Cognitive and emotional demands of black humour processing: the role of intelligence,aggressiveness and mood

Humour processing is a complex information-processing task that is dependent on cognitive and emotional aspects which presumably influence frame-shifting and conceptual blending, mental operations that underlie humour processing. The aim of the current study was to find distinctive groups of subjects with respect to black humour processing, intellectual capacities, mood disturbance and aggressiveness. A total of 156 adults rated black humour cartoons and conducted measurements of verbal and nonverbal intelligence, mood disturbance and aggressiveness. Cluster analysis yields three groups comprising following properties: (1) moderate black humour preference and moderate comprehension; average nonverbal and verbal intelligence; low mood disturbance and moderate aggressiveness; (2) low black humour preference and moderate comprehension; average nonverbal and verbal intelligence, high mood disturbance and high aggressiveness; and (3) high black humour preference and high comprehension; high nonverbal and verbal intelligence; no mood disturbance and low aggressiveness. Age and gender do not differ significantly, differences in education level can be found. Black humour preference and comprehension are positively associated with higher verbal and nonverbal intelligence as well as higher levels of education. Emotional instability and higher aggressiveness apparently lead to decreased levels of pleasure when dealing with black humour. These results support the hypothesis that humour processing involves cognitive as well as affective components and suggest that these variables influence the execution of frame-shifting and conceptual blending in the course of humour processing.     

Anger toward God: social-cognitive predictors, prevalence, and links with adjustment to bereavement and cancer

A recent model of collective action distinguishes 2 distinct pathways: an emotional pathway whereby anger in response to injustice motivates action and an efficacy pathway where the belief that issues can be solved collectively increases the likelihood that group members take action (van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004). Research supporting this model has, however, focused entirely on relatively normative actions such as participating in demonstrations. We argue that the relations between emotions, efficacy, and action differ for more extreme, nonnormative actions and propose (a) that nonnormative actions are often driven by a sense of low efficacy and (b) that contempt, which, unlike anger, entails psychological distancing and a lack of reconciliatory intentions, predicts nonnormative action. These ideas were tested in 3 survey studies examining student protests against tuition fees in Germany (N = 332), Indian Muslims' action support in relation to ingroup disadvantage (N = 156), and British Muslims' responses to British foreign policy (N = 466). Results were generally supportive of predictions and indicated that (a) anger was strongly related to normative action but overall unrelated or less strongly related to nonnormative action, (b) contempt was either unrelated or negatively related to normative action but significantly positively predicted nonnormative action, and (c) efficacy was positively related to normative action and negatively related to nonnormative action. The implications of these findings for understanding and dealing with extreme intergroup phenomena such as terrorism are discussed.     

Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS) scores: stability and relationships with psychological adjustment

We examined the structural validity, internal consistency (alpha and omega), and test-retest reliability of scores on the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS; Vandiver et al., 2000 ; Worrell, Vandiver, & Cross, 2004 ), as well as the relationship between CRIS scores and several variables related to psychological adjustment. Participants consisted of several groups of African American college students (34 ≤ n ≤ 340) attending a predominantly White university in a Western state. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated an acceptable fit of the data to the theoretical model, and alpha and omega coefficients indicate that CRIS scores have moderate to high internal consistency. CRIS scores also demonstrated stability over periods between 2 and 20 months in ranges that suggest long-term stability of racial attitudes. As predicted by the expanded nigrescence model (Cross & Vandiver, 2001 ), only self-hatred attitudes had consistent, meaningful relationships with psychological adjustment.     

The Effect of Anticipated Service Interruptions on Disaster Preparedness Intentions1

This study examined the effects of anticipated service interruptions on natural disaster preparedness intentions. In a 3 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment, students were exposed to scenarios with varied levels of anticipated basic service interruption (no mention, low, high), and person‐relative‐to event (PrE) factors shown to affect preparedness (low, high), across 2 types of disaster (earthquake, flood). Results indicated no main or interaction effects related to type of natural disasters, significant main effects for levels of PrE and service interruption, and a significant PrE × Service Interruption interaction. Anticipated service interruption affected preparedness, regardless of level of PrE. Bringing service interruption into awareness increases willingness to prepare, suggesting that public‐health efforts should include messages regarding potential interruption of services.     

Why seeking help from teammates is a blessing and a curse: a theory of help seeking and individual creativity in team contexts

Research has not explored the extent to which seeking help from teammates positively relates to a person's own creativity. This question is important to explore as help seeking is commonly enacted in organizations and may come with reciprocation costs that may also diminish creativity. Results based on 291 employees in a single division of a large multinational organization revealed that seeking help predicted creativity and mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity. However, help seekers also incurred reciprocation costs in that they tended to give more help to teammates, and giving help to teammates was negatively related to creativity. In general, giving higher levels of help attenuated the positive relationship between help seeking and creativity. We also tested an integrated model to show that help giving moderated the mediated relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity via help seeking, such that higher levels of help giving attenuated this mediated effect. We discuss theoretical and practical implications recommending additional research regarding the interpersonal creative process in team contexts.     

Does Kantian mental content externalism help metaphysical realists?

Standard interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism take it as a commitment to the view that the objects of cognition are structured or made by conditions imposed by the mind, and therefore to what Van Cleve calls “honest-to-God idealism”. Against this view, many more recent investigations of Kant’s theory of representation and cognitive significance have been able to show that Kant is committed to a certain form of Mental Content Externalism, and therefore to the realist view that the objects involved in experience and empirical knowledge are mind-independent particulars. Some of these recent interpreters have taken this result to demonstrate an internal incompatibility between Kant‘s transcendental idealism and his own model of cognitive content and the environmental conditions of empirical knowledge. Against this suggestion, this article argues that, while Kant’s theory of content is indeed best construed as externalist, an adequately adjusted form of transcendental idealism is not only compatible with this externalism, but in fact supports it. More generally, the article develops the position that mental content externalism cannot force the adoption of metaphysical realism.     

Attention and the acquisition of new knowledge: their effects on older adults' associative memory deficit

Older adults experience a selective associative memory deficit by demonstrating intact item memory relative to impaired associative memory when compared with younger adults. Age-related deficits in associative memory have been suggested to arise from declines in attentional resources, and the role of attention during encoding and retrieval in associative memory for words and their spatial locations was investigated in the current experiment. Additionally, the tendency of younger and older adults to use knowledge acquired during encoding to improve their associative memory judgments through a strategic associative memory process was also investigated. Younger and older adults studied a list of words with each word belonging to one of four categories, which followed one of four mathematical probability structures for their presentation. Older adults exhibited intact item memory and impaired associative memory relative to full attention younger adults. In addition, both older and younger adults demonstrated an ability to engage in strategic associative memory, by learning and later using the probability structure introduced at study to guide their associative memory judgments. In contrast, dividing the attention of younger adults during encoding impaired item memory, associative memory and strategic associative memory, whereas dividing attention at retrieval did not result in similar deficits. These data add to a growing body of literature demonstrating older adults to exhibit a selective associative memory deficit that is not simulated by dividing the attention of younger adults at encoding or retrieval. Furthermore, younger and older adults maintain the ability to use new knowledge to guide their associative judgments.