Romantic relationship status biases memory of faces of attractive opposite-sex others: evidence from a reverse-correlation paradigm

Previous research has demonstrated that, presumably as a way to protect one’s current romantic relationship, individuals involved in a heterosexual romantic relationship tend to give lower attractiveness ratings to attractive opposite-sex others as compared to uninvolved individuals (i.e., the derogation effect). The present study importantly extends this research by examining whether romantic relationship status actually biases memory for the facial appearance of attractive (vs. unattractive) mates. To address this issue, we used a reverse-correlation technique (Mangini & Biederman, 2004), originally developed to get a visual approximation of an individual’s internal representation of a target category or person. In line with the derogation effect, results demonstrated that romantically involved (vs. uninvolved) individuals indeed held a less attractive memory of a previously encountered attractive mate’s face. Interestingly, they also held a more attractive memory of an unattractive mate’s face as compared to uninvolved individuals. This latter finding may suggest that romantically involved (as compared to uninvolved) individuals differentiate opposite-sex others along the attractiveness dimension less.     

Evidence of different developmental trajectories for length estimation according to egocentric and allocentric viewpoints in children and adults

This study investigated the influence of egocentric and allocentric viewpoints on a comparison task of length estimation in children and adults. A total of 100 participants ranging in age from 5 years to adulthood were presented with virtual scenes representing a park landscape with two paths, one straight and one serpentine. Scenes were presented either from an egocentric or allocentric viewpoint. Results showed that when the two paths had the same length, participants always overestimated the length of the straight line for allocentric trials, whereas a development from a systematic overestimation in children to an underestimation of the straight line length in adults was found for egocentric trials. We discuss these findings in terms of the influences of both bias-inhibition processes and school acquisitions.     

Everything Else Being Equal: A Modal Logic for <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ceteris Paribus</Emphasis> Preferences

This paper presents a new modal logic for ceteris paribus preferences understood in the sense of “all other things being equal”. This reading goes back to the seminal work of Von Wright in the early 1960’s and has returned in computer science in the 1990’s and in more abstract “dependency logics” today. We show how it differs from ceteris paribus as “all other things being normal”, which is used in contexts with preference defeaters. We provide a semantic analysis and several completeness theorems. We show how our system links up with Von Wright’s work, and how it applies to game-theoretic solution concepts, to agenda setting in investigation, and to preference change. We finally consider its relation with infinitary modal logics.     

Religious identification and politicization in the face of discrimination: support for political Islam and political action among the Turkish and Moroccan second generation in Europe

Taking an approach from religion as a social identity and using large-scale comparative surveys in five European cities, we investigate when and how perceived discrimination is associated with religious identification and politicization among the second generation of Turkish and Moroccan Muslims. We distinguish support for political Islam from political action as distinct forms of politicization. In addition, we test the mediating role of religious identification in processes of politicization. Study 1 estimates multi-group structural equation models of support for political Islam in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In line with a social identity model of politicization and across nine inter-group contexts, Muslims who perceived more discrimination identified (even) more strongly as Muslims; and high Muslim identifiers were most ready to support political Islam. In support of a competing social stigma hypothesis, however, negative direct and total effects of perceived discrimination suggest predominant depoliticization. Using separate sub-samples across four inter-group contexts in Belgium, Study 2 adds political action tendencies as a distinct form of politicization. Whereas religious identification positively predicts both forms of politicization, perceived discrimination has differential effects: Muslims who perceived more discrimination were more weary of supporting political Islam, yet more ready to engage in political action to defend Islamic values. Taken together, the studies reveal that some Muslim citizens will politicize and others will depoliticize in the face of discrimination as a function of their religious identification and of prevailing forms of politicization.     

Does group identification facilitate or prevent collective guilt about past misdeeds? Resolving the paradox

The influence of group identification on collective guilt and attitudes towards reparation was examined in the context of the Belgian colonization of Congo. People should experience collective emotions to the extent that being a member of the relevant group is part of their self-concept. Yet, the acknowledgement of ingroup responsibility for past misdeeds is particularly threatening for high identifiers and may lead to defensive reactions aimed at avoiding guilt. We therefore predicted, and found, a curvilinear effect of identification on collective guilt. Attitudes towards reparation of past wrongdoings were also assessed and yielded a linear trend: identification predicted less favourable attitudes towards reparation but this effect was marginally stronger as identification increased.     

Eye'm lovin' it! The role of gazing awareness in mimetic desires

Recent studies showed that people evaluate objects more favorably when these objects are gazed-at by others, an effect coined as “mimetic desire”. In two studies, we tested whether mimetic desire stems from an automatic form of learning by examining one dimension of automaticity, i.e., people's awareness of the object-gaze association. Participants saw 6 neutral art paintings associated with a female gazing toward two of the paintings, away from two of the paintings, and closing her eyes with respect to the last two paintings. After the exposition phase, participants evaluated the paintings and performed a contingency-awareness test. Importantly, participants' responses on this test were genuinely driven by memory and not by inferences from liking. Results show that participants preferred objects that were gazed-at but only when they were aware of the object-gaze association. Hence, despite the adaptive function of joint attention, its impact on valence acquisition does not seem to qualify as an implicit learning process.     

Deaf and hearing children: a comparison of peripheral vision development

This study investigated peripheral vision (at least 30° eccentric to fixation) development in profoundly deaf children without cochlear implantation, and compared this to age-matched hearing controls as well as to deaf and hearing adult data. Deaf and hearing children between the ages of 5 and 15 years were assessed using a new, specifically paediatric designed method of static perimetry. The deaf group (N = 25) were 14 females and 11 males, mean age 9.92 years (range 5-15 years). The hearing group (N = 64) were 34 females, 30 males, mean age 9.13 years (range 5-15 years). All participants had good visual acuity in both eyes (< 0.200 LogMAR). Accuracy of detection and reaction time to briefly presented LED stimuli of three light intensities, at eccentricities between 30° and 85° were measured while fixation was maintained to a central target. The study found reduced peripheral vision in deaf children between 5 and 10 years of age. Deaf children (aged 5-10 years) showed slower reaction times to all stimuli and reduced ability to detect and accurately report dim stimuli in the far periphery. Deaf children performed equally to hearing children aged 11-12 years. Deaf adolescents aged 13-15 years demonstrated faster reaction times to all peripheral stimuli in comparison to hearing controls. Adolescent results were consistent with deaf and hearing adult performances wherein deaf adults also showed significantly faster reaction times than hearing controls. Peripheral vision performance on this task was found to reach adult-like levels of maturity in deaf and hearing children, both in reaction time and accuracy of detection at the age of 11-12 years.     

Pleasant emotional induction broadens the visual world of young children

These experiments aimed at studying the influence of emotional context on global/local visual processing in children. Children 5 years old, known to present an immature global visual bias, and 8 years old, known to pay attention predominantly to global information, were placed in either a neutral or pleasant emotional context and subsequently presented with a global/local visual judgement task. As with previous findings for adults, both age groups presented a pronounced perceptual bias toward global information following exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, younger children, who do not present a global bias during the neutral exposure, presented the same preference for global information as older children when exposed to the pleasant context. These findings indicate that emotion may strongly affect visual perception in children, with important implications for educational practice and models of cognition.     

Addressing anniversary reactions of trauma through group process: the Hurricane Katrina anniversary wellness workshops

Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in the summer of 2005, have highlighted the need to develop effective post-trauma psychotherapeutic intervention strategies, not only to deal with the immediate psychological aftermath of trauma, but also the long-term effects of anniversary reactions. Governmental responses to Hurricane Katrina relief were greatly criticized for disorganization and delay. Both immediately afterwards and in ensuing months, people's life needs often were not addressed. People-to-people individual and group grassroots efforts, including those provided by mental health professionals, however, did reach local communities to service immediate needs and long-term emotional reactions. The present paper describes one such effort designed to help survivors cope on the occasion of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Specifically, anniversary reaction group workshops were held to address unresolved emotional issues and to promote healing by encouraging belonging, comfort, security, and resilience. The ultimate goal of these wellness workshops was to assist participants in understanding and resolving their anniversary reactions. Preliminary quantitative and qualitative findings suggested that this workshop format helped participants face their anniversary reactions, address their related psychological sequelae, and deal with their physical displacement. Participants were then able to find the emotional strength to reattach, form new communities, and begin problem solving. These methods, with appropriate cultural modifications, were subsequently used in China, to assist Chinese mental health professionals prepare for the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.