A processing fluency explanation of bias against migrants

This research investigated whether people are biased against migrants partly because they find migrants more difficult to cognitively process than nonmigrants. In Study 1, 181 undergraduate students evaluated migrant and nonmigrant members of two minimal groups and reported the difficulty that they experienced in thinking about each type of target. Participants rated migrants less positively than nonmigrants, and difficulty ratings partially mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 191) replicated these findings and demonstrated similar findings for individuals who had been excluded from minimal groups. This evidence implies that migrant bias can be explained partly in terms of the difficulty that people have in processing information about migrants, and that it is related to migrants’ exclusion from their original group.     

The central tendency of a social group can affect ratings of its intragroup variability in the absence of social identity concerns

People report less variability within in-groups than within out-groups when they make their ratings on traits on which the in-group has a higher central tendency than the out-group. [Simon, 1992a] and [Simon, 1992b] proposed that this effect is motivated by the need to protect a positive social identity. The present research tested the necessity of the social identity motive by using participants who were not members of any of the target groups that they judged. In Study 1 (N = 60), psychology undergraduate students reported significantly less intragroup variability on positive traits among a group of fashion designers that won a fashion competition than among a group that lost. Study 2 (N = 75) found a reverse effect on negative traits and confirmed the mediating role of perceived central tendency. These results demonstrate that the social identity motive is not necessary to explain the effect of central tendency on ratings of intragroup variability, and that the effect is more general than previously reported.     

The Basic-Systems Model of Episodic Memory

ABSTRACT— Behavior, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging suggest that episodic memories are constructed from interactions among the following basic systems: vision, audition, olfaction, other senses, spatial imagery, language, emotion, narrative, motor output, explicit memory, and search and retrieval. Each system has its own well-documented functions, neural substrates, processes, structures, and kinds of schemata. However, the systems have not been considered as interacting components of episodic memory, as is proposed here. Autobiographical memory and oral traditions are used to demonstrate the usefulness of the basic-systems model in accounting for existing data and predicting novel findings, and to argue that the model, or one similar to it, is the only way to understand episodic memory for complex stimuli routinely encountered outside the laboratory.     

Memory and coping with stress: The relationship between cognitive–emotional distinctiveness,memory valence,and distress

Cognitive–emotional distinctiveness (CED), the extent to which an individual separates emotions from an event in the cognitive representation of the event, was explored in four studies. CED was measured using a modified multidimensional scaling procedure. The first study found that lower levels of CED in memories of the September 11 terrorist attacks predicted greater frequency of intrusive thoughts about the attacks. The second study revealed that CED levels are higher in negative events, in comparison to positive events and that low CED levels in emotionally intense negative events are associated with a pattern of greater event-related distress. The third study replicated the findings from the previous study when examining CED levels in participants’ memories of the 2004 Presidential election. The fourth study revealed that low CED in emotionally intense negative events is associated with worse mental health. We argue that CED is an adaptive and healthy coping feature of stressful memories.     

H.M.'s personal crossword puzzles: Understanding memory and language

The amnesic patient H.M. has been solving crossword puzzles nearly all his life. Here, we analysed the linguistic content of 277 of H.M.'s crossword-puzzle solutions. H.M. did not have any unusual difficulties with the orthographic and grammatical components inherent to the puzzles. He exhibited few spelling errors, responded with appropriate parts of speech, and provided answers that were, at times, more convincing to observers than those supplied by the answer keys. These results suggest that H.M.'s lexical word-retrieval skills remain fluid despite his profound anterograde amnesia. Once acquired, the maintenance of written language comprehension and production does not seem to require intact medial temporal lobe structures.     

The Relationship between Spatial and Communicative Egocentrism in Children and Young and Old Adults

Four age groups of 112 subjects were tested on measures of spatial and communicative egocentrism. Contrary to Piaget's assumption that the variables within his system develop in a unidirectional and irreversible fashion, a curvilinear pattern of development was found. Moreover, the relationship between the two egocentrism measures was found to be significant for only the grade 6 and college-aged samples. Nonsignificant relationships existed for the grade 2 and elderly groups. The findings are discussed in terms of neurological disintegration in the elderly.     

Patterns of Human Interlimb Coordination Emerge from the Properties of Non-Linear,Limit Cycle Oscillatory Processes

The present article represents an initial attempt to offer a principled solution to a fundamental problem of movement identified by Bernstein (1967), namely, how the degrees of freedom of the motor system are regulated. Conventional views of movement control focus on motor programs or closed-loop devices and have little or nothing to say on this matter. As an appropriate conceptual framework we offer Iberall and his colleagues’ physical theory of homeokinetics first elaborated for movement by Kugler, Kelso, and Turvey (1980). Homeokinetic theory characterizes biological systems as ensembles of non-linear, limit cycle oscillatory processes coupled and mutually entrained at all levels of organization. Patterns of interlimb coordination may be predicted from the properties of non-linear, limit cycle oscillators. In a set of experiments and formal demonstrations we show that cyclical, two-handed movements maintain fixed amplitude and frequency (a stable limit cycle organization) under the following conditions: (a) when brief and constantly applied load perturbations are imposed on one hand or the other, (b) regardless of the presence or absence of fixed mechanical constraints, and (c) in the face of a range of external driving frequencies from a visual source. In addition, we observe a tight phasic relationship between the hands before and after perturbations (quantified by cross-correlation techniques), a tendency of one limb to entrain the other (mutual entrainment) and that limbs cycling at different frequencies reveal non-arbitrary, sub-harmonic relationships (small integer, subharmonic entrainment). In short, all the above patterns of interlimb coordination fall out of a non-linear oscillatory design. Discussion focuses on the compatibility of these results with past and present neurobiological work, and the theoretical insights into problems of movement offered by homeokinetic physics. Among these are, we think, the beginnings of a principled solution to the degrees of freedom problem, and the tentative claim that coordination and control are emergent consequences of dynamical interactions among non-linear, limit cycle oscillatory processes.     

Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud: His expulsion from psychoanalysis

This article describes the growth of hostility towards Wilhelm Reich in the psychoanalytic community over his Marxist ideology and activism as well as disagreements over the death instinct. It brings to the fore the behind the scenes political manipulations between Ernest Jones and Anna Freud to effect the expulsion of Reich both from the Vienna and Berlin local psychoanalytic societies and from the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). It describes Reich's reactions to these events and the pressure placed on other psychoanalysts to stop supporting him and also the revision of history about the expulsion. It discusses the use of the term "crazy" as it was used in the psychoanalytic movement. Further the article discusses personality attributes of Anna Freud leading to counter-transference possessiveness to children and women, especially patients. It briefly touches on the attitudes of both Sigmund and Anna Freud toward sex and how this furthered the clash with Reich. It discusses the similarity between Anna's actions toward the Burlingham children and what happened to the children of Reich.     

The Effects of Coaching and Speeding on Big Five and Impression Management Scale Scores

We examined the effects of coaching and speeding on personality scale scores in a faking context (N = 192). A completely crossed 2 × 2 experimental design was used in which instructions (no coaching or coaching) and speeding (with or without a time limit) were manipulated. No statistically significant effects on scale scores were evidenced for speeding. Coaching participants significantly elevated scores (average d = .76) for each of the Big Five personality factors but did not significantly elevate the scores on the Impression Management scale (d = .06). Cognitive ability was significantly positively related to impression management for uncoached participants but not for coached participants. An exploratory simulation suggests that coaching would have an effect on who would be selected for a job.