relationships between team reflexivity on outcomes, but also provides valuable directions for viewing reflexivity as process that takes place during both transition and action phases of teamwork. We conclude with implications for managers, identify limitations, and propose an agenda for further research into this area. This article contributes an extended perspective relevant for further theory development and for effectively managing reflexivity in teams.     

Reluctance to Use Host Social Services by Ethnic Minorities: The Role of Consensual Separation,Threat to Heritage Culture and Misunderstanding of the Host Society Language

The main goal of this study was to examine the relationships between two types of separation orientations, namely forced and consensual separation, and the use of French social service community centers. Participants were two groups of young women, both members of ethnic minorities: Turkish (n?=?42) and North African (n?=?41). The results showed that young Turkish women were more oriented towards consensual separation than young North African women. Preference for a separation strategy was positively associated with both the perception of a threat to heritage culture and difficulties in understanding the language of the social workers. The more participants perceived social workers as a source of threat to their heritage culture and as speaking a language they had difficulty understanding, the less frequently they made use of the services offered at the community centers. Socio-demographic variables such as education level and marital status were found to play a significant role in these findings.