The Barbour – Smith – Gilkey Paradox: Historical Relativity in Natural Science and Historical Religion

This paper is about the relation of historical relativity and religious certainty. To live in history and to live with historical relativity is to admit that we are subject to the limitations of creaturehood: we know right and wrong, truth and falsity, relative to our own time and place, history and culture, but we do not know any truth or right that is non-relative to time and place. The differences between historical and naturalistic discourses of explanation are radical, and usually overlooked by scientists.     

Remembrance of lies past: A comparison of the features and consistency of truthful and fabricated trauma narratives

The credibility of reports of victimization must be evaluated by police and adjudicators. The present prospective study investigated the features of truthful and fabricated narratives of trauma and their relative consistency over a 6‐month period. Participants described both a genuine and fabricated traumatic experience on three occasions over the 6 months. The narrative features were coded at each phase and the stories' consistency was examined at Times 2 and 3. We found that truthful trauma narratives contained more: details, contextual information, and emotional details, and were rated as more ‘plausible’, relative to fabricated traumas. The details of truthful narratives also were more factually consistent than fabricated narratives over the 6 month interval. This research offers basic information on the nature and consistency of traumatic memories, and potentially applicable information for discriminating true and false allegations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship context and personality shape people's preferences for network relationship partners

This study investigates how people weight potential relationship partners' personal characteristics (i.e., warmth and competence) when deciding to initiate professional versus personal network relationships, and it also examines how certain personality traits (extraversion and conscientiousness) shape this process. Results from two samples indicate that people tend to value competence more highly when initiating professional relationships, whereas they tend to value warmth more highly when initiating personal relationships. Furthermore, neither extraversion nor conscientiousness was related to how people weighted competence when initiating professional relationships. However, supplementary analyses demonstrated that people high in conscientiousness tend to value competence and people high in agreeableness tend to value warmth in their network relationship partners, regardless of whether they are initiating a professional or personal relationship.     

Reading between the lies: identifying concealed and falsified emotions in universal facial expressions

The widespread supposition that aspects of facial communication are uncontrollable and can betray a deceiver's true emotion has received little empirical attention. We examined the presence of inconsistent emotional expressions and "microexpressions" (1/25-1/5 of a second) in genuine and deceptive facial expressions. Participants viewed disgusting, sad, frightening, happy, and neutral images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive (simulated, neutralized, or masked) expression. Each 1/30-s frame (104,550 frames in 697 expressions) was analyzed for the presence and duration of universal expressions, microexpressions, and blink rate. Relative to genuine emotions, masked emotions were associated with more inconsistent expressions and an elevated blink rate; neutralized emotions showed a decreased blink rate. Negative emotions were more difficult to falsify than happiness. Although untrained observers performed only slightly above chance at detecting deception, inconsistent emotional leakage occurred in 100% of participants at least once and lasted longer than the current definition of a microexpression suggests. Microexpressions were exhibited by 21.95% of participants in 2% of all expressions, and in the upper or lower face only.     

The analyst's implicit alpha-function, trauma and enactment in the analysis of borderline patients

The present paper discusses situations in which patient and analyst are involved in obstructive collusions, non-dreams-for-two, shaping enactments. Specifically, it describes explosions in the analytical field, acute enactments, which the analyst assigns, at first sight, to his faulty conduct. The subsequent amplification of the analytical dyad's capacity of symbolization makes the analyst investigate his presumed fault. The present work shows how acute enactments revive traumatic situations that were concealed by previous obstructive collusions, or chronic enactments. During chronic enactments unconscious exchanges occur between the dyad, in which the analyst provides implicit alpha-function to the patient, little by little recovering the traumatized parts. When there is enough recovery, the protective collusion is undone and the trauma is revived as acute enactment. This revival will not be traumatic because there are mental resources ready at hand to symbolize it. These situations are articulated with borderline patients. The patient clings to the analyst, using him as a protective shield against reality traumas. The implicit and explicit alpha-function exerted by the analyst contributes to the processing and symbolization of this reality, recovering the injured mind and elaborating the trauma. So the patient creates a triangular space to dream and think.     

Behavioural coherence in violent group activity: An interpersonal model of sexually violent gang behaviour

This study provides an analysis of offender‐victim interactions in 223 cases of sexual violence committed in gangs. Cases were derived from archival sources such as law reports. A multivariate analysis revealed four interpersonal themes (dominance, submission, co‐operation, and hostility) previously identified in studies of lone sexual assault [Alison and Stein, Vicious Circles: Accounts of stranger sexual assault reflect abusive variants of conventional interactions. J Forensic Psychiatry 12:515–538, 2001]. These themes have also been identified in many other forms of human relating [Wiggins, An informal history of the interpersonal circumplex tradition. J Pers Assess 66:217–233, 1996] and conform to a structure known as the interpersonal circumplex. The circumplex has previously been used to conceptualise the relationships between individuals in terms of dynamic interactions that are mutually influencing. Thus, dominance elicits submission and submission elicits dominance. Each interpersonal style could be further subdivided according to the use of either verbally or physically abusive strategies. Point‐Biserial correlations with other aspects of the offence (e.g., mobility of the group, post‐offence treatment of the victim) provided additional support for these conceptually different themes and demonstrated that gang rape represents a distorted and violent form of interpersonal relating. Further, this dynamic interaction emerges not just at an individual level, but at a group level, suggesting that the thematic concepts underpinning the interpersonal circumplex can be extended to group activity and sexually aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 30:449–468, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Person Recall in Field Settings1

Men and women were stopped in public places by a target, who approached them either in an open and friendly demeanor or with a closed and hesitant demeanor. Witnesses interacted with the target for either 5 s or 30 s, and were tested for cued recall 2 min after the encounter. Demeanor did not influence overall recall, but did affect recall of specific characteristics. Men were superior to women in recall of physical characteristics, but gender differences were not found in recall of clothing characteristics. Witnesses were superior with longer observation periods, especially for recall of clothing. Significant but low confidence‐accuracy correlations were found for recall of 8 of 14 person characteristics. Men were superior to women in their accuracy of duration estimations, but men and women both consistently overestimated durations.     

When Men Divulge: Portrayals of Men's Self-Disclosure in Prime Time Situation Comedies

The media have been widely criticized for promoting unhealthy images of masculinity. To better understand how men are portrayed on television, we analyzed male characters' self-disclosures on television. From the 11 most highly rated situation comedies, 1,320 min of programming were examined, in which 328 incidents of self-disclosure were identified. Results indicated that male characters disclosed an average of once every 4.08 min (5.96 times per 24-min episode), disclosed more often to male than to female characters, and expressed negative emotions more frequently to male than to female characters. Male characters self-disclosed freely and comfortably, and they were moderately emotionally expressive and personally revealing. They typically received somewhat favorable responses from others to their disclosures. However, the demographic characteristics of the characters failed to represent the diversity of U.S. society. Potential implications for television and society are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.     

Paternal behavior in the spiny mouse (Acomys cahirinus)

The responsiveness of adult male spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus) to both their own and alien precocial young was investigated. Paternal behavior was manifested primarily by the males huddling with their offspring and the coordination of pup attendance between adult males and females. With less than 2 days exposure to their own neonates, males were found to discriminate between their own and alien young. Experience plays an important role in the development of paternal behavior in spiny mice. Males who have never had pups of their own sniff and attack unfamiliar neonates more than males who have fathered pups. The adaptive significance of paternal investment in this uniquely precocial murid rodent was discussed.