SACRIFICIAL AGAPE AND GROUP SELECTION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY

Human altruistic behavior has received a great deal of scientific attention over the past forty years. Altruistic‐like behaviors found among insects and animals have illumined certain human behaviors, and the revival of interest in group selection has focused attention on how sacrificial altruism, although not adaptive for individuals, can be adaptive for groups. Curiously, at the same time that sociobiology has placed greater emphasis on the value of sacrificial altruism, Protestant ethics in America has moved away from it. While Roman Catholic ethics has a longstanding tradition emphasizing an ordering of love, placing love of self second only to love for God, Protestant ethics in America has adopted a similar stance only recently, replacing a strong sacrificial ethic with one focusing on mutual regard for self and others. If sociobiology is correct about the significance of sacrificial altruistic behaviors for the survival of communities, this shift away from sacrificial agape by American Christianity may cut the community off from important resources for the development of a global ethic crucial for the survival of that faith community and humankind itself.     

Intimate partner violence against African American women: An examination of the socio-cultural context

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health concern that affects an alarmingly high percentage of women. There is evidence to suggest that African American women are impacted by IPV at higher rates than are Caucasian women, yet little of the IPV literature addresses the cultural and structural factors that differentially affect African American and Caucasian couples. The present paper reviews the existing literature on IPV towards African American women, including prevalence, theories, risk factors for victimization, victims' psychological sequelae, barriers to service utilization, coping strategies, and interventions for survivors and perpetrators of IPV. Recommendations for counseling, research, and policy are explored.     

Actors' and observers' attributions for success and failure: A comparative test of predictions from Kelley's cube,self-serving bias,and positivity bias formulations

An experiment was conducted to test implications of Kelley's cube, self-serving bias, and positivity bias formulations for attributions associated with success and failure on a test of “abstract reasoning.” Subjects either experienced or observed outcomes on three tasks. They then made attributions for only the third outcome, which was either a success or a failure. The first task was of the same type and had the same outcome as the third task, thus providing the information that the outcome being attributed was high in consistency. The second task was of a different type than the first and third tasks, and its outcome either did or did not differ from their outcomes, thus varying information about the distinctiveness of the outcome being attributed. Consensus was manipulated by presenting false norms, ostensibly from a previous experiment. In contrast to previous research, the present study included thorough checks on all of these informational manipulations. Regardless of attributor role (actor or observer), subjects attributed success more to internal than to external factors and attributed failure more to external than to internal factors. These findings indicate a general bias toward positive evaluations. Discussion centers on possible alternative interpretations of these findings, restrictions on their generality, and the limitations that they seem to impose on the applicability of the other two formulations.     

Tracking cognitive phases in analogical reasoning with event-related potentials

Analogical reasoning consists of multiple phases. Four-term analogies (A:B::C:D) have an encoding period in which the A:B pair is evaluated prior to a mapping phase. The electrophysiological timing associated with analogical reasoning has remained unclear. We used event-related potentials to identify neural timing related to analogical reasoning relative to perceptual and semantic control conditions. Spatiotemporal principal-components analyses revealed differences primarily in left frontal electrodes during encoding and mapping phases of analogies relative to the other conditions. The timing of the activity differed depending upon the phase of the problem. During the encoding of A:B terms, analogies elicited a positive deflection compared to the control conditions between 400 and 1,200 ms, but for the mapping phase analogical processing elicited a negative deflection that occurred earlier and for a shorter time period, between 350 and 625 ms. These results provide neural and behavioral evidence that 4-term analogy problems involve a highly active evaluation phase of the A:B pair.     

Affective responses to abuse in the workplace: The role of hope and affective commitment

Affective responses constitute the mechanism by which abusive supervision received is associated with subordinates’ turnover intentions. Using affective events theory (AET) as a theoretical framework, we suggest that abusive supervision is a contextual event that is associated with subordinates’ affective reactions and corresponding evaluative judgment of their workplace, which ultimately leads to increased turnover intentions, a prominent withdrawal outcome. We examine two affective responses as mediators, hope (a goal-related affective state based on the expectation of positive outcomes) and affective commitment (affect-based evaluation of the organization). Two samples from a field study (n = 209) and an experiment (n = 427) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results supported our proposed chain of relationships, suggesting that subordinates are likely to experience decreased hope and affective commitment after having experienced abuse from a supervisor, which subsequently impact their withdrawal intention to leave the organization.     

Developmental change in the relation between simple and complex spans: a meta-analysis

In the present meta-analysis the effects of developmental level on the correlation between simple and complex span tasks were investigated. Simple span-complex span correlation coefficients presented in 52 independent samples (7,060 participants) were regressed on a variable representing mean age of sample (range: 4.96-22.80 years), using analyses adapted for meta-analytic purposes. The results showed strong positive relations between mean age of sample and simple span-complex span correlation coefficients, suggesting that the relation between simple and complex span tasks became stronger with increasing age. These results could not be accounted for by study-related differences in measurement reliability, restricted range, or sample size. A new theoretical account explaining these findings is outlined.