The positive effect of negative emotions in protracted conflict: The case of anger

Extant research has demonstrated the destructive role that anger plays in the context of intergroup conflict. Among other findings, it has been established that anger elevates public support for aggressive and violent actions towards the outgroup. This finding has been explained by the unique cognitive appraisals, emotional goal, and response tendencies associated with anger, typified by appraised relative strength and high control, motivation to correct perceived wrongdoings, and willingness to engage in risky behavior. In the current work we examine an innovative assumption, according to which the apparent destructive implications of anger are a result of situational range restriction—namely, that anger as a group emotion has been examined almost solely at the escalation stage of conflict. Instead, we propose that the same unique characteristics of anger can bring about constructive political attitudes and support for non-violent policies in the context of systematic efforts to de-escalate a protracted conflict.To test this hypothesis we conducted two studies in which we examined the relationship between anger and the willingness to engage in positive risk-taking and support non-violent policies in the context of political negotiations between adversaries. Results indicate a significant positive relationship, supporting the hypothesis that anger is not an exclusively militant emotion, and its effects are situationally dependent.     

The humanity of what we eat: Conceptions of human uniqueness among vegetarians and omnivores

Studies on dehumanization demonstrated that denying certain human characteristics might serve as a strategy for moral disengagement. Meat consumption—especially in the times of cruel animal farming—is related to the exclusion of animals from the human scope of justice. In the present research, it was hypothesized that the conception of human uniqueness (denying animals certain psychological characteristics) might be a strategy of meat‐eaters' moral disengagement. Three studies compared the extent to which vegetarians and omnivores attribute psychological characteristics to humans versus animals. In Study 1, vegetarian participants ascribed more secondary (uniquely human) emotions to animals than did the omnivores; however, there were no differences in primary (animalistic) emotions. Study 2 showed that omnivores distinguish human characteristics from animalistic ones more sharply than vegetarians do, while both groups do not differ in distinguishing human characteristics from mechanistic ones. Study 3 confirmed the results by showing that omnivores ascribed less secondary emotions to traditionally edible animals than to the non‐edible species, while vegetarians did not differentiate these animals. These results support the claim that the lay conceptions of ‘human uniqueness’ are strategies of moral disengagement. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived size and perceived direction: the interplay of the two descriptors of visual space

The stimulus in the outdoor psychophysical experiment was formed by two rods placed on the ground plane over a range of possible distances and orientations. Observers estimated its size and direction by positioning the third rod in the neighbouring space to form an evenly spaced collinear triple of rods. The data revealed interesting similarities between the profiles of the deviations in both judgments: for size judgments, the variability of the responses was least when the targets were at a frontal orientation and gradually increased as the orientation approached the medial plane. For direction judgments, on the other hand, the variability of the responses was least when the stimuli were aligned with the observer's line of sight and gradually increased as the orientation approached the frontoparallel plane. The finding of inverse relationship between the precision of size and direction judgments is interpreted as a consequence of the unequal precision in localisation between the frontal and in-depth dimensions of visual space. The question of the best parameterisation of the observers' responses is discussed.     

Zur Prävalenz von Depersonalisation und Derealisation in der stationären Psychotherapie

Depersonalization (DP) and derealization (DR) remain poorly recognized in clinical routine. Active exploration through structured interviews is strongly recommended, because patients rarely describe spontaneously their experiences with DP/DR. 143 psychosomatic, first-admission inpatients were interviewed about the 1-month prevalence of DP/DR using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV dissociative disorders. Additionally, the German questionnaires of the Cambridge Depersonalization Scale, the Dissociative Experiences Scale, the SCL-90-R and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems were used. In the sample we found a prevalence of 23.1% (N=33) for depersonalization-derealization syndrom (ICD-10 F48.1) and 7% (N=10) for secondary pathological DP/DR. A total percentage of 62.9% reported DP/DR to some degree or other. There was a noticeably high co-occurrence of anxiety disorders in patients with pathological DP/DR. Patients with pathological DP/DR were generally more impaired, suffered many more interpersonal problems and were particularly characterized by introversion. Considering the high prevalence of this phenomenon, more attention should be paid to DP/DR in routine diagnostic procedures, treatment and research.     

Orthographic neighborhood effects in the right but not in the left cerebral hemisphere

Two lexical decision experiments investigated orthographic neighborhood effects in the hemispheres. In the first experiment, lexical decision was affected by orthographic neighborhood size when stimuli were presented to the right hemisphere (RH) but not to the left hemisphere (LH). In a four-field masked-prime lexical decision task (Experiment 2), a larger shared orthographic neighborhood between prime and target facilitated lexical decision in the RH but not in the LH. The patterns of activation invoked in the two cerebral hemispheres by a written word and its orthographic neighbors may be qualitatively different.     

Multinational data show that conspiracy beliefs are associated with the perception (and reality) of poor national economic performance

While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country-level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed 6723 participants from 36 countries. In line with predictions, propensity to believe conspiracy theories was negatively associated with perceptions of current and future national economic vitality. Furthermore, countries with higher GDP per capita tended to have lower belief in conspiracy theories. The data suggest that conspiracy beliefs are not just caused by intrapsychic factors but are also shaped by difficult economic circumstances for which distrust might have a rational basis.     

Arithmetical completeness versus relative completeness

In this paper we study the status of the arithmetical completeness of dynamic logic. We prove that for finitistic proof systems for dynamic logic results beyond arithmetical completeness are very unlikely. The role of the set of natural numbers is carefully analyzed.     

Patients’ Attitudes Towards Disclosure of Genetic Test Results to Family Members: The Impact of Patients’ Sociodemographic Background and Counseling Experience

Many factors predict the intention to disclose genetic information to relatives. The article examines the impact of patients’ socio-demographic factors on their intention to disclose genetic testing results to their relatives. Data were collected in eight genetic clinics in Israel. Patients were requested to fill in a questionnaire after counseling. A convenience sample of 564 participants who visited these clinics was collected for a response rate of 85 %. Of them, 282 participants came for susceptibility testing for hereditary cancers (cancer group), and 282 for genetic screening tests (prenatal group). In the cancer group, being secular and having more years of education correlated positively with the intention to disclose test results to relatives. In the prenatal group, being married and female correlated positively with the intention to disclose. In the cancer group, being religious and with less years of education correlated positively with the view that the clinician should deliver the results to the family. In the prenatal group, being male and unmarried correlated positively with this belief. In both groups, being of young age correlated with the perception that genetic information is private. Varied sociodemographic factors affect the intention to inform family members. Thus, knowing the social background of patients will shed light on people’s attitudes to genetic information and will help clinicians provide effective counseling in discussions with patients about the implications of test results for relatives.     

Visual routines for extracting magnitude relations

Linking relations described in text with relations in visualizations is often difficult. We used eye tracking to measure the optimal way to extract such relations in graphs, college students, and young children (6- and 8-year-olds). Participants compared relational statements (“Are there more blueberries than oranges?”) with simple graphs, and two systematic patterns emerged: eye movements that followed the verbal order of the question (inspecting the “blueberry” value first) versus those that followed a left-first bias (regardless of the left value’s identity). Question-order patterns led substantially to faster responses and increased in prevalence with age, whereas the left-first pattern led to far slower responses and was the dominant strategy for younger children. We argue that the optimal way to verify a verbally expressed relation’s consistency with visualization is for the eyes to mimic the verbal ordering but that this strategy requires executive control and coordination with language.