Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: implications for emotion, physiology, and health

Interpersonal offenses frequently mar relationships. Theorists have argued that the responses victims adopt toward their offenders have ramifications not only for their cognition, but also for their emotion, physiology, and health. This study examined the immediate emotional and physiological effects that occurred when participants (35 females, 36 males) rehearsed hurtful memories and nursed grudges (i.e., were unforgiving) compared with when they cultivated empathic perspective taking and imagined granting forgiveness (i.e., were forgiving) toward real-life offenders. Unforgiving thoughts prompted more aversive emotion, and significantly higher corrugator (brow) electromyogram (EMG), skin conductance, heart rate, and blood pressure changes from baseline. The EMG, skin conductance, and heart rate effects persisted after imagery into the recovery periods. Forgiving thoughts prompted greater perceived control and comparatively lower physiological stress responses. The results dovetail with the psychophysiology literature and suggest possible mechanisms through which chronic unforgiving responses may erode health whereas forgiving responses may enhance it.     

On the benign qualities of behavioral disinhibition: because of the prosocial nature of people, behavioral disinhibition can weaken pleasure with getting more than you deserve

This article focuses on social situations in which people are surprised about what is happening and inhibited about how to respond to the situation at hand. We study these situations by examining a classic topic in social psychology: how people respond to receiving better outcomes than are deserved. In these situations, the actions of an authority or a coworker push in the direction of accepting and enjoying the unfair outcome, whereas personal values for most people push in the direction of rejecting or being displeased with the outcome. This conflict may inhibit people's response to the advantageous but unfair outcomes. If people are indeed inhibited about how to respond to these kinds of outcomes, then lowering behavioral inhibition by reminding people of having acted in the past without inhibitions (in a manner that is unrelated to the outcomes participants subsequently receive) should affect reactions to the outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that because many people are prosocial and want to adhere to principles of fairness, reminders of behavioral disinhibition will lead to less pleasure with the unfairly obtained outcomes. The results of 8 experiments (conducted both inside and outside the psychology laboratory) revealed evidence for this benign disinhibition effect on various reactions to outcomes that are better than deserved. In further accordance with our line of reasoning, the effect is particularly pronounced among those who adhere to a prosocial orientation or who have adopted a prosocial mindset and is not observed among those with proself orientations or mindsets.     

Growing up gay and religious. Conflict,dialogue, and religious identity strategies

Homosexuality has become a divisive issue in many religious communities. Partly because of that, individuals growing up in such a community and experiencing same sex attractions need to negotiate the messages about homosexuality with their own experiences. This paper explores the identity strategies of religious communities as the background of individual identity struggles. Following a discussion of Bauman's grammars of identity/alterity, it describes four different discourses employed in conservative protestant and evangelical circles: holiness, subjectivity, obedience, and responsibility and four modes of negotiation: Christian lifestyle, gay lifestyle, commuting (compartmentalisation), and integration. By combining an analysis of discourses on the community level with individual strategies, this narrative research helps to better understand the interactions of (group) culture and individual coping.     

Transcortical sensory aphasia in a right-handed patient following watershed infarcts in the right cerebral hemisphere: a 15-month evaluation of another case of crossed aphasia.

Well-documented cases of crossed (transcortical sensory) aphasia, especially those with longitudinal evaluation, are rare. We report a case of crossed transcortical sensory aphasia following watershed infarcts in the right hemisphere, from the moment of the accident until 15 months afterward. The aphasia type, and the course of recovery, is a "mirror" representation of that seen in cases of uncrossed aphasia. Unfortunately, the data do not permit strong conclusions regarding the lateralization of language in association with praxis and visuospatial abilities. This underlines the need for more well-documented (case) studies to come to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which lateralization occurs.     

Trajectories of Delinquency and Parenting Styles

We investigated trajectories of adolescent delinquent development using data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study and examined the extent to which these different trajectories are differentially predicted by childhood parenting styles. Based on self-reported and official delinquency seriousness, covering ages 10-19, we identified five distinct delinquency trajectories differing in both level and change in seriousness over time: a nondelinquent, minor persisting, moderate desisting, serious persisting, and serious desisting trajectory. More serious delinquents tended to more frequently engage in delinquency, and to report a higher proportion of theft. Proportionally, serious persistent delinquents were the most violent of all trajectory groups. Using cluster analysis we identified three parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian (moderately supportive), and neglectful (punishing). Controlling for demographic characteristics and childhood delinquency, neglectful parenting was more frequent in moderate desisters, serious persisters, and serious desisters, suggesting that parenting styles differentiate non- or minor delinquents from more serious delinquents.