Theta activity and meditative states: spectral changes during concentrative meditation

Brain oscillatory activity is associated with different cognitive processes and plays a critical role in meditation. In this study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of oscillatory changes during Sahaj Samadhi meditation (a concentrative form of meditation that is part of Sudarshan Kriya yoga). EEG was recorded during Sudarshan Kriya yoga meditation for meditators and relaxation for controls. Spectral and coherence analysis was performed for the whole duration as well as specific blocks extracted from the initial, middle, and end portions of Sahaj Samadhi meditation or relaxation. The generation of distinct meditative states of consciousness was marked by distinct changes in spectral powers especially enhanced theta band activity during deep meditation in the frontal areas. Meditators also exhibited increased theta coherence compared to controls. The emergence of the slow frequency waves in the attention-related frontal regions provides strong support to the existing claims of frontal theta in producing meditative states along with trait effects in attentional processing. Interestingly, increased frontal theta activity was accompanied reduced activity (deactivation) in parietal–occipital areas signifying reduction in processing associated with self, space and, time.     

“Sad day for the UK”: The linking of debates about settling refugee children in the UK with Brexit on an anti-immigrant news website

This article uniquely demonstrates how UK debates about supporting child refugees during the “refugee crisis” came to be used as support for leaving the European Union (EU). The research question “how did users of a news website respond to a report about the UK government's decision to allow child refugees into the UK?” is addressed with a rigorous discursive analysis of an internet discussion forum on the anti-immigrant website MailOnline consisting of 2,014 unique posts, with a reach of 30 million viewers. Analysis demonstrated that (1) child refugees were presented as adults, (2) allowing in refugees was presented as a “burden” on taxpayers, (3) the decision was presented as opposed to the public's will, and (4) this was used as a warrant for leaving the EU. The significant implication of this analysis is that political attempts at associating the refugee crisis with the EU may have been successful in this context.     

Life Satisfaction in Time Orientation

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Time orientation influences people’s perception and evaluation of a situation. Satisfaction in the present life and the future life is likely to be...     

Is Being Emotionally Inexpressive Cool?

Despite a recognition that consumers want to be cool and value cool brands, the literature has only just begun to delineate what makes things cool. Writing by scholars, quotes by celebrities, and norms in fashion advertising are consistent with the view that people become cool by being emotionally inexpressive. The relationship between emotional expression and coolness, however, has not been empirically tested. Our research uses an experimental approach to examine whether being emotionally inexpressive makes people seem more or less cool than smiling. In contrast to the belief that being inexpressive is cool, we find that in noncompetitive contexts—an endorser in a clothing advertisement and an athlete interacting with fans—being inexpressive makes people seem cold rather than cool. On the other hand, in competitive contexts—such as an athlete facing his opponent—being inexpressive makes people seem cool by making them appear dominant. Our results have important implications for marketers, advertisers, and consumers trying to cultivate a cool image.     

Explaining effervescence: Investigating the relationship between shared social identity and positive experience in crowds

We investigated the intensely positive emotional experiences arising from participation in a large-scale collective event. We predicted such experiences arise when those attending a collective event are (1) able to enact their valued collective identity and (2) experience close relations with other participants. In turn, we predicted both of these to be more likely when participants perceived crowd members to share a common collective identity. We investigated these predictions in a survey of pilgrims (N = 416) attending a month-long Hindu pilgrimage festival in north India. We found participants' perceptions of a shared identity amongst crowd members had an indirect effect on their positive experience at the event through (1) increasing participants' sense that they were able to enact their collective identity and (2) increasing the sense of intimacy with other crowd members. We discuss the implications of these data for how crowd emotion should be conceptualised.     

Parental Relationships,Autonomy, and Identity Processes of High School Students

To examine the interrelations among parental relationships, emotional autonomy, and identity statuses, the authors asked 234 (105 male, 129 female) high school students to complete the Parental Bonding Scale (G. Parker, H. Tupling, &; L. B. Brown, 1979), Emotional Autonomy Scale (L. D. Steinberg &; S. B. Silverberg, 1986), and Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Scale-II (L. D. Bennion &; G. R. Adams, 1986). There continues to be controversy about whether adolescents’ identity formation is related to their emotional separation from their parents. According to Eriksonian and neo-Eriksonian theory (J. E. Marcia, 1980 Marcia, J. E. 1980. “Identity in adolescence”. In Handbook of adolescent psychology, Edited by: Adelson, J. 159–187. New York: Wiley.  [Google Scholar], 1984), adolescents who are successful in resolving their identity issues are better able to emotionally individuate from their parents. That is, adolescents have fewer conflicts with parents as they become more independent of them. Results of the present study indicate that adolescent perceptions of mother's caring behavior, but not father's caring behavior, predicted higher foreclosure identity status scores among adolescents. In addition, 2 dimensions of emotional autonomy (i.e., perceiving parents as people and parental deidealization) best predicted the adolescent identity statuses of moratorium and foreclosure. Results also indicate that future research may need to establish a better theoretical conceptualization of the constructs of interest in this study and better measures of emotional autonomy among adolescents.     

Immigration as a Dynamic Experience: Personal Narratives and Clinical Implications for Family Therapists

This is a reflective account of the experiences of the authors who immigrated to the United States from India at different developmental, historical, political, and social stages. Although their culture-of-origin was the same, the meaning and experience of immigration was different for each author. The narratives show a natural continuum of experiences based on their developmental stage during immigration, reasons for immigration, and the historical context of both India and the US at the time of immigration. A common theme is the ambivalence experienced by them in their process of creating a physical and psychological home in a different culture.     

Visual awareness and the detection of fearful faces

A commonly held view is that emotional stimuli are processed independently of awareness. Here, the authors parametrically varied the duration of a fearful face target stimulus that was backward masked by a neutral face. The authors evaluated awareness by characterizing behavioral performance using receiver operating characteristic curves from signal detection theory. Their main finding was that no universal objective awareness threshold exists for fear perception. Although several subjects displayed a behavioral pattern consistent with previous reports (i.e., targets masked at 33 ms), a considerable percentage of their subjects (64%) were capable of reliably detecting 33-ms targets. Their findings suggest that considerable information is available even in briefly presented stimuli (possibly as short as 17 ms) to support masked fear detection.     

Perceived justice of available opportunities and self-esteem,collective esteem and social exclusion: A study of three religious groups in India

Groups have their own social realities which determine their perceptions of justice having impact on their well- being and consequent integration with the mainstream society. The objective of the present study was to understand variations in perceived justice in terms of opportunities existing in five different domains, i.e. social prestige, economic, educational, employment and political by the Hindu Majority (N = 100) and Muslim (N = 100) and Christian (N = 76) minorities in India. In addition, the study also aimed to understand the relationship of perceived justice with self-esteem, collective esteem and social exclusion. Male and female participants (N = 276) of the study were either of high or low caste, and were of employed or unemployed status from a north Indian city. The results indicate that justice perception is determined by religion and caste not by gender and employment status. The majority Hindus perceived significantly higher perceptions of justice than Christians and Muslims minorities on all four domains except education. For education the minority Muslim group had lower justice perceptions than Hindus and Christians who did not differ significantly. The three groups differed significantly in their ratings of social exclusion with maximum exclusion perceived by Christians and minimum by Hindus. Results have implications for development initiatives.     

How Collective Participation Impacts Social Identity: A Longitudinal Study from India

A key issue for political psychology concerns the processes whereby people come to invest psychologically in socially and politically significant group identities. Since Durkheim, it has been assumed that participation in group‐relevant collective events increases one's investment in such group identities. However, little empirical research explicitly addresses this or the processes involved. We investigated these issues in a longitudinal questionnaire study conducted at one of the world's largest collective events—a month‐long Hindu festival in north India (the Magh Mela). Data gathered from pilgrims and comparable others who did not attend the event show that one month after the event, those who had participated (but not the controls) exhibited heightened social identification as a Hindu and increased frequency of prayer rituals. Data gathered from pilgrims during the festival predicted these outcomes. Specifically, perceptions of sharing a common identity with other pilgrims and of being able to enact one's social identity in this event helped predict changes in participants' identification and behavior. The wider significance of these data for political psychology is discussed.