How the Consideration of Positive Emotions Influences Persuasion: The Differential Effect of Pride Versus Joy

Although pride and joy are both positive emotions, we expected their consideration to affect persuasion differently because of the different perspectives (near vs. distant) and level of abstractness they involve, with pride being more abstract than joy. Therefore, we predicted that when the attitude object is construed at a high level rather than a low level, the consideration of pride is likely to promote more persuasion than the consideration of joy. In three studies, we found that the consideration of pride, when featured in the persuasion message (Studies 1a and 1b) or incidentally (Study 2), increased persuasion more than did the consideration of joy, when the persuasion object was temporally distant compared with temporally near (Studies 1a and 1b) or construed as a high‐level category compared with a more concrete individual (Study 2). These findings advance our understanding of the ways in which specific emotions may affect persuasion, beyond valence. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The undesired: on nudniks in Jewish American fiction

This essay discusses the recurring preoccupation in Jewish literature with the character of the nudnik, a popular figure in Jewish culture but a rather neglected one in scholarly studies. Even though the nudnik appears in many stories throughout the years, from Sholem Aleichem’s, through Franz Kafka’s, to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories and novels – nowhere was he more prominent than in post–World War II Jewish American fiction, more specifically in the short stories and novels of Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. Both Roth and Malamud depict the nudnik as an embodiment of a generational divide, between the tormented Americanized young and the tormenting “Ostjuden” old. And yet, while Malamud’s nudniks serve as a critique on the fate of Jewish culture and tradition in post-Holocaust America, Roth identifies the character of the nudnik as a contaminating element that will forever haunt the younger individual. By discussing the Yiddish term “nudnik” and its ambivalent and unsettling nature in these writers’ texts, this essay will highlight the cultural impact on modern Jewish identity of the nudnik within each story.     

Predicting the use of corporal punishment: Child aggression,parent religiosity,and the BDNF gene

Corporal punishment (CP) has been associated with deleterious child outcomes, highlighting the importance of understanding its underpinnings. Although several factors have been linked with parents’ CP use, genetic influences on CP have rarely been studied, and an integrative view examining the interplay between different predictors of CP is missing. We focused on the separate and joint effects of religiosity, child aggression, parent's gender, and a valine (Val) to methionine (Met) substitution in the brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene. Data came from a twin sample (51% male, aged 6.5 years). We used mothers’ and fathers’ self‐reports of CP and religiosity, and the other parent's report on child aggression. Complete data were available for 244 mothers and their 466 children, and for 217 fathers and their 409 children. The random split method was employed to examine replicability. For mothers, only the effect of religiosity appeared to replicate. For fathers, several effects predicting CP use replicated in both samples: child aggression, child sex, religiosity, and a three‐way (GxExE) interaction implicating fathers’ BDNF genotype, child aggression and religiosity. Religious fathers who carried the Met allele and had an aggressive child used CP more frequently; in contrast, secular fathers’ CP use was not affected by their BDNF genotype or child aggression. Results were also repeated longitudinally in a subsample with age 8–9 data. Findings highlight the utility of a bio‐ecological approach for studying CP use by shedding light on pertinent gene‐environment interaction processes. Possible implications for intervention and public policy are discussed.

     

Olfactory perception as a compass for olfactory neural maps

The mammalian brain commonly uses structural proximity to reflect proximity in stimulus and perceptual space. Objects or object features that are near each other in physical structure or perception are also near each other in the brain. This generates sensory maps. The topography of olfactory connectivity implies a rudimentary map in the olfactory epithelium, a more intricate map in the olfactory bulb, but no ordered topography is evident in piriform cortex. Currently, we are largely unable to link the ordered topography in epithelium and bulb to meaningful olfactory axes within a strong predictive framework. We argue that the path to uncovering such a predictive framework depends on systematically characterizing olfactory perception, and we describe initial efforts in this direction.     

Redefining membership in animal groups

Groups of animals—flocks, herds, shoals, and swarms—are often dynamical entities. Relative positions of group members change, and most groups divide and re-form on multiple timescales. Few studies, however, have attempted to define when an animal is or is not within a group. Most authors adopt arbitrary distance thresholds, such as the elective group size (EGS), which assume that animals closer than some threshold distance are in the same group. In the present article, we define a group-membership criterion derived from dynamical statistical considerations and based on detailed trajectories of all members of a moving group. We demonstrate the use of our criterion to track the comings and goings in shoals of zebrafish (Danio rerio) and the gradual dissolution of the shoal across multiple exposures to a testing tank. We present a novel measure of group cohesion based on our group membership criterion and demonstrate that excursions away from the shoal explain some previous observations of the dynamics of shoaling. Finally, we show that excursions away from a shoal are accompanied by an increase in swimming speed. Applying similar criteria to data from other species may clarify some of the common features of animal collective motion.     

Making the Technological Trustworthy:

Joseph C. Pitt, based on his understanding of trust and of technology, makes the provocative argument that trusting technology is actually a matter of trusting people. I agree with Pitt’s conclusion but differ with him on the nature of trust. I contend, nonetheless, that my understanding of trust actually reinforces Pitt’s characterization of technology as “humanity at work.”     

Her/His Ethics? Managerial Ethics in Moral Decision-Making from a Contextual,Gendered, and Relational Perspective

Sex Roles - For the last decades, the question of differences in the moral judgments of women and men and the role of an “ethics of care” versus an “ethics of justice” have...     

Infant colic and maternal depression

The combined impact of infant colic and maternal depression on infant, parent, and family difficulties was examined. The sample included 93 consecutive patients seen at an outpatient Colic Clinic. Most mothers had private insurance and completed high school. Infants were approximately 2 months of age. Questionnaires completed by the mother prior to treatment onset were used to measure depressive symptoms in the mothers, infant cry, sleep and temperament, characteristics, parenting stress, maternal self‐esteem, social support, and family function. Moderate to severe depressive symptoms were reported by 45.2% of the mothers. More severe depressive symptoms in the mothers were related to fussy/difficult infant temperament, more parenting stress, lower parental self‐esteem, and more family‐functioning problems. Pediatric health care providers need to be aware that the combined effects of colic and maternal depression can be problematic for the family. ©2005 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

What aspects of face processing are impaired in developmental prosopagnosia?

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a severe impairment in identifying faces that is present from early in life and that occurs despite no apparent brain damage and intact visual and intellectual function. Here, we investigated what aspects of face processing are impaired/spared in developmental prosopagnosia by examining a relatively large group of individuals with DP (n = 8) using an extensive battery of well-established tasks. The tasks included measures of sensitivity to global motion and to global form, detection that a stimulus is a face, determination of its sex, holistic face processing, processing of face identity based on features, contour, and the spacing of features, and judgments of attractiveness. The DP cases showed normal sensitivity to global motion and global form and performed normally on our tests of face detection and holistic processing. On the other tasks, many DP cases were impaired but there was no systematic pattern. At least half showed deficits in processing of facial identity based on either the outer contour or spacing of the internal features, and/or on judgments of attractiveness. Three of the eight were impaired in processing facial identify based on the shape of internal features. The results show that DP is a heterogeneous condition and that impairment in recognizing faces cannot be predicted by poor performance on any one measure of face processing.