Is empathy necessary to comprehend the emotional faces? The empathic effect on attentional mechanisms (eye movements), cortical correlates (N200 event-related potentials) and facial behaviour (electromyography) in face processing

The present research explored the effect of social empathy on processing emotional facial expressions. Previous evidence suggested a close relationship between emotional empathy and both the ability to detect facial emotions and the attentional mechanisms involved. A multi-measure approach was adopted: we investigated the association between trait empathy (Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and individuals' performance (response times; RTs), attentional mechanisms (eye movements; number and duration of fixations), correlates of cortical activation (event-related potential (ERP) N200 component), and facial responsiveness (facial zygomatic and corrugator activity). Trait empathy was found to affect face detection performance (reduced RTs), attentional processes (more scanning eye movements in specific areas of interest), ERP salience effect (increased N200 amplitude), and electromyographic activity (more facial responses). A second important result was the demonstration of strong, direct correlations among these measures. We suggest that empathy may function as a social facilitator of the processes underlying the detection of facial emotion, and a general “facial response effect” is proposed to explain these results. We assumed that empathy influences cognitive and the facial responsiveness, such that empathic individuals are more skilful in processing facial emotion.     

Reciprocal Relations Between Emotional Self‐Efficacy Beliefs and Ego‐Resiliency Across Time

The present study examined the longitudinal relations of adolescents' self‐reported ego‐resiliency to their emotional self‐efficacy beliefs in expressing positive emotions and in managing negative emotions as they moved into early adulthood. Participants were 239 females and 211 males with a mean age of 17 years (SD = .80) at T1, 19 years (SD = .80) at T2, 21 years (SD = .82) at T3, and 25 years (SD = .80) at T4. A four‐wave cross‐lagged regression model and mediational analyses were used. In a panel structural equation model controlling for the stability of the constructs, reciprocal relationships across time were found between ego‐resiliency and emotional self‐efficacy beliefs related to the expression of positive emotions and to the management of negative emotions. Moreover, the relation between ego‐resiliency assessed at T1 and T3, and ego‐resiliency assessed at T2 and T4, was mediated through emotional self‐efficacy beliefs (at T2 and T3, respectively), and vice versa. The posited conceptual model accounted for a significant portion of variance in ego‐resiliency and has implications for understanding the development of ego‐resiliency.     

Effectiveness of parent counselling in eating disorders

ABSTRACT

Eating Disorders (ED) are often severe illnesses entailing a heavy burden for families. Family therapy is recommended for young patients, but only a few studies have investigated therapeutic interventions with families tailored also to adult and longstanding patients. We recruited 87 families with daughters affected by an ED, aiming to assess the effectiveness of eight sessions of parent counselling. The primary outcome was the improvement of parents' coping abilities to achieve more effective support skills. Before treatment, 54% of parents showed poor coping resources whereas 43.7% of the sample improved after parent counselling. Parents with good coping resources responded significantly better to this treatment. Although future research is warranted, these preliminary findings support the effectiveness of parent counselling in ED.     

Das Leibgedächtnis. Ein Beitrag aus der Phänomenologie Husserls

Die Unterscheidung von verschiedenen Ged?chtnisformen und -systemen sowie die Beziehung zwischen Ged?chtnis und Leiblichkeit stehen sowohl im Fokus der kognitionswissenschaftlichen, als auch der ph?nomenologischen Debatte. In diesem Artikel wird versucht, beide Ans?tze zum Thema in einen Dialog zu bringen. Das Leibged?chtnis wird hier zun?chst ph?nomenologisch als der konkreteste Ausdruck des impliziten Ged?chtnisses bestimmt. Basierend auf Edmund Husserls Analysen zum Zeitbewusstsein und zur leiblichen Erfahrung werden folglich die Strukturen und die Dynamik des Leibged?chtnisses hervorgehoben. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass das Leibged?chtnis sowohl in den Wahrnehmungsprozessen als auch in der Gestaltung des pr?reflektiven leiblichen Selbstbewusstseins eine unentbehrliche Rolle spielt. Schlie?lich wird die Relevanz der durchgeführten ph?nomenologischen Analysen im Rahmen der aktuellen Debatte über Ged?chtnissysteme in den Kognitionswissenschaften diskutiert.     

Overcoming negative reactions of nonbeneficiaries to employment equity: the effect of participation in policy formulation

In 2 experimental studies, we examined a way to overcome nonbeneficiaries' resistance to employment equity (EE) policies-participation in formulating the policy. We operationalized participation in terms of instrumental versus noninstrumental voice and proposed that nonbeneficiaries would be more likely to support an EE policy when allowed instrumental participation in the policy's development. Further, we proposed psychological ownership as the mediating mechanism underlying the effects of instrumental participation. Study 1 examined participation effects for a gender-based EE policy and Study 2 for a race-based EE policy. As predicted, we found that nonbeneficiaries (men in Study 1; Whites in Study 2) in the instrumental participation condition expressed greater behavioral intentions to promote the policy (Studies 1 and 2) and were more likely to engage in a behavior promoting the policy (Study 2). We also found support for psychological ownership as the underlying mediating mechanism in both studies. Contributions to theory and practice are discussed.     

In the face of emotions: event-related potentials in supraliminal and subliminal facial expression recognition

Is facial expression recognition marked by specific event-related potentials (ERPs) effects? Are conscious and unconscious elaborations of emotional facial stimuli qualitatively different processes? In Experiment 1, ERPs elicited by supraliminal stimuli were recorded when 21 participants viewed emotional facial expressions of four emotions and a neutral stimulus. Two ERP components (N2 and P3) were analyzed for their peak amplitude and latency measures. First, emotional face-specificity was observed for the negative deflection N2, whereas P3 was not affected by the content of the stimulus (emotional or neutral). A more posterior distribution of ERPs was found for N2. Moreover, a lateralization effect was revealed for negative (right lateralization) and positive (left lateralization) facial expressions. In Experiment 2 (20 participants), 1-ms subliminal stimulation was carried out. Unaware information processing was revealed to be quite similar to aware information processing for peak amplitude but not for latency. In fact, unconscious stimulation produced a more delayed peak variation than conscious stimulation.     

School Sense of Community,Teacher Support,and Students’ School Safety Perceptions

This study examined the association between two characteristics of school climate (sense of community and teacher support, measured both at the individual and at the school level) and students’ feelings of being unsafe at school. The study involved a sample of 49,638 students aged 10–18 years who participated in the 2010–2012 California Healthy Kids Survey. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), our findings revealed that, at the individual level, students perceiving higher levels of sense of community and teacher support at school were less likely to feel unsafe within the school environment. At the school level, sense of community was negatively associated with unsafe feelings, whereas there was no association between school‐level teacher support and feelings of being unsafe at school.     

Downward comparison in everyday life: reconciling self-enhancement models with the mood-cognition priming model

Two models concerning downward comparison are motivational; they predict that when people are unhappy, they make downward comparisons to self-enhance (e.g., Wills, 1981). In contrast, the affect-cognition priming model (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992) predicts that unhappy people make upward comparisons because negative affect makes mood-congruent comparisons more accessible. The authors propose that both motivational and accessibility factors influence social comparisons. A study of undergraduates' self-recorded everyday comparisons supported this view. In addition, results (a) pointed to motivational influences other than self-enhancement and an accessibility influence other than mood-congruent priming, (b) suggested that motivated and unintended comparisons may differ somewhat in their susceptibility to motivational and accessibility influences, and (c) identified challenges to both self-enhancement and priming models.     

Unconscious odour conditioning 25 years later: Revisiting and extending ‘Kirk-Smith, Van Toller and Dodd’

The pioneering work by Kirk-Smith, Van Toller, and Dodd [Kirk-Smith, M. D., Van Toller, C., & Dodd, G. H. (1983). Unconscious odour conditioning in human subjects. Biological Psychology, 17, 221–231], established that an unnoticed odorant paired with an emotionally meaningful task can influence mood and attitudes when the odorant alone is re-encountered subsequently. This study was particularly important in highlighting unconscious odour learning processes as they may happen in everyday life. However, it was severely criticized by Black and Smith [Black, S. L., & Smith, D. G. (1994). Has odor conditioning been demonstrated? A critique of “Unconscious odour conditioning in human subjects”. Biological Psychology, 37, 265–267] on methodological grounds. In the present paper, we replicated and extended Kirk-Smith et al.’s investigation taking into account Black and Smith’s criticisms and carrying out additional controls to improve the validity of the study. The results confirm the initial findings of Kirk-Smith and colleagues by demonstrating the effectiveness of olfactory stimuli in inducing conditioned hedonic reactions even when presented below the level of awareness.     

What Demonstrative Induction Can Do Against the Threat of Underdetermination: Bohr,Heisenberg, and Pauli on Spectroscopic Anomalies (1921–24)

In this paper I argue that demonstrative induction can deal with the problem ofthe underdetermination of theory by evidence. I present the historical case studyof spectroscopy in the early 1920s, where the choice among different theorieswas apparently underdetermined by spectroscopic evidence concerning the alkalidoublets and their anomalous Zeeman effect. By casting this historical episodewithin the methodological framework of demonstrative induction, the localunderdetermination among Bohr's, Heisenberg's, and Pauli's rival theories isresolved in favour of Pauli's theory of the electron's spin.