Talking About Behaviors in the Passive Voice Increases Task Performance

Self‐talk can help people redirect their attention focused on themselves to the tasks they are working on with important consequences for their task performance. Across four experiments and two different types of languages, Turkish and Slovak, people describing their own behaviors to themselves, as well as merely reading or writing sentences depicting some fictitious events, in the passive (vs. the active) voice performed better on various tasks of motor and verbal performance. The effect was present to the extent that people maintained their control over task‐distracting thoughts or felt more responsible for their task success/failure. In sum, talking about task behaviors in the passive voice may increase the perceived role of task‐related factors while decreasing the role of agent‐related factors in achieving task success, whereby the task focus, hence performance, increases. The results are important for understanding the role of self‐talk in performance with implications for changing important outcomes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Blessed Are You Who Are Poor”: The Poor in Together towards Life,The Cape Town Commitment,and Evangelii Gaudium

The present article explores the issue of the poor in three recent major documents on mission and evangelism/evangelization – Together towards Life (TTL), The Cape Town Commitment (CCT), and Evangelii Gaudium (EG) – arguing that they have several commonalities, as well as differences, with regard to mission and the poor. In convergence, they acknowledge a central place of the poor in Christian mission; address personal and structural aspects of poverty; and perceive the poor in close relation to other disadvantaged groups. But they diverge in emphases: TTL focuses on the role of the Spirit of God in empowering the poor/marginalized, acknowledges the agency of the poor/marginalized, and sees them in close relation to the earth/creation in their cry for justice; CTC introduces the issue of poverty in the framework of the spiritual warfare discourse, addresses the challenging topic of the prosperity gospel, and reasons biblically for the cause of the poor; and EG critiques contemporary socio‐economic realities, emphasizes that the church as a whole must champion the poor, and warns against peace efforts becoming a pretext for neglecting the poor. This article argues that a “synoptic” reading of the three documents on the topic allows us to benefit from the rich ecclesial and theological traditions behind the texts, and can engender more appropriate responses for both missiology and mission on this important issue.     

Individual differences in preference for risky behaviors during courtship

Engaging in risky behaviors is a sexual signalling strategy that men use to procure mates. The present study investigates men’s preferences for engaging in risky behaviors (along with women’s preferences for their male partner’s risky behavior) within dating couples. We investigated associations between relationship length, self-perceived attractiveness, sociosexuality orientation, and preference for risky behaviors in a sample of 256 couples. Results indicated that men had stronger preferences for risky behaviors than their partner’s ideal preference. Furthermore, relationship length was associated with a decline in women’s preference for their partner’s risk-taking, but not men’s preference for their own risk-taking. Self-perceived attractiveness was negatively associated with risk preference, and sociosexuality orientation was not directly related to risk preference. Female preferences for less intense male risky behaviors could reflect the need of paternal investment which is required for offspring care. Decreased male sexual signalling could account for lower preferences of risky behaviors in females who are involved in longer lasting romantic relationships.     

Justice and Social Conflict

This article analyzes possible effects of ideas of justice, perceptions of injustice, and the use of justice arguments on the emergence, course, and resolution of social conflicts. Four functions of justice are identified: (1) ideas of justice and perceptions of injustice can elicit or evoke social conflicts; (2) justice arguments and rhetorics can be used to support one's own position in a dispute; (3) the basic value and the principles and rules of justice can restrict social conflicts and help to generate ways of conflict resolution; (4) the labelling of conflict resolutions as just can increase the acceptance of the resolution. The analysis is illustrated by making reference to a recent case of international conflict and diplomatic controversy.     

Management of multiple sclerosis: the role of coping self-efficacy and self-esteem

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) engage in various coping behaviours in order to manage their disease. The aim of this study is to find out if the self-esteem of patients is associated with coping strategies – problem-focused (e.g. making a plan of action when confronted with a problem); emotion focused (e.g. get emotional support from community); and focused on stopping unpleasant emotions and thoughts (e.g. keeping oneself from feeling sad), and if it can enhance or hinder coping efforts in the disease management. We collected data from 155 consecutive MS patients who completed the Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSE) and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE). Explained variance for problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and coping focused on stopping unpleasant emotions and thoughts was 33, 24, and 31%, respectively. Self-esteem seems to be associated with coping strategies indicating that feelings of self-worth are linked with the ability to handle difficult life situations and can be helpful in chronic disease management.     

Testing an attribution‐of‐blame model of judgments of injustice

The attribution‐of‐blame model of judgments of injustice, which is the focus of this article, depicts judgments of injustice as blaming of an actor who is seen as responsible for the violation of the entitlement of somebody else without sufficient justification. Responsibility and blame are conceptualized in the model in accordance with Heider (1958) and Shaver (1985). The article briefly describes the background and the propositions of the model and its scope. Then it reports a series of four correlational and one experimental studies which tested the validity of the model. The findings lend support to the propositions that attributions of causality and intention and perceived lack of sufficient justification contribute to the perception of injustice beyond the mere perception that somebody's entitlement or deserving has been violated. However, no support was found for the assumption that perceived control of the respective agent contributes to the perception of injustice. The concluding section discusses the main findings of the studies and points to questions which should be pursued in future research in order to establish the range of validity of the proposed model of judgments of injustice. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Der Einfluß mnemotechnischer Hilfen auf das Erlernen und Behalten verbalen Materials

Zusammenfassung Der Einfluß mnemotechnischer Hilfen unterschiedlich starker und prägnanter assoziativer Verbindung zum Lemmaterial auf das Erlernen und auf das kurz und langfristige Behalten sinnvoller Wörter wird untersucht. Als mnemotechnische Hilfen finden vom VI vorgegebene häufige, seltene, originelle oder von den Vpn selbsterfundene Assoziationen Verwendung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß sich in der Lernphase dargebotene mnemotechnische Hilfen sowohl auf kurzals auch auf langfristiges Behalten nur dann fördernd auswirken, wenn sie auch zur Reproduktion vorgegeben werden. Unter den verschiedenen mnemotechnischen Hilfen üben seltene Assoziationen den geringsten fördernden Einfluß aus. Häufige Assoziationen steigern die Reproduktionsleistung auch dann, wenn sie nur zur Reproduktion und nicht schon in der Lernphase dargeboten werden. Auf die Anzahl der zum Erreichen des 75%-Kriteriums benötigten Lerndurchgänge nimmt die Vorgabe mnemotechnischer Hilfen kernen Einfluß.

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Effects of mnemonic aids on learning and retention of nouns

Summary An experiment was designed to investigate the effects of mnemonic aids varying in degree of associative strenght and Prägnanz (distinctiveness) on learning and recall of nouns. As mnemonics the following types of associations are used: strong, weak, distinctive associations given by E, and associations of S's own choice. The results show that all types of mnemonics in both short- and longterm recall are effective only when presented also during recall. Among the mnemonics used, weak associations have the least retrieval effect. Strong associations facilitate recall efficiency also when presented at recall only without having been offered in the learning stage. The number of trials necessary for attaining the 75%-criterion is not affected by the use of mnemonics.

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Frl. Waltraud Bauer und Frl. Beatrix Bauer ist für ihre Mitarbeit bei der Versuchsdurchführung und Auswertung zu danken.     

What people think about an unjust event: Toward a better understanding of the phenomenology of experiences of injustice

This article reports on an initial attempt to improve our knowledge of the cognitive processes which are elicited by the perception of an unjust event. High school students were given a story describing an unfair treatment of a student by his teacher and were asked to place themselves either in the role of the unfairly treated student or in that of a non-affected fellow-student. They were then asked to write down all questions and thoughts coming to their minds in the described situation. The reported questions and thoughts were classified into three categories: attributions, action-oriented thoughts, and assessments and evaluations. Statistical analyses of the frequencies and the temporal sequence of occurrence of these categories of responses revealed that victims of an unjust event reported attributions and action-related thoughts more frequently and in an earlier position than non-affected observers. Assessments and evaluations, on the other hand, were more frequently reported by observers than by victims.     

Does it only depend on the point of view? Perspective-related differences in justice evaluations of negative incidents in personal relationships

A series of four studies investigated systematic differences between actor and recipient interpretations and justice evaluations of negative incidents in interpersonal relationships. Due to a refined methodology, each negative incident was assessed both by the respective recipient and actor, and each participant reported incidents from both perspectives. The studies provided clear evidence of systematic recipient-actor differences and showed that the quality of the relationship between the parties involved in the incidents can moderate the occurrence and shape of the differences. Significant gender differences were found showing that women respond more accusingly than men in the role of the recipient and more defensively than men in the role of the actor. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.