When the happy victimizer says sorry: Children's understanding of apology and emotion

Previous research suggests that children gradually understand the mitigating effects of apology on damage to a transgressor's reputation. However, little is known about young children's insights into the central emotional implications of apology. In two studies, children ages 4–9 heard stories about moral transgressions in which the wrongdoers either did or did not apologize. In Study 1, children in the no‐apology condition showed the classic pattern of ‘happy victimizer’ attributions by expecting the wrongdoer to feel good about gains won via transgression. By contrast, in the apology condition, children attributed negative feelings to the transgressor and improved feelings to the victim. In Study 2, these effects were found even when the explicit emotion marker ‘sorry’ was removed from the apology exchange. Thus, young children understand some important emotional functions of apology.     

Hope as a Predictor of Interpersonal Suicide Risk

The current study hypothesized that (1) hope would negatively predict burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and acquired capability to enact lethal injury; (2) hope would negatively predict suicidal ideation; and (3) the interpersonal suicide risk factors would predict suicidal ideation. Results indicated that hope negatively predicted burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, but positively predicted acquired capability to enact suicide. Contrary to our second hypothesis, hope did not predict suicidal ideation, but interpersonal risk factors for suicide predicted suicidal ideation. Results are discussed in terms of implications for hope theory and Joiner's (2005) interpersonal risk factors for suicide, and for clinical practice.     

Normative Practical Reasoning: Christian Pillar

In the first part I discuss the thesis, advanced by John Broome, that intentions are normatively required by all-things-considered judgments about what one ought to do. I endorse this thesis, but remain sceptical about Broome's programme of grounding the correctness of reasoning in formal relations between contents of mental states. After discussing objections to the thesis, I concentrate in the second part on the relation between rational action and rational intention. I distinguish between content-related and attitude-related reasons for propositional attitudes like believing, wanting, and intending something. The former appeal to features of the content of the propositional attitude they are reasons for, the latter would be reasons for a propositional attitude because of features of the propositional attitude as a whole, for example the feature of its being beneficial to believe or to want that p . I try to show that the common philosophical reaction to attitude-related reasons, namely to claim that they are merely content-related reasons in disguise, is mistaken. In its most extreme form such a reaction would fail to respect the first-person character of reasoning which manifests itself in, among other things, the fact that a Moore-sentence and its analogue for intentions cannot be a conclusion of reasoning. In the third part I argue that there are attitude-related reasons for intentions, and, in showing how they influence practical deliberation, I find that their existence can be rendered compatible with the thesis that it is rational to intend to do what one thinks one ought to do.