GORDON KAUFMAN'S HUMANIZING CONCEPT OF GOD

Why should Gordon Kaufman's mid‐career theological method be of renewed interest to contemporary theists? Two distinguishing characteristics of the West today are its increasing religious pluralism and the growing numbers of theists who rely on hybrid approaches to construct concepts of God. Kaufman's method is well suited to this current state of affairs because it is open to diverse religious and theological perspectives and to perspectives from science and secular humanism. It also militates against the weaknesses inherent to hybrid approaches—ad hoc constructs of God unable to motivate their holders to overcome human self‐centeredness and so to contribute to the well‐being and fulfillment of others. It achieves this by providing checks to reduce the risk of producing human‐writ‐large God‐constructs. Lastly, Kaufman's method provides criteria to help theists identify humane and humanizing experiences, relationships, concepts, images, and texts (i.e., the basic material from which God‐constructs are fashioned) from the plethora of options available, whether religious, cultural, or secular.     

Main and moderating effects of self-control,organizational justice,and emotional labour on counterproductive behaviour at work

Abstract

Considerable attention has been devoted recently to changes in the psychological contract and the implications for HRM. However, much of our understanding of both the socio-cognitive processes involved in the contracting process and the ability of national HRM systems to accommodate the new demands of psychological contracting is accultural or unicultural. This article reviews the content, process, and context of changes in the contract within Europe. A model of the relationship between national culture and other cross-national factors and the process of contracting is developed.     

Bonobos and orangutans,but not chimpanzees,flexibly plan for the future in a token-exchange task

Non-human animals, including great apes, have been suggested to share some of the skills for planning that humans commonly exhibit. A crucial difference between human and non-human planning may relate to the diversity of domains and needs in which this skill is expressed. Although great apes can save tools for future use, there is little evidence yet that they can also do so in other contexts. To investigate this question further, we presented the apes with a planning token-exchange task that differed from standard tool-use tasks. Additionally, we manipulated the future outcome of the task to investigate planning flexibility. In the Exchange condition, subjects had to collect, save and transport tokens because they would need them 30 min later to exchange them for food with a human, i.e., “bring-back” response. In the Release condition, the collection and transport of tokens were not needed as no exchange took place after 30 min. Out of 13 subjects, eight solved the task at least once in the Exchange condition, with chimpanzees appearing less successful than the other species. Importantly, three individuals showed a clear differential response between conditions by producing more “bring-back” responses in the Exchange than in the Release conditions. Those bonobo and orangutan individuals hence adapted their planning behavior according to changing needs (i.e., they brought tokens back significantly more often when they would need them). Bonobos and orangutans, unlike chimpanzees, planned outside the context of tool-use, thus challenging the idea that planning in these species is purely domain-specific.     

Attentional bias in post-traumatic stress disorder diminishes after symptom amelioration

Background

Avoidance and hypervigilance to reminders of a traumatic event are among the main characteristics of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Attentional bias toward aversive cues in PTSD has been hypothesized as being part of the dysfunction causing etiology and maintenance of PTSD. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cognitive strategy underlying attentional bias in PTSD and whether normal cognitive processing is restored after a treatment suppressing core PTSD symptoms.

Methods

Nineteen healthy controls were matched for age, sex and education to 19 PTSD patients. We used the emotional stroop and detection of target tasks, before and after an average of 4.1 sessions of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.

Results

We found that on both tasks, patients were slower than controls in responding in the presence of emotionally negative words compared to neutral ones. After symptoms removal, patients no longer had attentional bias, and responded similarly to controls.

Conclusion

These results support the existence of an attentional bias in PTSD patients due to a disengagement difficulty. There was also preliminary evidence that the disengagement was linked to PTSD symptomatology. It should be further explored whether attentional bias and PTSD involve common brain mechanisms.     

Serial position effects in the identification of letters, digits, symbols, and shapes in peripheral vision

Three experiments measured serial position functions for character-in-string identification in peripheral vision. In Experiment 1, random strings of five letters (e.g., P F H T M) or five symbols (e.g., λ Б Þ Ψ ¥) were briefly presented to the left or to the right of fixation, and identification accuracy was measured at each position in the string using a post-cued two-alternative forced-choice task (e.g., was there a T or a B at the 4th position). In Experiment 2 the performance to letter stimuli was compared with familiar two-dimensional shapes (e.g., square, triangle, circle), and in Experiment 3 we compared digit strings (e.g., 6 3 7 9 2) with a set of keyboard symbols (e.g., % 4 @ < ?). Eye-movements were monitored to ensure central fixation. The results revealed a triple interaction between the nature of the stimulus (letters/digits vs. symbols/shapes), eccentricity, and visual field. In all experiments this interaction reflected a selective left visual field advantage for letter or digit stimuli compared with symbol or shape stimuli for targets presented at the greatest eccentricity. The results are in line with the predictions of the modified receptive field hypothesis proposed by Tydgat and Grainger (2009), and the predictions of the SERIOL2 model of letter string encoding.     

Individuals in mind,mates by heart: Individualistic self-construal and collective value orientation as predictors of group creativity

It has been argued that groups with individualistic norms are more creative than groups with collectivistic norms (Goncalo & Staw, 2006). This conclusion, however, may be too unspecific, as individualism–collectivism denotes a multidimensional continuum and may affect people's self-construal and values. This study analyzed to what extent these dimensions differentially impact upon group creativity. After manipulating self-construal and value orientation, 58 triads engaged in a brainstorming task. Groups with collectivistic value orientation generated more ideas than groups with individualistic value orientation. Furthermore, there was an interaction between value orientation and self-construal on originality: ideas were more original when group members combined collectivistic value orientation with individualistic self-construal. Thus, groups should integrate elements of both individualism and collectivism to ensure high creativity.     

When (not) to empathize: The differential effects of combined emotion recognition and empathic concern on client satisfaction across professions

Motivation and Emotion - Previous research found inconsistent associations between individuals’ emotion recognition ability and their work-related outcomes. This research project focuses on...