The cognitive representation of political personalities. A cross-cultural comparison(1)

The cognitive representation of salient political personalities was studied in a British and a German student sample, using a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) procedure. Separate MDS analyses for the two samples yielded a readily interpetable three dimensional stimulus space in each case. These cognitive spaces for political figures were interpreted as reflecting the attributes of political potency, evaluation and intelligence in the case of the British sample, and evaluation, conservatism and political potency in the case of the German sample. An additional joint analysis of data from both subject groups indicated significant cross-cultural differences in the cognitive representations of political leaders. The results were discussed in terms of the socio-cultural differences between the two subsamples, and the utility of a multi-dimensional approach to political perception and behaviour.     

The Associations between Mobile Media use and Food Consumption in Parent-Child Dyads

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Mobile media is an emerging factor that may affect children’s dietary behaviors in the family environment. However, little research has examined...     

Quasi‐Experimental Single‐Subject Design: Comparing Seeking Safety and Canine‐Assisted Therapy Interventions Among Mentally Ill Female Inmates

This repeated measures quasi‐experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of 2 interventions, Seeking Safety and canine‐assisted therapy, with female prisoners with trauma histories on a mental health unit. Results indicate both are effective at reducing anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder.     

Revenge versus forgiveness/forbearance in response to narrative-simulated victimization

The authors engaged men and women (N = 120) who read one of two versions of a dramatic narrative in which the narrator became HIV-positive following heterosexual intercourse with an AIDS-infected partner. Assuming the role of the narrator, the participants completed two situation-instigated criterion measures as a response to becoming HIV-infected, indicated whom they blamed for their predicament, and completed two "trait" predictor measures-negative affect and response to perceived victimization in everyday life. Trait victimization response and blaming the sexual partner were strongly associated with high rather than low negative affect. Reasons for the reluctance to blame the sexual partner and seek revenge were discussed, and recommendations were made to develop less problematic simulated victimization narratives.     

The pursuit of self-interest: self-interest bias in attitude judgment and persuasion

Self-interest affected the direction of attitudes in 4 studies exploring attitude judgment and persuasion. Experiment 1 showed that both self-interest and symbolic concerns predicted attitudes. The biasing role of self-interest in producing the well-known persuasion effects of personal relevance and argument strength was examined by disentangling the competing effects of personal costs and benefits. Experiment 2 used a standard personal relevance manipulation in the absence of supportive arguments and showed that perceptions of personal costs associated with the advocated policy partially mediated its negative effects on attitudes. Experiments 3 and 4 independently manipulated the onset of personal costs associated with an issue and the onset of issue-related benefits conveyed by supportive arguments. Postmessage attitudes were an additive function of personal costs and argument-specified benefits, and perceived costs and benefits biased information processing in a self-interested manner. A revised conception of personal relevance and argument strength is discussed.     

Rethinking Intrinsic Value

According to the dominant philosophical tradition, intrinsic value must depend solely upon intrinsic properties. By appealing to various examples, however, I argue that we should at least leave open the possibility that in some cases intrinsic value may be based in part on relational properties. Indeed, I argue that we should even be open to the possibility that an object's intrinsic value may sometimes depend (in part) on its instrumental value. If this is right, of course, then the traditional contrast between intrinsic value and instrumental value is mistaken.