Approaching Shared Heroes: Cultural Transfer and Transnational Jewish History

This special issue of Jewish History is devoted to shared heroes in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It explores diverse images of heroes that are shared by at least two of these religious traditions by comparing each figure’s origin, inventions, and reinventions within varying cultural contexts in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period and by highlighting the cross-cultural significance of their counterstories and entangled histories. The construction and deconstruction, interpretation and reception of these heroic figures and their sociocultural roles over time and space bear witness to the encounters of Jews and Judaism with neighboring cultures. The approaches to our subject presented in this collection illuminate how the long-established rubric of “the hero” benefits from a cross-cultural approach. In turn, empirical data culled from the cross-cultural study of heroes demonstrate the inner workings of cultural transfer and, we believe, contribute an original perspective to the field of transnational history, which focuses on cultural entanglement.     

The (non-)benefit of choosing: If you get what you want it is not important that you chose it

Self-Determination Theory argues that autonomy plays a major role in intrinsic motivation. Autonomy can be operationalized as choice. Whether positive effects on motivation are caused by the mere act of choosing or by confounding variables is still unclear. In this study (N?=?299, M_age?=?13.1?±?0.6 years), students could work with two polarizing animals. The first group was allowed to choose (choosing & match), two groups were not. In these groups, the teacher allocated the animals to the students resulting in a second group that received the wanted animal (no choosing & match), and a third group that received the unwanted animal (no choosing & no match). Situational motivation and flow experience were assessed. Regarding intrinsic motivation and flow, students in the no choosing & match treatment scored the highest, students of the no choosing & no match group the lowest. In conclusion, matching and not choosing made the difference.     

Letter-detection patterns in German: A window to the early extraction of sentential structure during reading

Letters are more difficult to detect in function words than in content words, presumably because function words serve to cue sentential structure but recede to the background as meaning unfolds. This function disadvantage was found for the definite article in German for all three genders and all four cases, but it was more pronounced when the article appeared in a nominative noun phrase than in an object noun phrase. It was also more pronounced for the typical subject-predicate-object sentential format than for the object-predicate-subject sentential format and also when the definite article unequivocally specified the case of a phrase than when it was ambiguous. The results suggest that the structural frames established on line in reading are finely tuned to both phrase-level and sentence-level organization.     

Continuous information processing in conceptual identifications

Summary This investigation was aimed at the analysis of processes of the conceptual object identification. Three experiments were performed which utilized a response preparation paradigm developed by Miller (1982). The results confirm the psychological validity of a distinction between sensorily and categorially represented concepts proposed formerly by the authors. The process of identification of objects as belonging to sensory concepts was analysed in more detail. The experimental results suggest that it may be a sequential feature matching process which is characterized by continuous information processing. Early in the process the figurative features allowing an identification of an object as belonging to a more general sensory concept are processed. In following processing stages this first conceptual identification is more and more specified by an additional checking of more detailed figurative features. More importantly, the results indicate that the information about the general conceptual identity of an object is not only available early in the identification process but can also be used for the preparation of following processes or processing stages even before the object is fully identified. Possible influences of the early information on the control of the conceptual identification itself and on the selection and control of motor behavior are discussed.We wish to thank the following psychology students at the Humboldt University in Berlin for their help in performing the experiments: Kathrin Hänel, Erika Küchler and Christina Matthé. Furthermore, we wish to thank the two anaonymous reviewers and Johannes Engelkamp for their helpful comments on a first draft of our paper     

The impact of motor responses on serial-pattern learning

Subjects are able to learn even very complex serial patterns in serial-reaction-time tasks. The investigation of the learning processes behind this phenomenon has yielded contradictory results. Some studies have come to the conclusion the subjects had learned the sequence of stimuli. Other studies have assumed that the sequence of responses had been learned or a combination of both stimuli and responses. The present experiments stress the impact of motor responses on serial-pattern learning. The subjects had to respond to serial targets that were presented within a matrix of distractors. The position of each target could be predicted from the identity and position of the previous target. If the subjects were to learn this pattern, they would be able to speed up the search for the target and give faster responses. The results indicated that the relation between the target identity and the position of the next target was acquired much better by those subjects who had to respond to each target with a special motor response. If the same response was required for the relevant targets, knowledge of the rule was somewhat fragmentary. To explain these results, mechanisms of motor learning and motor planning are discussed. It is assumed that learning of the rules occurs if the position changes appear to be effects of different motor responses.     

Efficacy of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy with Parents with Intellectual Disability

Parents with intellectual disability (ID) face many parenting challenges that may affect their ability to parent effectively, and such deficits are often associated with various poor child outcomes. Research findings are inconsistent for interventions targeting systematic skills for parents with ID. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an empirically supported treatment that incorporates performance-based training to enhance parenting ability. This study evaluated implementation of PCIT with parents with ID using a multiple baseline design across behaviors. Results suggest increases in positive parenting behaviors and consistent discipline. However, limitations related to poor maintenance and generalization warrant the need for future research.     

The Interaction of Job Satisfaction, Job Search, and Job Changes. An Empirical Investigation with German Panel Data

Using the rich data set of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) this article analyzes the effects of job characteristics on job satisfaction as well as the conditions under which low job satisfaction leads to job search, and under which job search leads to job changes. Individual fixed effects are included into the analysis in order to hold unobserved heterogeneity constant. According to the empirical results, the strongest determinants of job satisfaction are relations with colleagues and supervisors, task diversity and job security. Furthermore, job satisfaction is an important determinant of the self-reported probability of job search, which in turn effectively predicts actual job changes. The effect of job search on the probability of changing jobs varies with job satisfaction and is strongest at low levels of job satisfaction. The effects of job dissatisfaction on job search and of job search on quits are stronger for workers with lower tenure, better educated workers, workers in the private sector and when the economy and labor market are in a good condition.     

Children's understanding of the war in Iraq: views from Britain and Bosnia

Sixty‐one children (aged 9–17) from the United Kingdom (31) and Bosnia (30) were interviewed about the war in Iraq. Significant differences emerged in their views of the war. The Bosnian children were more affected by the Iraq War, more aware of who is involved in it, had different views about its causes, viewed the consequences of the war with greater gravity, and expressed a greater desire to end war and have peace. Two factors which might account for these differences – recent Bosnian history and the nature of media representations of the war in the two countries – are discussed.