Experimental analysis of preschool playmate preferences as a function of smiles and sex

Differential emotions theory (DET) (The face of emotion. Appleton‐Century‐Crofts: East Norwalk, CT, 1971) posits that the smile functions in part to communicate and/or reflect social affiliation and plays an important role in children's social development. While children's positive emotion expressions have received attention from peer relations researchers in observational studies and within correlational designs, there is almost no experimental evidence for the impact of the smile. Building on existing studies, the present study examined DET predictions within an experimental design. More specifically, we examined the impact smiles have on lower‐income preschool children's nominations for preferred playmates. Both boys and girls tended to nominate unfamiliar playmates who smiled. Additionally, some evidence suggested that preference for smiling playmates seemed more critical to girls' than boys' social functioning. Unlike among boys, teachers rated girls who exhibited a greater preference for smiling playmates as higher in social competence. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Associations between mothers' sensitivity to their infants' internal states and children's later understanding of mind and emotion

This study investigated associations between mother–infant interactions and children's subsequent understanding of mind and emotion. Mothers' tendency to comment on their infants' internal world and their general sensitivity to their infants' internal states were measured through coded play interactions at 10 months. The latter measurement included ratings on four aspects of maternal behaviour: mindful facilitation, joint attention commenting, pacing, and affect catching. In contrast to mothers' internal state language, these behaviours did not tap mothers' explicit linguistic representation of their infants' mental states. At 54 months, children's understanding of mind and emotion was measured through a range of false‐belief tasks and an emotion‐understanding task. Multivariate analysis revealed direct positive links between mothers' sensitivity to their infants' internal states and children's later understanding of mind. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dominance of fear over hope in the life of individuals and collectives

We address the question why fear dominates hope in the life of individuals and collectives on the basis of the accumulated knowledge in the psychology, neurology and sociology of emotions. This knowledge suggests that fear, as primary emotion, is grounded in the experienced present and based on the memorized past, processed both consciously and unconsciously, causes freezing and conservatism, and sometimes leads to pre‐emptive aggression. Hope, in contrast, as a secondary emotion, involves cognitive activity, which requires anticipation and the search for new ideas and thus is based on complex processes of creativity and flexibility. Therefore, hope is often preceded and inhibited by spontaneous, automatically activated and faster fear. Fear and hope can each become a collective emotional orientation, and as such organize society's views and direct its actions. Societies involved in intractable conflict are dominated by a collective fear orientation. This orientation is functional for society's coping with the stressful and demanding situation—but it may serve as a psychological obstacle to any peace process, once it starts. The case of the collective fear orientation in the Jewish Israeli society is presented as an example. The article ends with a presentation of a particular approach, suggesting that individuals and collectives can overcome their fear with much determination, and establish an orientation of hope which allows change in situations dominated by fear. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Broadcasting of violence on Spanish television: a quantitative panorama

A quantitative analysis of broadcasted violence by the main television (TV) channels transmitting for Madrid (Spain) was carried out using a novel method that randomly selects fragments of delimited duration from TV broadcasts. The device selects acts of aggression shown in those TV extracts, and classifies them according to their type. There was a high incidence of aggressive acts, especially physical (particularly leading to death), in TV fiction: films, serials and promos. The device also allowed examination of the prominence of aggression in children's programs, as well as showing minimal variation in the number of aggressive acts over screened time intervals. The pattern of the collected data suggests that the broadcasting of violence on TV emphasizes the conflicting elements of social reality, reproducing it in fiction, news reports and children's shows. Aggr. Behav. 32:137–145. 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION,HEALING, AND ALTRUISM: INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM

This essay introduces the five articles that follow, whose aim is to show how altruism emerges out of spiritual transformation and is integral to healing process in four kinds of ritual healing systems—popular, folk, an indigenous religious healing tradition, and complementary and alternative medicine represented by consciousness transformation movements. In this introduction I situate these largely marginalized religious and spiritual practices within the context of the religion‐science discourse, which has focused for the most part on the relationship between the established, mainstream religions and the dominant biomedical system. Antecedents of two of these types of religious practices, Spiritism and consciousness transformation movements, were part of the development of the psychological sciences in the nineteenth century but lost ground in the twentieth. Despite discrimination and persistent negative attitudes on the part of the established religions and biomedicine, these healing traditions have not only survived through the twentieth century but appear to have gained both followers and interest in the twenty‐first. In future decades, at least for complementary and alternative medical practices and perhaps also for spirit healing centers, there may be a reversal in status through greater acceptance of their unique combination of scientific and religious perspectives.     

The Unhappy Marriage of Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics

The proposal that care ethic(s) (CE) be subsumed under the framework of virtue ethic(s) (VE) is both promising and problematic for feminists. Although some attempts to construe care as a virtue are more commendable than others, they cannot duplicate a freestanding feminist CE. Sander‐Staudt recommends a model of theoretical collaboration between VE and CE that retains their comprehensiveness, allows CE to enhance VE as well as be enhanced by it, and leaves CE open to other collaborations.     

Assessment of sensory substitution prosthesis potentialities in minimalist conditions of learning

Pattern recognition with a prosthesis substituting vision by audition was investigated. During 15 1‐hour sessions, nine blindfolded sighted subjects were trained to recognise 2D patterns by trial and error. In addition to a global assessment, recognition of pattern element nature (vertical bars, horizontal bars…), element size and element spatial arrangement were independently assessed for each pattern. Influence of experimental parameters (complexity level of patterns, exploration number of a pattern) on recognition was studied. Performances improved over sessions. As a rule, patterns element nature was less well recognised than element size and spatial arrangement. Experimental parameters influenced pattern recognition performance. Results are discussed in relation with auditory and visual perception as well as in the perspective to implement a learning protocol for future users of prosthesis. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exogenous and endogenous attention orienting in autism spectrum disorders.

Fifteen children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 15 children with typical development completed an attentional cuing task using peripheral cues (exogenous orienting) and central cues (endogenous orienting). Results showed that participants with ASD had impaired exogenous and intact endogenous orienting. The pattern of exogenous orienting was related to motor functioning. Individuals with ASD who had poor motor functioning displayed slowed exogenous orienting. However, individuals with ASD who had relatively good motor functioning showed typical levels of exogenous orienting when given a short time but decreased orienting when given a longer amount of time. These results suggest attention impairments in ASD may not be specific to social orienting and instead may represent a more general orienting impairment.