Taking Blame for Other People's Misconduct

Taking blame for another person's misconduct may occur at relatively high rates for less serious crimes. The authors examined individual differences and situational factors related to this phenomenon by surveying college students (n = 213) and men enrolled in substance abuse treatment programs (n = 42). Among college students, conscientiousness and delinquency predicted their likelihood of being in a situation in which it was possible to take the blame for another person's misconduct. Situational factors, including the relationship with the perpetrator, the seriousness of the offense, feelings of responsibility for the offense, and differential consequences between the offender and the blame taker, were associated with college students’ decisions to take the blame. Among substance abuse treatment participants, individuals who took the blame for another person's misconduct were more extraverted, reported feeling more loyalty toward the true perpetrator, and indicated more incentives to take the blame than individuals who did not take the blame. Links between theories of helping behavior and situational factors that predict blame taking are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Markets,Choice and Agency

John Tomasi’s Free Market Fairness (2012) introduces several powerful arguments in favour of a novel and surprising thesis: the best way to realize Rawls’s principles of justice is a free market society, rather than the arrangements that Rawls himself believed would best promote justice. In this paper, I adduce three arguments against Tomasi. First, I suggest that his view rests on a faulty understanding of what constitutes conventional property rights. Second, I argue that many market solutions generate choices which are not valuable ones for the agent to have to make. Third, I show that many choices created by the market systems Tomasi favours create the illusion that citizens are making their own choices when in fact they are not. I suggest that taken together these three arguments are sufficient to defend Rawlsian institutional arrangements against Tomasi’s challenge.     

Longitudinal Associations Between Fathers’ Heavy Drinking Patterns and Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

Psychosocial adjustment in children of alcoholics (N = 114) was examined in the year before and at three follow-ups in the 15 months after their alcoholic fathers entered alcoholism treatment, testing the hypothesis that children's adjustment problems will vary over time as a function of their fathers' heavy drinking patterns. Three unique patterns of heavy drinking in alcoholic fathers were identified through cluster analysis. The results demonstrated significant and meaningful associations between these drinking patterns in fathers and adjustment problems in children over time. Overall, children whose fathers remained mostly abstinent following their treatment showed lowest and decreasing adjustment problems, while children whose fathers continued and increased heavy drinking following their treatment showed greatest and increasing adjustment problems over time.     

Response mode differences in perspective taking: Differences in representation or differences in retrieval?

Three experiments explored whether response mode differences in perspective taking result from different spatial representations or different retrieval processes. Participants learned object locations and then, while blindfolded, pointed to or verbally described object locations from perspectives aligned or misaligned with their facing direction and aligned or misaligned with the learning perspective. Pointing was facilitated from the perspective aligned with the body during testing. Similar facilitation occurred when verbally labeling, but only when conducted in the context of pointing (e.g., after pointing). Without this pointing context, or after third-person strategy instructions, the effect of body alignment was eliminated for verbal responses. Pointing was less responsive to context and strategy. Across all conditions, performance was facilitated for the learning perspective. Taken together, these experiments indicate that response mode differences are due to differences in the retrieval process, which varies with strategy, rather than differences in the organization of the underlying spatial memory.     

Matters of the variable heart: respiratory sinus arrhythmia response to marital interaction and associations with marital quality

Maintenance of relationship quality requires self-regulation of emotion and social behavior, and women often display greater effort in this regard than do men. Furthermore, such efforts can deplete the limited capacity for self-regulation. In recent models of self-regulation, resting level of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, quantified as high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), is an indicator of self-regulatory capacity, whereas transient increases in HF-HRV reflect self-regulatory effort. To test these hypotheses in marriage, 114 young couples completed measures of marital quality and a positive, neutral, or negative initial marital task, preceded and followed by resting baseline assessments of HF-HRV. Couples then discussed a current marital disagreement. Resting HF-HRV was correlated with marital quality, suggesting that capacity for self-regulation is associated with adaptive functioning in close relationships. For women but not men, the negative initial task produced a decrease in resting HF-HRV. This effect was mediated by the husbands' negative affect response to the task and their ratings of wives as controlling and directive. When the subsequent disagreement discussion followed the negative initial task, women displayed increased HF-HRV during the discussion but a decrease when it followed the neutral or positive task. The valence of the initial task had no effect on men's HF-HRV during disagreement. Negative marital interactions can reduce women's resting HF-HRV, with potentially adverse health consequences. Women's reduced health benefit from marriage might reflect the depleting effects on self-regulatory capacity of their greater efforts to manage relationship quality.     

The onset-repulsion effect and motion-induced mislocalization of a stationary object

The influence of a moving target on memory for the location of a briefly presented stationary object aligned with the initial location of that moving target was examined. Memory for the location of the stationary object was displaced backward (ie in the direction opposite to target motion), and memory for the initial location of the moving target was also displaced backward (consistent with an onset-repulsion effect); displacement of the stationary object did not differ from displacement of the moving target. Displacement in memory for the initial location of a moving target was not influenced by whether or not a stationary object aligned with that initial location was also presented. The results demonstrate that motion-induced mislocalization can occur in a direction other than the direction of motion, and are consistent with the hypothesis that dynamics of a moving target can influence memory for a nearby stationary object.     

The Holy Spirit in EG,TTL, and CTC: The Pneumatological Impulse for Christian Mission

This article examines the correspondence in the pneumatological impulse for mission among three documents: Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Together towards Life (TTL), and The Cape Town Commitment (CTC). This consonance in EG, TTL, and CTC is significant given the dissonance on theological and missiological perspectives across the representing ecclesial bodies since the mid‐20th century. Following a review of pneumatology in these three documents, the paper proposes a forward‐looking trajectory to a more expansive view of the Spirit's ever‐mysterious operations in the church, in missions, and in the world.     

DAPP-BQ: factor structure and relations to personality disorder symptoms in a non-clinical sample

We assessed the factor structure of the DAPP-BQ (Livesley & Jackson, in press), as well as the relations between DAPP-BQ higher- and lower-order personality trait scores and DSM-IV (APA, 2000) personality disorder symptoms in a sample of approximately 300 nonclinical young adults. The four-factor structure of the DAPP-BQ was replicated, and DAPP-BQ higher-order and lower-order scores were related to personality disorder symptoms in predictable ways. Finally, regression analyses revealed that specific DAPP-BQ traits accounted for variance in individual personality disorder scores above and beyond comorbid personality disorder symptoms.     

The development of moral beliefs: A retrospective study

The present study tested a model of moral belief development based on Erikson’s (1963) and McAdams’ (1989) theories of personality development. The sequence of moral belief development is beliefs about outcomes, outcome certainty, beliefs about humanity, and social concern. The developmental antecedents of these beliefs were measured using 13 rationally constructed scales based on background data items. The belief and developmental scales were given to a sample of 246 undergraduates. Using a series of hierarchical blocked regressions, we found a pattern among the beliefs that supported a stage or contingent sequence model of belief development. The results suggest that a supportive, conventional and consistent family environment is a major antecedent of beliefs about outcomes and outcome certainty. Adjustment to the demands of adult culture rather than peer culture is the major antecedent of belief about humanity and social concern. Parts of this research were supported by a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (Contract No. N00014-91-J-4167), Michael D. Mumford and Theodore L. Gessner, Principal Investigators.