Empathy,morality and psychopathic traits in women

Empathic and moral processing correlates of psychopathic personality have seldom been studied in women. In this study, we experimentally tested associations between psychopathic personality traits and empathic and moral processing in a female sample, and further directly compared them to results from a male sample. We found that high levels of affective-interpersonal traits were associated with diminished affective response to sad and fearful emotions in others; lower propensity to feel moral emotions; higher endorsement of utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas involving direct harm; and less self-reported difficulty when performing moral decision making. Overall, our findings strengthen the view that the two dimensions of psychopathy make distinct contributions to emotional and moral processing; and demonstrate that, in women, psychopathic personality traits are associated with a similar pattern of empathic and moral processing biases as the one that has been previously reported in men.     

The Joint Impact of Achievement Goals and Performance Feedback on Information Giving

This research examined how performance feedback moderates the effects of individuals' achievement goals on information exchange when carrying out a novel and complex task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that mastery goal individuals who received positive performance feedback gave less modified information about their task performance to their exchange partner relative to both mastery goal individuals who received negative feedback and performance goal individuals (who received either negative or positive feedback). In Experiment 2, we found that relative to performance goals, mastery goals led to a stronger reciprocity orientation and a weaker exploitation orientation. Also, mastery goal individuals provided information of higher quality than performance goal individuals, thereby explaining the observed findings in Experiment 1.     

The place of appraisal in emotion

Abstract

The concept of “appraisal” has been used in the literature in a dual way: to refer to the content of emotional experience, as well as to the cognitive antecedents of emotions. I argue that appraisal in the former sense is what is contained in information in self-reports and that this information is of limited use for making inferences on emotion antecedents. This is so because emotional experience may contain appraisals that are part of the emotional response rather than belonging to its causes. They often result from elaboration of the experience after it has begun to be generated. Although in most or all emotions some cognitive appraisal processes are essential antecedents, these processes may be much simpler than self-reports (and the semantics of emotion words) may suggest. The appraisal processes that account for emotion elicitation can be assumed to be of a quite elementary kind.     

Liberty and equality. A critical response to the debate between James P. Sterba and Jan Narveson

Abstract

This article examines the libertarian arguments of Jan Narveson and James P. Sterba regarding the compatibility of liberty and equality. It then posits that their arguments fail in solving tensions between liberty and equality, because all fundamental rights cannot be derived from liberty. A coherent scheme of human rights is only possible if human dignity is used to balance the conflicting interests of liberty and equality. It then proceeds to make some suggestions on how human dignity as core value might help to solve tensions between equality and liberty.     

Factor structure of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI): findings from a large incarcerated sample

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; S. O. Lilienfeld, 1990; S. O. Lilienfeld & B. P. Andrews, 1996) with a community sample has suggested that the PPI subscales may comprise 2 higher order factors (S. D. Benning, C. J. Patrick, B. M. Hicks, D. M. Blonigen, & R. F. Krueger, 2003). However, substantive and structural evidence raises concerns about the viability of this 2-factor model, particularly in offender populations. The authors attempted to replicate the S. D. Benning et al. 2-factor solution using a large (N = 1,224) incarcerated male sample. Confirmatory factor analysis of this model resulted in poor model fit. Similarly, using the same EFA procedures as did S. D. Benning et al., the authors found little evidence for a 2-factor model. When they followed the recommendations of J.-W. van Prooijen and W. A. van der Kloot (2001) for recovering EFA solutions, model fit results provided some evidence that a 3-factor EFA solution could be recovered via confirmatory factor analysis.     

Health and human services for persons who stutter and education of logopedists in East-European countries

The International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) assessed the therapy status of fluency disorders, service opportunities, and education of logopedists (speech-language pathologists) with a mail survey in Eastern Europe. Information was collected on the following aspects: incidence, prevalence, availability of information, non-therapeutic support for persons who stutter (PWS), providers of diagnostics and therapy, cooperating professionals, therapy approaches, forms, goals, financing, early detection and prevention, training of professionals, specialization in stuttering therapy, needs for improving the situation of PWS, and problems which hinder better care. Stuttering therapy for children is available in many countries and is frequently provided by the educational system. Therapy for adults is provided best by the health services but is not satisfactorily available everywhere. Modern therapeutic approaches coexist with obsolete ones. Lack of resources, awareness, entitlement, and assessment of therapy effectiveness are pervasive problems.

Educational objectives: Readers will be able to describe and evaluate: (1) the therapy status of fluency disorders and service opportunities in various East-European countries; (2) the training of logopedists (speech-language pathologists); (3) specialization in stuttering therapy; and (4) the organizational services for PWS within the health and human service systems.     

Parasympathetic cardio-regulation during social interactions in individuals with obesity—The influence of negative body image

Individuals with obesity in Western societies often face weight-related stigmatization and social exclusion. Recurrent exposure to prejudice and negative social feedback alters one’s behavior in future social interactions. In this study, we aimed to investigate autonomic nervous system and affective responses to social interactions in individuals with obesity. Women and men with (n = 56) and without (n = 56) obesity participated in episodes of social inclusion and social exclusion using a virtual ball-tossing game. During the experiment, heart rate was measured and parasympathetic activity (overall high-frequency power and event-related cardiac slowing) was analyzed. Our results show that in novel social interactions, women with obesity, relative to the other groups, exhibited the strongest increase in parasympathetic activity. Furthermore, parasympathetic activity was related to a more negative body image in individuals with obesity, but not in lean individuals. Additionally, women with obesity reported a stronger decrease in mood after social exclusion than did the other participants. Our results demonstrate influences of objective and subjective bodily characteristics on parasympathetic cardio-regulation during social interactions. In particular, they show behavioral and physiological alterations during social interactions in women with obesity.     

Effect-based control of facial expressions: evidence from action-effect compatibility

Facial expressions such as smiling or frowning are normally followed by, and often aim at, the observation of corresponding facial expressions in social counterparts. Given this contingency between one’s own and other persons’ facial expressions, the production of such facial actions might be the subject of so-called action–effect compatibility effects. In the present Experiment 1, we confirmed this assumption. Participants were required to smile or frown. The generation of these expressions was harder when participants produced predictable feedback from a virtual counterpart that was incompatible with their own facial expression; for example, smiling produced the presentation of a frowning face. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that this effect vanishes with inverted faces as action feedback, which shows that the phenomenon is bound to the instantaneous emotional interpretation of the feedback. These results comply with the assumption that the generation of facial expressions is controlled by an anticipation of these expressions’ effects in the social environment.     

Born to learn or born to win? Birth order effects on achievement goals

Given the widespread use and well-known consequences of achievement goals in different competence-relevant situations, it is important to gain a thorough understanding of how these differences in goal pursuit are formed. Using different analytic approaches, we show that birth order lies at the heart of people’s goal preferences as we consistently found that firstborns have developed a preference for mastery goals (which are based on self-referenced standards of competence), whereas secondborns have developed a preference for performance goals (which are based on other-referenced standards of competence). These findings may help explain why people differently define, experience, and respond to competence-relevant situations, including the workplace, the classroom, and the ball field.