Personality styles and suggestibility: A differential approach

This study addresses the relationship between personality styles measured with the Portuguese adaptation of the Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised – MIPS-R and interrogative suggestibility assessed by the Portuguese adaptation of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale – GSS1. Hypotheses predicted individual differences in suggestibility and that these differences correspond to differences in individuals’ personality styles. The study was conducted with a sample of 258 individuals (M_age = 31.8 years, SD = 12.0). Results showed that there were individual differences in suggestibility and that these differences corresponded to certain personality characteristics, mainly related to the Thinking Styles and some Behaving Styles.     

Identifying Differences of Environmental Ethics and Place Attachment Among Visitors and Managers at State Parks

ABSTRACT

Understanding place attachment and environmental ethic variables may improve management of natural areas, including enhanced communication related to management practices, managing various natural resources for specific or designated uses, and mediating significant differences between visitors and managers. Bridging any gaps of knowledge and understanding between visitors and those taking care of these natural places may enhance use and management of those areas into the future. This study elicited place attachment, environmental ethics, and demographic information from visitors to four state parks in Oklahoma. State park managers and state park visitors were found to be significantly different in their levels of place attachment and environmental ethics. Using t tests and discriminant analysis, researchers were able to use proenvironmental ethics and place identity to explain and predict the significant differences between the two groups. Implications for natural resource management include improved resource conservation and sustainability through enhanced education, interpretation efforts, and specific programming to connect people to natural places.     

The Tao of a peaceful mind: the representation of emotional health and healing in traditional Chinese literature

This paper explores the representation of emotional health and healing in traditional Chinese literature, and the holistic relationship between traditional Chinese mental medicine and literature as well as philosophy. The philosophical, moral and aesthetic significance assigned to emotional health and healing not only inspired but also mandated the representation of these subjects in Chinese literature. For many Chinese readers, emotional health is more than a medical concern but is integral to their moral and spiritual wholesomeness, the attainment of which necessarily involves the edifying role of literature. The literary representation of emotional health and healing gave rise to a subculture of emotional health and a medical dilettantism in Chinese society. The mutual inclusivity of the professional and the amateurish is peculiar to traditional Chinese mental medicine. While facilitating popular appreciation of emotional health and helping to validate the legitimacy and efficacy of emotional healing, such a phenomenon also caused a certain degree of charlatanization that undercut the rationality and validity of mental medicine. An investigation into the relationship between traditional Chinese literature and mental medicine provides an interdisciplinary perspective from which to examine the latter's history, theory, and practice, thus shedding a cross-cultural light on modern psychology and psychiatry.     

Lessons for Dynamic Touch From a Case of Stroke-Induced Motor Impairment

LW, an individual with a stroke-related motor impairment, was asked to perceive the lengths of rods of different mass distributions by dynamic touch. His impairment dictated that wielding was primarily about the shoulder rather than the wrist. Although perceived rod lengths were in the range of actual rod lengths, scaling to the objects' mass moments was atypical for both the affected and unaffected limbs. A group of healthy young adults asked to mimic his wielding style yielded the same atypical scaling. The typical scaling was restored when LW's wielding was fixed about a mechanical axis. Discussion considered what frame of reference is suitable for revealing an object's mass moments relevant to a given task. In particular, it appears that individuals can exploit alternative forms of interaction with environmental objects that leave invariant the parameters specifying to-be-perceived properties. Perception by dynamic touch is not a function of particular neuromuscular patterns but of information made available to the haptic system during limb-object interactions.     

Familiarity-connected or stress-based contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)? Some additional data

The present short note aimed at further exploring data from a recent study showing socially modulated auditory contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Two independent observers further extended the analysis of all video recordings made in the previous study and coded both the number of yawns performed by the dogs and the frequencies or durations of stress-related behaviors exhibited throughout the presentation of familiar and unfamiliar yawns. By showing no significant difference between conditions in the frequencies or durations of the coded behaviors, nor any association between the number of yawns and the frequencies or durations of stress-related behaviors, results raised doubt on the stress-induced yawn hypothesis, thus supporting social modulation. The exact mechanism underlying contagious yawning, however, needs further research.     

Where Can I Find Consolation? A Theoretical Analysis of the Meaning of Consolation as Experienced by Job in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible

The aim of the study was to explore the meaning of consolation as experienced by Job in the Book of Job and as presented in literature and how consolation relates to suffering and care. The study’s theoretical design applied Ricoeur’s view on phenomenology and hermeneutics. The resulting themes were as follows: consolation that is present, that originates in confrontation, that keeps suffering at a distance, that does not alleviate suffering, that originates in experience from giving comfort, and that facilitates a change of perspective. The authentic and caring consolation accepts the sufferer’s incomprehensible “otherness” but however provides no answers about how to console.     

Quasi-Truth,Supervaluations and Free Logic

The partial structures approach has two major components: a broad notion of structure (partial structure) and a weak notion of truth (quasi-truth). In this paper, we discuss the relationship between this approach and free logic. We also compare the model-theoretic analysis supplied by partial structures with the method of supervaluations, which was initially introduced as a technique to provide a semantic analysis of free logic. We then combine the three formal frameworks (partial structures, free logic and supervaluations), and apply the resulting approach to accommodate semantic paradoxes.     

Essay Review

B. Russell, Foundations of logic 1903-05, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 4, Edited by Urquhart, A. with the assistance of Lewis, A. C. London and New York:Routledge, 1994, Hi+ 743 pp. £100     

Sleep deprivation effects on object discrimination task in zebrafish (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Danio rerio</Emphasis>)

The zebrafish is an ideal vertebrate model for neurobehavioral studies with translational relevance to humans. Many aspects of sleep have been studied, but we still do not understand how and why sleep deprivation alters behavioral and physiological processes. A number of hypotheses suggest its role in memory consolidation. In this respect, the aim of this study was to analyze the effects of sleep deprivation on memory in zebrafish (Danio rerio), using an object discrimination paradigm. Four treatments were tested: control, partial sleep deprivation, total sleep deprivation by light pulses, and total sleep deprivation by extended light. The control group explored the new object more than the known object, indicating clear discrimination. The partially sleep-deprived group explored the new object more than the other object in the discrimination phase, suggesting a certain degree of discriminative performance. By contrast, both total sleep deprivation groups equally explored all objects, regardless of their novelty. It seems that only one night of sleep deprivation is enough to affect discriminative response in zebrafish, indicating its negative impact on cognitive processes. We suggest that this study could be a useful screening tool for cognitive dysfunction and a better understanding of the effect of sleep-wake cycles on cognition.     

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking in response to rumination: Cardiac and emotional responses of transgressors

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking are important and understudied aspects of forgiveness. We examined the cardiac and emotional patterns of healthy young adults (40 women, 40 men) who recalled an unresolved offense they had caused another person. Participants engaged in four imagery conditions: ruminating about the offense, being humbly repentant and engaging in self-forgiveness, seeking forgiveness from the victim and receiving forgiveness, and seeking forgiveness from the victim and being begrudged. Being repentant and begrudged forgiveness by one’s victim was associated with the same level of guilt as when ruminating, but significantly more negative emotion, less control, and less empathy than when ruminating, self-forgiving, and receiving forgiveness from the victim. Compared to ruminating about one’s wrongdoing, self-forgiving alleviated guilt and negative emotion, increased perceived control, decreased heart rate, and increased parasympathetic activation. Imagery of receiving forgiveness from the victim resulted in these same patterns and was equivalent to self-forgiveness across variables.