Only your eyes tell me what you like: Exploring the liking effect induced by other's gaze

Our preferences are sensitive to social influences. For instance, we like more the objects that are looked-at by others than non-looked-at objects. Here, we explored this liking effect, using a modified paradigm of attention cueing by gaze. First, we investigated if the liking effect induced by gaze relied on motoric representations of the target object by testing if the liking effect could be observed for non-manipulable (alphanumeric characters) as well as for manipulable items (common tools). We found a significant liking effect for the alphanumeric items. Second, we tested if another type of powerful social cue could also induce a liking effect. We used an equivalent paradigm but with pointing hands instead of gaze cues. Pointing hands elicited a robust attention-orienting effect, but they did not induce any significant liking effect. This study extends previous findings and reinforces the view of eye gaze as a special cue in human interactions.     

Lack of habituation to shocking words: The attentional bias to their spatial origin is context free

Following a suggestion made by Aquino and Arnell (2007), we assumed that the processing of emotional words is influenced by their context of presentation. Supporting this idea, previous studies using the emotional Stroop task in its visual or auditory variant revealed different results depending on the mixed versus blocked presentation of the stimuli (Bertels, Kolinsky, Pietrons, & Morais, 2011; Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, & Williams, 1992). In the present study, we investigated the impact of these presentation designs on the occurrence of spatial attentional biases in a modified version of the beep-probe task (Bertels, Kolinsky, & Morais, 2010). Attentional vigilance to taboo words as well as non-spatial slowing effects of these words were observed whatever the mixed or blocked design, whereas attentional vigilance to positive words was only observed in the mixed design. Together with the results from our previous study (Bertels et al., 2010), the present data support the reliability of the effects of shocking stimuli, while vigilance to positive words would only be observed in a threatening context.     

The clinical revolution of the ‘wise baby’

In an historical context focused on a close examination of the complex relationship between Freud and Ferenczi, the author shows Ferenczi's contribution to the evolution of psychoanalysis. He describes how his ideas and his therapeutic sensitivity anticipated modern clinical thought (for example, Winnicott and Bion), especially the understanding of borderline and narcissistic pathology. The paper considers the following topics: transference and countertransference; early affectivity; the different psychic trauma; phenomena connected with dissociation; the healing factor of the analysis.     

Sartre on the Ontological Need for God

Adherents to the relatively new discipline of neurotheology profess that religious faith has a brain neural substrate, with structural, functional, and genetic elements that “hardwire” us to believe in God. It is argued here that a better way to approach the question of why people believe in a transcendent being would be to interrogate the structure of human being, with the intention of uncovering the meanings that underlie the phenomenon of faith. Jean-Paul Sartre may have already provided a necessary and sufficient explanation for this phenomenon. We are, he concluded, ontologically inclined to identify with a supreme being whose essence and existence transcend the limits of our own finite being. It is one thing to arrive at such a conclusion intuitively, but altogether something else to demonstrate, as Sartre does, how this conclusion follows from the structure of human being itself.     

The growth hypothesis and self‐actualization: An existential alternative

Abstract

Examining the process of becoming from an existential perspective, we describe the existence of the self in non‐biological terms as a product of its own intentionality. In this context, there is no need to postulate a growth hypothesis in order to (1) to describe a person as a process of becoming, and (2) to explain self‐actualization. While the process of becoming is a static process, self‐actualization is a dynamic process. In the first case, the self deterministically and naively merely becomes. In the second, case, the process results from becoming the object of personal choices, whereby we become authentic. While the self is “a being in the process of mere becoming,” self‐actualization is “a being in the process of authentic becoming.” In this view, humanistic psychotherapy aims at making the self's mere becoming an authentic process. Existential crisis, in particular confrontation with death, is often the transformational medium.     

Performance in Autobiographical Memory of Older Adults with Depression Symptoms

The aim of this study was to compare the performance in the Autobiographical Memory Test in older adults with high scores on depression symptoms (HDS) compared with a matched group with low scores on depression symptoms (LDS) according to the clinical cut‐off of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Participants were asked to generate specific autobiographical memories in response to a series of positive and negative cue words. Latencies of responses for each item were also scored. LDS participants showed a higher proportion of specific memories than HDS participants. Latencies of responses to positive and negative cues were greater for HDS than LDS. Specific autobiographical memory was positively associated with Life Satisfaction. Cognitive emotional changes in the function of memory with age are suggested as a possible explanation for the findings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Use of Priority Information in Performance Feedback

To provide the most value to an organization, individuals must focus efforts on those outputs that have maximum value to the organization. However, the realities of the workplace are that information about performance and how individuals can add value to an organization is complex; that is, determining which activities to focus on is a fairly complex task because such information is nonlinear, whereby the importance of a certain activity may change depending on the level of performance at any given time. This article empirically examines whether providing complex, nonlinear feedback that reflects the complexities of the real world will result in a change in work outputs that reflect these nonlinearities. This article assesses whether employees can and do use complex feedback that reflects the complexity of the real world in the intended ways. In addition, this article examines whether individuals use feedback that includes priority information beyond feedback that reports on simple relative importance. Data were analyzed from 9 work units for time periods averaging a little over a year. Results indicate that, as predicted, when individuals have access to both complex, nonlinear priority information and simple, linear relative importance information, individuals can and do use the complex data in the intended way.     

Enhancing Criterion-Related Validity Through Bottom-Up Contextualization of Personality Inventories: The Construction of an Ecological Conscientiousness Scale for Ph.D. Candidates

In this article the concept of “ecological personality scales” is introduced. These are contextualized inventories with a high ecological validity. They are developed in a bottom-up or qualitative way and combine a relatively high trait specificity with a relatively high situational specificity. An ecological Conscientiousness or time management scale for Ph.D. candidates was developed. It significantly predicted Ph.D. performance criteria and showed incremental validity beyond Big Five (Study 1) and narrow trait and frame-of-reference scales (Study 2). These findings suggest that an ecological approach may contribute to further improving the criterion validity of personality measures.     

Are emotional intelligent workers also more empathic?

This paper analyzes whether emotional intelligence and self‐monitoring are related to empathy among a sample of workers in both the public and private employment sectors. Two hundred and forty‐two employees (42.5% men and 57.5% women) with a mean age of 35.21 years (SD = 10.07, range 18–61) completed a questionnaire that measured the variables of interest. The results showed that emotion regulation, a dimension of emotional intelligence, accounts for most of the variance of empathy, followed by the ability to understand emotions and the management of others' emotions. Furthermore, gender did not yield any moderator effect on the relations among emotional intelligence, self‐monitoring and empathy. We conclude that the intrapersonal aspects of emotional intelligence, in particular, emotion regulation, help explain the empathy of workers. The implications of these findings are discussed herein.     

Contribution of parents' adult attachment and separation attitudes to parent‐adolescent conflict resolution

This study examined the contribution to parent‐adolescent conflict resolution of parental adult attachment styles and attitudes toward adolescent separation. Questionnaires were completed by 295 couples with early to late adolescent children. Structural equation models were used to test self and partner influences on conflict resolution for three attachment orientations: confidence (model A), anxiety (model B) and avoidance (model C). Model A showed self influences between parents' confidence orientation and negotiation and also via positive attitudes towards separation. Also, the fathers' use of negotiation was facilitated by the mothers' confidence orientation and vice versa, indicating partner influences as well. Model B showed self influences between parents' anxiety orientation and the use of dominance and withdrawal and also via negative attitudes towards separation. Model C showed self influences between parents' avoidance orientation and dominance and withdrawal, and a partner influence between fathers' avoidance and mothers' use of dominance. The results indicated that the parents' adult attachment system and the parenting system were related in the area of conflict resolution, and that self influences were stronger than partner influences.