Conscious and unconscious processing of facial expressions: Evidence from two split‐brain patients

We investigated how the brain's hemispheres process explicit and implicit facial expressions in two ‘split‐brain’ patients (one with a complete and one with a partial anterior resection). Photographs of faces expressing positive, negative or neutral emotions were shown either centrally or bilaterally. The task consisted in judging the friendliness of each person in the photographs. Half of the photograph stimuli were ‘hybrid faces’, that is an amalgamation of filtered images which contained emotional information only in the low range of spatial frequency, blended to a neutral expression of the same individual in the rest of the spatial frequencies. The other half of the images contained unfiltered faces. With the hybrid faces the patients and a matched control group were more influenced in their social judgements by the emotional expression of the face shown in the left visual field (LVF). When the expressions were shown explicitly, that is without filtering, the control group and the partially callosotomized patient based their judgement on the face shown in the LVF, whereas the complete split‐brain patient based his ratings mainly on the face presented in the right visual field. We conclude that the processing of implicit emotions does not require the integrity of callosal fibres and can take place within subcortical routes lateralized in the right hemisphere.     

Yinshun's Recovery of Shizhu Piposha Lun 十住毗婆沙論: a Madhyamaka-based Pure Land practice In twentieth-century Taiwan

Yinshun (1906–2005) is regarded as one of the eminent monks of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. In the mission of reinventing Chinese Buddhism Yinshun engaged particularly in the revival and restatement of Madhyamaka. His interpretation of Nāgārjuna's texts, the reassessment of the links between pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Prajn?āpāramitā tradition, and the critical analysis of the Chinese San-lun became the core of the new Mahāyāna that he planned for the twentieth-century China. Yinshun also adopted Madhyamaka criteria to reconsider the Mahāyāna schools that were popular in China, and theorized a Madhyamaka-framed Pure Land based on his reading of the Shizhu piposha lun [T26 n1521]. This article discusses Yinshun's views on the Easy Path (yixing dao) and Difficult Path (nanxing dao) in the Pure Land practice, and contextualizes Yinshun's interpretation within the past history of the Chinese Pure Land School, as well as within the new debates on Pure Land that emerged in twentieth-century China.     

New Strategies in the Assessment of Psychological Factors Affecting Medical Conditions

In this article, we examine research that may lead to a better assessment of psychological factors affecting medical conditions. We performed a review of the psychosomatic literature using both Medline and manual searches. We selected papers that were judged to be relevant to new strategies of assessment, with particular reference to the use of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research. We assessed 8 areas concerned with the assessment of psychological factors in the setting of medical disease: hypochondriasis, disease phobia, persistent somatization, conversion symptoms, illness denial, demoralization, irritable mood, and Type A behavior. A new subclassification of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-V]; not yet published) category of psychological factors affecting physical conditions appears to be feasible and may provide the clinician with better tools for identifying psychological distress.     

Persuasion in school-aged children: How does it change if the persuadee is the mother or the peer?

The present study was designed to verify how school-aged children’s persuasive tactics changed if the persuadee was the mother or the peer. One hundred and forty-nine children at two grade levels (4th and 5th) were enrolled in the study. Persuasive strategies were investigated using pictures representing two common situations in which each child had to convince his/her playmate and his/her mother to obtain a toy. As predicted, with mothers children engaged more frequently in strategies aimed at encouraging cognitive reappraisal of the situation and offering guarantees. Conversely, with the peers, children adopted a greater variety of persuasive strategies, engaging in lower-order tactics. Implications and limitations of the study were discussed.     

Emotional intelligence and smoking: Protective and risk factors among Canadian young adults

A sample of 20 and 21 year old participants (n = 2699) of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) was used to investigate the association between emotional intelligence and smoking in young adulthood. Emotional intelligence was measured with a short-form of the original EQ-i (Statistics Canada, 2008), which assessed overall emotional intelligence and five dimensions: interpersonal competencies, intrapersonal competencies, stress management competencies, adaptability competencies and general mood. Using self-reported smoking behaviors, participants were classified as daily, occasional or non-smokers. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to test the association between emotional intelligence (and its dimensions) with daily and occasional smoking (compared to non-smoking - the reference category). Analyses were conducted on the total sample and were also stratified across gender. Stress management emerged as a protective factor against occasional and daily smoking among both males and females. Unexpectedly, a higher score on interpersonal competencies was associated with occasional smoking (compared to non-smoking) among males, suggesting that this group may consist of several social smokers. Our results suggest that emotional intelligence may comprise gender-specific protective and risk factors for occasional and daily smoking, which in turn should be considered in the development of smoking prevention programs.     

An exploratory study of the relations between women miners' gender‐based workplace issues and their mental health and job satisfaction

The current study investigated the extent to which gender‐based workplace issues were associated with women miners' mental health and job satisfaction. Participants were 263 women miners from Australian and other international mines sites owned by an Australian‐based mining company. They completed an online survey that contained measures of gender‐based workplace issues, mental health, and job satisfaction. An exploratory factor analysis identified three higher‐order factors: organizational sexism, interpersonal sexism, and sense of belonging. Both organizational and interpersonal sexism were positive independent predictors of mental health and job satisfaction. In addition, sense of belonging mediated the associations between organizational sexism and (a) mental health and (b) job satisfaction. Potential strategies for reducing organizational and interpersonal sexism and increasing women's sense of belonging are considered.     

The identity of Brexit: A cultural psychology analysis

In this paper, we propose a culturalist interpretation of the outcome of the Brexit referendum. This interpretation is grounded on the analysis of the U.K.'s cultural milieu, which is part of a more general study of the cultural milieus of several European countries. Specific to the United Kingdom, our analysis is based on a questionnaire carried out on a representative sample of U.K. respondents stratified by sociodemographic variables and geographic region (NUTS1). Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis—a combination of multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. Findings about the multicountry analysis show how cultural milieus are characterized by five basic, embodied, affect‐laden, generalized worldviews (defined as “Symbolic Universes”). Four out of five symbolic universes consist of a way of interpreting reality by a specific anchorage (i.e., the ethical norm, the institutional order, the emotional experience interpersonal bond, and the belongingness). One symbolic universe can be viewed as the anomic reaction to the failure of those anchorages. Focusing on Brexit, by means of a discriminant analysis, it is showed how the incidence of the symbolic universes (and of the underpinning basic dimensions of meaning within the 12 U.K. macroregions') enables to identify differentially the macroregions with high proportion of “leave” at the Brexit referendum against those with low proportion. More specifically, the high “leave” macroregion are characterized by higher relevance of cultural forms anchored on local identity/belongingness. Findings are discussed within the wider aims of the project and its implications for a cultural psychology informed policymaking.     

Changes in smoking behaviors from late childhood to adolescence: insights from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth.

OBJECTIVE: To examine smoking behaviors in Canadian youth from late childhood to adolescence. By following participants from as young as 10 and 11 years, the authors proposed to identify distinct developmental pathways of smoking acquisition. DESIGN: Growth mixture modeling was used to identify developmental trajectories of smoking among 10- to 17-year-old participants of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Developmental trajectories of trying smoking, smoking frequency, and smoking intensity. Results: Five developmental trajectories related to smoking frequency were identified, of which 2 were acquisition patterns that led to daily smoking at age 16-17, and 3 were experimentation patterns that led to nonsmoking at age 16-17. The largest variability in changes in smoking behavior over time was the reported level of smoking frequency. CONCLUSION: Analysis showed that there is more than 1 way in which Canadian children and adolescents acquire smoking behaviors over time. The authors were able to differentiate patterns of experimentation from patterns of acquisition. Whereas experimentation has been generally considered as 1 of the stages in the smoking acquisition process leading to regular smoking, these results indicate that experimentation can be described as a distinct process in itself.     

What differentiates episodic future thinking from complex scene imagery?

We investigated the contributions of familiarity of setting, self-relevance and self-projection in time to episodic future thinking. The role of familiarity of setting was assessed, in Experiment 1, by comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical future events supposed to occur in unfamiliar settings. The role of self-relevance was assessed, in Experiment 2, by comparing episodic future thoughts to future events involving familiar others. The role of self-projection in time was assessed, in both Experiments, by comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical events that were not temporal in nature. Results indicated that episodic future thoughts were more clearly represented than autobiographical future events occurring in unfamiliar setting and future events involving familiar others. Our results also revealed that episodic future thoughts were indistinguishable from autobiographical atemporal events with respect to both subjective and objective detail ratings. These results suggest that future and atemporal events are mentally represented in a similar way.