Kill or cure? Different types of social class identification amplify and buffer the relation between social class and mental health

The present research investigated different types of social class identification as moderators of the negative relation between social class and mental health problems. Psychology undergraduates (N = 355) completed an online survey that included measures of social class, mental health and well-being, and three aspects of social class identification: importance of identity, salience of identity, and perceived self-class similarity. Perceived self-class similarity buffered the negative association between social class and depressive symptoms. However, importance and salience of social class identity amplified the associations between social class and anxiety and life satisfaction. These findings contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the way in which social identification may operate as a social cure.     

Effects of provocation on emotions and aggression in males

The effects of provocation of emotions and human physical aggression were examined using a competitive reaction time paradigm. Fifty-four males participated in the competitive task with a fictitious opponent. Participants were assigned to two conditions, low-constant provocation and increasing provocation. Aggression was defined as the intensity of electric shocks participants selected for the opponent to receive. Negative emotions (threat, harm) and positive emotions (benefit, challenge) were assessed at four times during the experimental task. The results revealed that both aggressive responding and harm emotions differed as a function of opponent's level of provocation. There was little compelling evidence that emotions served as an important intervening variable in the relationship between provocation and aggression. Aggr. Behav. 23:1–10, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Body Esteem: An Exception to Self‐Enhancing Illusions?1

Participants were 192 university students (96 males, 96 females) who completed the Body Esteem scale (Franzoi & Shields, 1984) under instructions to rate their feelings about their own bodies, rate their feelings about a specific or “average” student's body, and rate the importance they and others attached to these feelings. One of the findings is that when individuals perceived themselves as less positive on a particular desirable physical trait, they also rated the trait as less important to possess in the first place. The only exception to this was women's weight concern. It was also found that men generally rated themselves higher on body‐esteem subscales than they rated other men, while women did not exhibit such self‐serving evaluations of their bodies. One implication from these results is that the same self‐enhancement strategies successfully employed by individuals in other areas of self‐evaluations were not successful in enhancing one's body esteem, especially women's weight concern.     

The Place Of Geometry: Heidegger's Mathematical Excursus On Aristotle

'The Place of Geometry' discusses the excursus on mathematics from Heidegger's 1924–25 lecture course on Platonic dialogues, which has been published as Volume 19 of the Gesamtausgabe as Plato's Sophist , as a starting point for an examination of geometry in Euclid, Aristotle and Descartes. One of the crucial points Heidegger makes is that in Aristotle there is a fundamental difference between arithmetic and geometry, because the mode of their connection is different. The units of geometry are positioned, the units of arithmetic unpositioned. Following Heidegger's claim that the Greeks had no word for space, and David Lachterman's assertion that there is no term corresponding to or translatable as 'space' in Euclid's Elements , I examine when the term 'space' was introduced into Western thought. Descartes is central to understanding this shift, because his understanding of extension based in terms of mathematical co-ordinates is a radical break with Greek thought. Not only does this introduce this word 'space' but, by conceiving of geometrical lines and shapes in terms of numerical co-ordinates, which can be divided, it turns something that is positioned into unpositioned. Geometric problems can be reduced to equations, the length (i.e, quantity) of lines: a problem of number. The continuum of geometry is transformed into a form of arithmetic. Geometry loses position just as the Greek notion of 'place' is transformed into the modern notion of space.     

Effects of Leader Style, Leader Sex, and Subordinate Personality on Leader Evaluations and Future Subordinate Motivation

Past research has shown that when leader styles were dichotomized as autocratic versus democratic, female leaders were evaluated more harshly for using autocratic styles than their male counterparts (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992). The present study investigated whether or not the personality characteristic of Agreeableness interacted with leader gender and leader style (autocratic versus democratic) to affect subordinate reactions to the leader. A 2 (autocratic versus democratic leader style) × 2 (male versus female leader) × 2 (high versus low subordinate Agreeableness) factorial design was used with leader evaluation, future effort, and future interest as dependent variables. A three-way interaction was predicted for these variables such that leaders would be penalized most for behavior that was inconsistent with gender roles by participants low in agreeableness. Participants were 165 undergraduates at a large midwestern urban university. Results generally supported the hypothesized three-way interaction for the effort and interest variables. Overall, the results partially supported the notion that disagreeable participants would rate gender inconsistent behavior more harshly.     

Nonconscious control mimics a purposeful strategy: strength of Stroop-like interference is automatically modulated by proportion of compatible trials

The magnitude of the Stroop effect is known to be modulated by the proportion of trials on which the irrelevant word and relevant ink color correspond. This has often been attributed to a conscious strategy of increased (or decreased) reliance on the irrelevant words when these are more likely (or less likely) to correspond to the ink colors. However, the present data from a Stroop-like task involving successively presented arrows indicate instead that this type of modulation can be automatic because it can occur even if the irrelevant stimuli are not phenomenally visible. In this case participants cannot determine the proportion of compatible trials to direct their strategy. An automatic, item-specific associative interpretation can account for these findings.