Reflections on the Meaning and Structure of the Horizontal/Vertical Distinction

The commentaries by Aaker (2006), Meyers‐Levy (2006), and Oyserman (2006) extend the implications of the horizontal/vertical distinction described in our article (Shavitt, Lalwani, Zhang, & Torelli, 2006) in a number of interesting directions. We join these authors in calling for further research on horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism constructs. We also highlight conceptual and structural issues that remain to be resolved and evaluate priming and other operational approaches to the study of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism.     

Fear of Punishment in Another World: a Follow-Up Examination of the Religious Beliefs About HIV/AIDS—A Decade of Progress?

Journal of Religion and Health - This study compared 2000 and 2010 data on the religious beliefs about HIV/AIDS among those with HIV in a Deep South state. The percentage agreeing that HIV/AIDS is...     

Emergence and Causal Powers

This paper argues that the non-reductive monist need not be concerned about the ‘problem’ of mental causation; one can accept both the irreducibility of mental properties to physical properties and the causal closure of the physical. More precisely, it is argued that instances of mental properties can be causally efficacious, and that there is no special barrier to seeing mental properties whose instances are causally efficacious as being causally relevant to the effects they help to bring about. It is then shown that the causal relevance of mental properties is consistent with there being no downward causation, so the dilemma of ‘epiphenomenalism or reduction’ can be avoided. Non-reductive monism lives on as a viable position in the philosophy of mind.

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Response strategies in list learning by orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus x P. abelii)

Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) develop strategies to acquire and execute serial lists (K. B. Swartz & S. A. Himmanen, 2001). Serial probe recognition studies of list memory have demonstrated similarities across monkeys and humans (S. F. Sands & A. A. Wright, 1980). The present study extended the investigation of list learning and memory to determine whether orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus x P. abelii) would show evidence of subjective organization of photographic lists in a manner similar to that shown by humans learning a list of unrelated words (E. Tulving, 1962). No evidence for the effective use of a subjective organization strategy was found, but the orangutans developed a right-to-left spatial response strategy, which emerged during the acquisition of 5-item lists. This strategy was an effective way to reduce the load on working memory when presented with a complex array of items.     

Effect of negative emotional pictures on associative memory for peripheral information

We investigated the influence of negative emotional pictures on associative memory. A visual object was embedded in the periphery of negative emotional or neutral pictures. Memory was assessed for central item (pictorial) information, peripheral (object) information, and the association between item and peripheral information. On tests of item information, negative emotional pictures were remembered better than neutral pictures. However, associative memory between item and peripheral information was less accurate when the pictures were negative compared to neutral. This occurred despite equivalent recall (Experiments 1 and 2) and recognition (Experiment 2) for the peripheral objects themselves. Further experiments confirmed that performance on the associative test was not influenced by testing order (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that negative emotional arousal can particularly disrupt the associative binding of peripheral information to a central emotional event.     

Auditory event files: Integrating auditory perception and action planning

The features of perceived objects are processed in distinct neural pathways, which call for mechanisms that integrate the distributed information into coherent representations (the binding problem). Recent studies of sequential effects have demonstrated feature binding not only in perception, but also across (visual) perception and action planning. We investigated whether comparable effects can be obtained in and across auditory perception and action. The results from two experiments revealed effects indicative of spontaneous integration of auditory features (pitch and loudness, pitch and location), as well as evidence for audio—manual stimulus—response integration. Even though integration takes place spontaneously, features related to task-relevant stimulus or response dimensions are more likely to be integrated. Moreover, integration seems to follow a temporal overlap principle, with features coded close in time being more likely to be bound together. Taken altogether, the findings are consistent with the idea of episodic event files integrating perception and action plans.     

Abusive supervision, intentions to quit, and employees’ workplace deviance: A power/dependence analysis

We conducted a two-study examination of relationships between abusive supervision and subordinates’ workplace deviance. Consistent with predictions derived from power/dependence theory, the results of a cross-sectional study with employees from three organizations suggest that abusive supervision is more strongly associated with subordinates’ organization deviance and supervisor-directed deviance when subordinates’ intention to quit is higher. The results also support the prediction that when intention to quit is higher, abusive supervision is more strongly associated with supervisor-directed deviance than with organization-directed deviance. These results were replicated in a second study, a two-wave investigation of people employed in a variety of industries and occupations.     

Developmental "Roots" in Mature Biological Knowledge

ABSTRACT— Young children tend to claim that moving artifacts and nonliving natural kinds are alive, but neglect to ascribe life to plants. This research tested whether adults exhibit similar confusions when verifying life status in a speeded classification task. Experiment 1 showed that undergraduates encounter greater difficulty (reduced accuracy and increased response times) in determining life status for plants, relative to animals, and for natural and moving nonliving things, relative to artifacts and nonmoving things. Experiment 2 replicated these effects in university biology professors. The professors showed a significantly reduced effect size for living things, as compared with the students, but still showed greater difficulty for plants than animals, even as no differences from the students were apparent in their responses to nonliving things. These results suggest that mature biological knowledge relies on a developmental foundation that is not radically overwritten or erased with the profound conceptual changes that accompany mastery of the domain.