Did the instigator intend to provoke? A key moderator in the relation between trait aggression and aggressive behavior

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cross‐situational consistency of trait aggression in provoking situations where an instigator (1) clearly intended to provoke, (2) clearly intended not to provoke, or (3) where presence of intention was ambiguous. It was hypothesized that cross‐situational consistency would be substantial, and that trait aggression would have the greatest impact on aggressive behavior in ambiguous situations. Participants were 80 female and 38 male undergraduate students. They completed the Aggression Questionnaire [Buss and Perry, J Pers Soc Psychol, 1992, pp. 452], read a set of 24 vignettes depicting conflict situations and rated their perceived likelihood of becoming angry and aggressive in those situations. An overall cross‐situational consistency correlation coefficient of r=.47 was found. It was also found that trait aggression had a significantly greater effect on the likelihood of aggressive responses in the ambiguous and intentional situations than it did in the unintentional situations. These results are discussed in relation to trait activation and hostile attribution bias. Aggr. Behav. 30:409–424, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Different forms of intergroup contact with former adversary are linked to distinct reconciliatory acts through symbolic and realistic threat

In a society burdened with the most severe type of intergroup conflict, we examined the association between willingness to reconcile with former adversary, intergroup contact with, and perceived threat from former adversary. We focused on three reconciliatory acts—forgiveness to the outgroup, support for ingroup apology and support for financial compensation to the outgroup. We included different forms of positive and negative intergroup contact—direct and indirect (extended and mass‐mediated). In the link between contact and reconciliation, we tested the mediating role of two types of intergroup threat—realistic and symbolic. The sample comprised Bosniaks (N = 267) and Croats (N = 278) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both samples, reconciliation associated with indirect forms of intergroup contact even when controlling for its link with direct contact. This indicates the potential of indirect contact to promote reconciliation in the lack of direct contact, characteristic for segregated post‐conflict societies. Symbolic threat mediated the relationship between intergroup contact and symbolic forms of reconciliation—forgiveness and support for ingroup apology. Realistic threat mediated the link between intergroup contact and a more tangible form of reconciliation—support for financial compensation. This highlights the importance of considering different types intergroup threat when targeting distinct reconciliatory acts. Our results suggest that practitioners promoting reconciliation in post‐conflict societies need to implement different means when tailoring interventions that should enhance different sides of peace‐making process.     

A Room with an Overview: the Effects of Schematic Processing,Mood and Exposure Duration on Memory Accuracy

Studies often posit the processing dichotomy of positive vs. negative affect. People in a negative mood tend to process information in a more systematic manner while those in a positive mood tend to adopt a more heuristic, schema-directed processing style. A 3 (mood: negative vs. neutral vs. positive) × 2 (exposure duration: one vs. five minutes) × 2 (schema-consistent vs. schema-inconsistent items) experimental design was employed in a real-life setting and, using the incidental learning paradigm, to test recognition memory for objects in a typical office. Following the affect-as-information approach, we hypothesized that induced positive mood would lead participants to engage in a more schema-directed processing leading to less accurate memory, while induced negative mood will lead to a more analytic and detailed processing, leading to higher memory accuracy and fewer memory errors. Results revealed a significant effect of duration, indicating that participants made more schema-consistent errors when their stay in the office was shorter. The significant interaction of mood and exposure duration suggests that effect of the exposure on memory accuracy applies to people in negative and neutral mood, while people in positive mood tend to maintain schema-directed processing style for longer period of time.     

Metaphors for the Mobile Internet

This paper examines a set of metaphors for describing, understanding and characterising the Mobile Internet. The metaphors are a result of extensive user studies in the US, Hong Kong and Europe in the late 2006 and early 2007. In these studies, we explored the user experience related to the Mobile Internet through in-depth contextual interviews with over 40 users, including a group in the US, which was deprived of their standard Internet PC access for several days. Our analysis of the collected data resulted in six metaphors that can be used as powerful creative tools in designing Mobile Internet applications.     

Beliefs in Equality for Women and Men as Related to Economic Factors in Central and Eastern Europe and the United States

Do economic indicators predict the general level of support for gender equality? This question was investigated in a sample of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has been undergoing rapid economic changes since the early 1990s. In this overall sample of male and female college students from ten countries, including the United States as a comparison, the predicted association between stronger beliefs in gender role egalitarianism and positive economic factors was generally supported. Also, consistent with other research, women were more in support of gender equality than men were. There was no support for a predicted trend in less support for gender equality over the time period of the present study.     

A Cut-Elimination Proof in Positive Relevant Logic with Necessity

Studia Logica - This paper presents a sequent calculus for the positive relevant logic with necessity and a proof that it admits the elimination of cut.     

Neurocognitive dimensions of lexical complexity in Polish

Neuroimaging studies of English suggest that speech comprehension engages two interdependent systems: a bilateral fronto-temporal network responsible for general perceptual and cognitive processing, and a specialised left-lateralised network supporting specifically linguistic processing. Using fMRI we test this hypothesis in Polish, a Slavic language with rich and diverse morphology. We manipulated general perceptual complexity (presence or absence of an onset-embedded stem, e.g. kotlet ‘cutlet’ vs. kot ‘cat’) and specifically linguistic complexity (presence of an inflectional affix, e.g. dom ‘house, Nom’ vs. dom-u ‘house, Gen’). Non-linguistic complexity activated a bilateral network, as in English, but we found no differences between inflected and uninflected nouns. Instead, all types of words activated left inferior frontal areas, suggesting that all Polish words can be considered linguistically ‘complex’ in processing terms. The results support a dual network hypothesis, but highlight differences between languages like English and Polish, and underline the importance of cross-linguistic comparisons.     

Exposure to acute physical and psychological stress alters the response of rat macrophages to corticosterone, neuropeptide Y and beta-endorphin

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of acute exposure to electric tail shock stress (ES) and a stress witnessing procedure (SW), as models for physical and psychological stress paradigms, respectively on adherence, phagocytosis and hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) release from rat peritoneal macrophages. In addition, we studied the in vitro effects of corticosterone (CORT), neuropeptide Y (NPY) and beta-endorphin (BE) on adherence, phagocytosis and H(2)O(2) release from macrophages isolated from control rats and from rats that had been exposed to ES or SW procedures 24 h earlier. ES and SW comparably diminished phagocytosis and H(2)O(2) release, but did not influence macrophage adherence. In vitro treatment with CORT and NPY notably suppressed phagocytosis and potentiated H(2)O(2) release from macrophages. BE suppressed both phagocytosis and H(2)O(2) release from macrophages. Previous exposure to ES and SW altered the responsiveness of the isolated macrophages to their in vitro treatment with mediators of stress, making the cells less sensitive to the influence of CORT and NPY and to a lesser extent to BE. It could be concluded that changes in the local macrophage milieu induced by ES and SW 24 h earlier modify macrophage responses to subsequent in vitro exposure to the stress mimics, CORT, NPY and BE.     

Cross-cultural differences in temperament: Comparing paternal ratings of US and Dutch infants

This study conducted longitudinal comparisons of US and Dutch paternal ratings of temperament, measured via the Infant Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised, at 4 months (US n = 99; Dutch n = 127) and 12 months (US n = 66; Dutch n = 112) of age. US fathers rated their infant higher in the broad temperament trait Surgency, and its subscales vocal reactivity, high-intensity pleasure, and activity level. US fathers also rated their infants higher in negative emotionality, and its subscales of sadness, distress to limitations, and fear. Dutch infants received higher ratings in falling reactivity. Though the cultures did not differ in ratings of Orienting/regulatory capacity, US infants were higher on the subscale duration of orienting, and lower in soothability. Significant culture-by-age and culture-by-gender interactions were also noted. Overall, results are largely consistent with those reported for Dutch mothers and speak to considerable differences in early temperament development between cultures viewed as largely similar because of their Western/individualistic orientations.