Perceiving one's nation: entitativity, agency and security in the international arena

The perception of groups as real entities rather than mere aggregates of individuals has important consequences on intergroup relations. Social psychological research, in fact, shows that it affects stereotyping, identification process, and intergroup bias. Previous research has also shown that group entitativity is not a positive or negative group attribute per se; rather, it depends on the context and the relationship between the perceiver and the group. While enhancing entitativity leads to worse expectations about the out‐group actions, high entitativity is a valued characteristic when associated with an ally or with the in‐group. Indeed, enhancing in‐group entitativity leads to stronger in‐group identification. The specific reasons for why this is the case, however, remain to be ascertained. What is good about in‐group entitativity? In the present contribution we propose that in‐group entitativity may lead to perceive the group as a real entity provided with intentions and capacity for planned actions, notably ensuring the safety of its members by protecting them against external threats. We report two correlational studies conducted with American citizens (Study 1) and Italian citizens (Study 2), showing that in‐group entitativity is associated with a higher level of identification, attribution of intentionality, and perceived security provided by the in‐group. These findings were replicated in a third study—conducted with a role‐play method on a fictitious scenario—in which entitativity was manipulated rather than measured. Study 3 also shows that artificially increasing the perception of in‐group entitativity enhances perceived safety in an international context and reduces the perception of threat from an out‐group. Findings are discussed in terms of possible implications for intergroup and international relations.     

Stimulus-driven attentional capture: An empirical comparison of display-size and distance methods

Four experiments examined attentional capture by colour as assessed by two different investigative methods. Subjects performed a visual search task for a vertical-target line embedded among tilted-distractor lines, presented inside 4, 8, or 12 coloured discs. Interestingly, when the colour singleton was task irrelevant, and data were analysed by means of the display-size method combined with the zero-slope criterion, no evidence for attentional capture by colour was found. However, when data were analysed by means of the distance method, which consists of monitoring the spatial relationship between the target and the singleton, results showed that the target was found faster and/or more accurately when it was inside the singleton than when it was in a nonsingleton location. This provided evidence for a stimulus-driven attentional capture. In addition, the application of signal detection methodology showed that attentional capture, as revealed by the distance method, resulted from a perceptual modulation at the singleton location, rather than from a criterion shift. We conclude that, at least with the kind of stimuli used here, the display-size method combined with the zero-slope criterion is less than ideal for investigating how static discontinuities can affect the automatic deployment of visual attention.     

Lambda Calculus and Intuitionistic Linear Logic

The introduction of Linear Logic extends the Curry-Howard Isomorphism to intensional aspects of the typed functional programming. In particular, every formula of Linear Logic tells whether the term it is a type for, can be either erased/duplicated or not, during a computation. So, Linear Logic can be seen as a model of a computational environment with an explicit control about the management of resources.This paper introduces a typed functional language ! and a categorical model for it.The terms of ! encode a version of natural deduction for Intuitionistic Linear Logic such that linear and non linear assumptions are managed multiplicatively and additively, respectively. Correspondingly, the terms of ! are built out of two disjoint sets of variables. Moreover, the -abstractions of ! bind variables and patterns. The use of two different kinds of variables and the patterns allow a very compact definition of the one-step operational semantics of !, unlike all other extensions of Curry-Howard Isomorphism to Intuitionistic Linear Logic. The language ! is Church-Rosser and enjoys both Strong Normalizability and Subject Reduction.The categorical model induces operational equivalences like, for example, a set of extensional equivalences.The paper presents also an untyped version of ! and a type assignment for it, using formulas of Linear Logic as types. The type assignment inherits from ! all the good computational properties and enjoys also the Principal-Type Property.     

A small step for rats alters spatial behavior: rats on a bi-level arena explore each level separately

Animal Cognition - We tested rats on a ‘bi-level open-field’ whose two halves were separated vertically by an 8-cm step that the rats could easily ascend/descend. We sought to determine...     

Scaffolding emotions and evolving language

We suggest that, in animals, the core-affect system is linked to partially assimilated behavioral dispositions that act as developmental scaffolds for the ontogenetic construction of emotions. We also propose that in humans the evolution of language altered the control of emotions, leading to categories that can be adequately captured only by emotion-words.     

Affective states leak into movement execution: Automatic avoidance of threatening stimuli in fear of spider is visible in reach trajectories

Approach-like actions are initiated faster with stimuli of positive valence. Conversely, avoidance-like actions are initiated faster with threatening stimuli of negative valence. We went beyond reaction time measures and investigated whether threatening stimuli also affect the way in which an action is carried out. Participants moved their hand either away from the picture of a spider (avoidance) or they moved their hand toward the picture of a spider (approach). We compared spider-fearful participants to non-anxious participants. When reaching away from the threatening spider picture, spider-fearful participants moved more directly to the target than controls. When reaching toward the threatening spider, spider-fearful participants moved less directly to the target than controls. Some conditions that showed clear differences in movement trajectories between spider-fearful and control participants were devoid of differences in reaction time. The deviation away from threatening stimuli provides evidence for the claim that affective states like fear leak into movement programming and produce deviations away from threatening stimuli in movement execution. Avoidance of threatening stimuli is rapidly integrated into ongoing motor behaviour in order to increase the distance between the participant's body and the threatening stimulus.     

Confirming expectations in asymmetric and symmetric social hypothesis testing

This article examines individuals' expectations in a social hypothesis testing task. Participants selected questions from a list to investigate the presence of personality traits in a target individual. They also identified the responses that they expected to receive and the likelihood of the expected responses. The results of two studies indicated that when people asked questions inquiring about the hypothesized traits that did not entail strong a priori beliefs, they expected to find evidence confirming the hypothesis under investigation. These confirming expectations were more pronounced for symmetric questions, in which the diagnosticity and frequency of the expected evidence did not conflict. When the search for information was asymmetric, confirming expectations were diminished, likely as a consequence of either the rareness or low diagnosticity of the hypothesis-confirming outcome. We also discuss the implications of these findings for confirmation bias.     

Assessing Vindictiveness: Psychological Aspects by a Reliability and Validity Study of the Vengeance Scale in the Italian Context

Vengeance can be commonly defined as the disposition towards the infliction of harm in return for perceived injury or insult or as simply getting back at another person. This paper describes a contribution to the Italian validation of the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless and Goranson, Journal of social Behavior and Personality 7: 25?C42, 1992) following the same steps of the original authors and shows psychological implications of vindictive behavior. 377 under-graduate students responded to the Big Five Questionnaire, State Trait Anger Expression Inventory and a back-translated Italian version of the Vengeance Scale (IVS). The IVS shows good psychometric properties. Convergent validity is shown by correlations with crucially connected variables (anger, empathy, social desirability). Factorial analysis suggested that the IVS is basically a one-dimensional measure. Regression analysis reveals that empathy, anger and emotional stability are significant predictors of vengeance. General results show that the IVS is a good instrument of evaluation of the tendency to be vindictive. Statistic analysis highlights that specific personality traits are involved in vindictive behavior; furthermore the interactions between some features of subject and the environment appear determinant. The implications and utility of the IVS in future research are discussed.