On preferences and doing the right thing: Satisfaction with advantageous inequity when cognitive processing is limited

We examine outcome satisfaction in situations in which people receive better outcomes than comparable other persons. Building on classical and modern social psychological theories, we argue that when reacting to these arrangements of advantageous inequity, judging the advantage is quick and easy as preferences are primary. We further propose that adjusting this appraisal requires cognitive resources as it entails integrating fairness concerns with the initial preference appraisal. Extending the literature on cognitive busyness, we therefore predict that people should be more satisfied with advantageous inequity when cognitive processing is strongly—as opposed to weakly—limited. Findings across several different experimental paradigms support our predictions. Taken together, our findings shed light on the psychological processes underlying the intriguing interplay between egoism- and fairness-based considerations when evaluating outcomes, as well as on more general preference and adjustment processes.     

Astonishment: A study of an ethically valorised emotion in Buddhist narrative literature

This essay explores the role that Buddhist narrative literature plays in fostering the cultivation of ethically valorised emotions. The essay focuses on astonishment, as it figures in ārya ?ūra's Jātakamālā, a collection of Sanskrit narratives. The essay examines how and why ārya ?ūra valorises astonishment and what this valorisation reveals about the significance of emotions in Buddhist ethical life. The key distinction implicit in ārya ?ūra's work between natural and cultivated emotions is worked out.     

The malleability of executive function in early childhood: Effects of schooling and targeted training

Executive function (EF), its importance for scholastic achievement and the question of whether or not EF is malleable, have become a topic of intense interest. Education or schooling is often seen as effective approaches to enhance EF due to the specific school‐related requirements as compared to kindergarten or pre‐school. However, no study to date has investigated whether targeted training focusing on those domains might be comparable with regular schooling in improving EF and fluid intelligence (Gf). The aim of the present study was to replicate and extend the previously demonstrated schooling effects on EF by using a school‐cutoff design, and to further investigate whether a theoretically motivated intervention targeting specific EF, i.e., working memory (WM) or inhibitory control (IC), could achieve comparable effects with schooling in both, WM and IC, as well as Gf. 91 6‐year‐old kindergarteners and first‐graders with similar chronological age participated the study. We compared the performance of a first‐grade schooling group with that of two kindergarten training groups as well as a business‐as‐usual kindergarten control group. Participants were assessed in WM, IC and Gf at baseline, immediately after the intervention (posttest), as well as 3 months after training completion (follow‐up). The results showed that the schooling group indeed outperformed the kindergarten groups at baseline in several cognitive tasks. Furthermore, both the WM and IC training showed pronounced gains in the trained tasks, as well as varying degrees of improvement in non‐trained outcome measures. Most importantly, both training groups achieved comparable performance with the schooling group, which was especially apparent in Gf at follow‐up. Our findings provide further evidence for the malleability of EF demonstrating that both, long‐term and short‐term interventions can facilitate the acquisition of those important skills, and as such, our work has important implications for educational practice.     

Your Own Personal Jesus? Doctrinal Beliefs Versus Personal Spirituality Among Inmates Involved in the Monastery Route in Swedish Prisons

Previous studies, mainly from the United States, have indicated that religious beliefs can help inmates to cope with imprisonment and to build hopes for the future. The purpose of this study was to examine if this is the case also in Sweden, which is usually considered to be one of the most secular countries in the world. The data consist of semistructured interviews with 14 prisoners participating in the so‐called Monastery Route activities within Swedish prisons. Although the activities are based on Christianity, the explicit aim is to invite individuals from all religions, as well as those with an open attitude toward spirituality. How do the inmates formulate their beliefs (if any) along the lines of doctrinal religiousness and personal spirituality, respectively? And, how does this orientation affect the ability to cope with imprisonment, as well as the views of the future? The results show that a small number of the participants defined themselves as Christian, but that the majority had instead developed a more personal form of spirituality. This provided them with a means of working with themselves and gave them a sense of inner calm. The study's findings are contrasted against conflicting results from the United States.     

Effects of Helper and Recipient Sex on the Experience and Outcomes of Comforting Messages: An Experimental Investigation

The purpose of this experimental study was to examine whether and in what ways the sex of the helper and the recipient moderate the effects of comforting messages in face-to-face interactions. A total of 216 participants disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate trained to display different levels of nonverbal immediacy and verbal person centeredness. Men and women responded very similarly to comforting messages that exhibited different levels of verbal person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy, and this response similarity was not moderated by the sex of the helper. Both men and women were most comforted by messages that exhibited high levels of person centeredness and nonverbal immediacy, and they were least comforted by messages that exhibited low levels of these qualities. Moreover, both sexes viewed highly person-centered and immediate messages as exhibiting the highest comforting quality, and, with one minor exception, both sexes viewed helpers who used these messages as the most competent.     

A Game of Inches: Spontaneous Use of Counterfactuals by Broadcasters During Major League Baseball Playoffs1

We tested whether counterfactuals are made spontaneously outside of the laboratory by coding sportscasters’ online verbalizations during 1998 and 1999 Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff broadcasts, and we assessed whether naturally occurring game features relating to closeness (score closeness, series closeness, game end, and playoff end) delineated some conditions under which counterfactuals were more likely. Sportscasters made counterfactuals quite frequently during these MLB playoff games. In addition, sportscasters uttered greater numbers of counterfactuals as games progressed from early to late innings, which was particularly true when scores were close. Counterfactuals were also uttered in greater numbers with closer scores when series were tied than when one team had a lead. Results are discussed in terms of spontaneous counterfactuals, closeness as an antecedent, and the ecological validity of such thoughts.     

Gruppenentwicklung in zwei stationären intendiert dynamischen Gruppentherapien

Following the discussion of several methodological problems in the assessment of group development processes, a study is reported comparing the development in two inpatient groups (treated according to the intended dynamic model), measured on several levels, with a theoretical model of group development. Within the study, self experiences, group experiences and the group climate were assessed following each session. Data analysis was performed using a nonparametric procedure for the analysis of time series. The study indicated that group development can be studied economically. It further shows some indicators for differential group processes and individual reactions to the group process that can be used clinically.     

Brain mechanisms associated with background monitoring of the environment for potentially significant sensory events

Background monitoring is a necessary prerequisite to detect unexpected changes in the environment, while being involved in a primary task. Here, we used fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie adaptive goal-directed behavior in a cued task switching paradigm during real response conflict or, more generally, when expectations on the repetitive features of the environment were violated. Unexpected changes in sensory stimulus attributes in the currently unattended stimulus dimension thereby led to activations in a bilateral network comprising inferior lateral frontal, intraparietal, and posterior medial frontal brain regions, independent of whether these attributes elicited a factual response conflict or not. This fronto-parietal network may thus play an important role in adaptive responding to potentially significant events outside the current focus of attention.     

Human aging compromises attentional control of auditory perception

Older adults often experience hearing difficulties in multitalker situations. Attentional control of auditory perception is crucial in situations where a plethora of auditory inputs compete for further processing. We combined an intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm with attentional manipulations to study adult age differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control of auditory processing. When confronted with two competing sources of verbal auditory input, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more driven by perceptual saliency than younger adults. These findings suggest that aging severely impairs the attentional regulation of auditory perception.