When death is not a problem: Regulating implicit negative affect under mortality salience

Terror management theory assumes that death arouses existential anxiety in humans which is suppressed in focal attention. Whereas most studies provide indirect evidence for negative affect under mortality salience by showing cultural worldview defenses and self‐esteem strivings, there is only little direct evidence for implicit negative affect under mortality salience. In the present study, we assume that this implicit affective reaction towards death depends on people's ability to self‐regulate negative affect as assessed by the personality dimension of action versus state orientation. Consistent with our expectations, action‐oriented participants judged artificial words to express less negative affect under mortality salience compared to control conditions whereas state‐oriented participants showed the reversed pattern.     

Discourses of Love,Compassion, and Belonging: Reframing Christianity for a Secular Audience

Religious plurality has implications for religious organisations active within the public realm. Using semi-structured interviews, I examine how Christians and Christian organisations are framing faith discourses so that they resonate with religiously neutral discourses dominant in the public sphere. There are indications of a shift towards the use of profane terms instead of sacred terms to explain aspects of the Christian faith and Christian teachings of love, compassion, and belonging are amplified to counter criticisms that Christianity is a threat to liberal rights and beliefs. This article conceptualises these discourses as two social action frames: the ‘Love Frame’ and the ‘Inclusivity Frame’. I do not refute claims that the social significance of religion is declining but argue that Christians and Christian organisations are working within the confines of secular discourses to disseminate their messages in order to build credibility as egalitarian public service providers.     

The short-form Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ-SF): a validation study with federal offenders

The 12-item short form of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ-SF) was originally developed by Bryant and Smith (2001) and modified and confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis with mentally ill offenders by Diamond, Wang, and Buffington-Vollum (2005). In the current study, construct validity of the BPAQ-SF was assessed with a sample of 1,181 male and 435 female general population federal offenders. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor structure. Tests confirmed factorial invariance across gender for all loadings and covariances. Reliabilities were found to be adequate and comparable to those found in the studies cited above. Concurrent validity was supported by high correlations between the subscales of the BPAQ-SF and several relevant subscales on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). In addition, those offenders with prior history of violence, head injuries, childhood abuse, residential treatment, custody, or foster care as a child had higher scores on the BPAQ subscales.     

A comparison of intra- and inter-limb relative motion information in modelling a novel motor skill

The importance of intra- and inter-limb relative motion in modelling a whole body coordination skill was examined. Participants were assigned to one of four groups: Full-Body point light model of a cricket bowler, INTRA-LIMB relative motion of the bowling arm, INTER-LIMB relative motions of the right and left wrists or NO-Relative motion, showing only the motions of the right wrist. During 60 acquisition trials, participants viewed the model five times before each 10-trial block. Retention was examined the following day. Although all groups improved on intra-limb coordination of the bowling arm, the INTRA-LIMB and FULL-BODY groups were more accurate than the INTER-LIMB group in acquisition, although these groups did not differ in retention. For inter-limb coordination, the three groups who received relative motion information performed more like the model than the NO-Relative motion group (even though the INTRA-LIMB group did not see the other limb). The amount of information within a display plays a constraining role on acquisition, perhaps more so than the type of information, such that the acquisition of coordination is more an emergent feature of observational learning, rather than a direct approximation of the model.     

An especial skill: Support for a learned parameters hypothesis

We tested the ‘learned parameters’ hypothesis as an explanation of the ‘especial skill effect’. Outcome attainment and movement kinematics were recorded for 10 expert and 10 novice players performing basketball free-throw shots at five distances (11-19 ft) with a regular and heavy weight basketball. As predicted, experts performed better than expected relative to the regression equation at the 15 ft, free-throw line with the regular basketball, supporting the ‘especial skill effect’. This effect was not present for the experts when shooting with the heavy ball. Novices did not show an advantage at the free-throw line when performing with either ball. Although the outcome attainment scores support the ‘learned parameters’ hypotheses, kinematic analysis failed to identify differences in the movement pattern for the especial skill, suggesting that these skills (i.e., shooting at different distances) are not governed by separate motor programs.     

Anti‐sweat politics

No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers, edited by Andrew Ross, New York: Verso Press, 1997, 314 pages; abundant photos, pb $19, £14.     

Information Transmission in Young Children: When Social Information Is More Important Than Nonsocial Information

The authors’ aim was to use a highly novel open diffusion paradigm to investigate the transmission of social information (i.e., gossip) and general knowledge within 2 groups of 10- and 11-year-old children. Four children, 2 from each group, acted as a primed information source, selected on the basis of sex and dominance ranking (high or low) within the group. Each source received 1 piece of gossip and 1 piece of general knowledge from the experimenter during natural class interaction, and the information was allowed to diffuse naturally within the group. Results revealed that gossip was transmitted more frequently than knowledge, and that male sources were more likely to transmit gossip than female sources. The relationship between characteristics of the source, and characteristics of the gossip recipient, also appeared influential with the dominant male source transmitting gossip to exclusively to friends, and the nondominant male source transmitting to individuals of higher peer regard than themselves.     

Acquiring a Novel Coordination Skill without Practicing the Correct Motor Commands

There is evidence that experience of the sensory consequences, in the absence of practice of the required motor commands, is sufficient to learn new bimanual coordination patterns. This was shown through improvements of an incongruent group who practiced a desired 30° phase offset between the limbs while 1 limb was weighted such that the desired phase relation was achieved when synchronous motor commands were sent to the limbs (P. Atchy-Delama, P. G. Zanone, C. E. Peper, & P. J. Beek, 2005). In addition to testing a similar incongruent and congruent group (i.e., no weight), the authors extended this experiment by removing visual feedback during practice and by including an auditory modeling and passive guidance group. All groups showed improvement, except for the modeling group. The passive guidance group made more errors in posttests than the congruent and incongruent groups. Only the congruent group increased the amount of time around 30° after practice. Active experience of the sensory consequences combined with practice sending appropriate motor commands is the most effective method for learning, even though strategic improvements can be attained without experience of the latter.