A sound effect: Exploration of the distinctiveness advantage in voice recognition

Two experiments are presented, which explore the presence of a distinctiveness advantage when recognising unfamiliar voices. In Experiment 1, distinctive voices were recognised significantly better, and with greater confidence, in a sequential same/different matching task compared with typical voices. These effects were replicated and extended in Experiment 2, as distinctive voices were recognised better even under challenging listening conditions imposed by nonsense sentences and temporal reversal. Taken together, the results aligned well with similar results when processing faces, and provided a useful point of comparison between voice and face processing.     

A Conservation of Resources Perspective on Negative Affect and Innovative Work Behaviour: the Role of Affect Activation and Mindfulness

The present study aimed to clarify the inconsistent relationship between negative affect and innovative work behaviour by taking into account the role of affect activation and mindfulness. Building on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesized that low-activated negative affect can be associated with increased innovativeness, but only for employees with high levels of mindfulness. Conversely, high-activated negative affect is expected to have a positive, direct relationship with innovative work behaviour. Data were collected from two independent samples, namely 163 French Canadian and 101 Italian employees. Consistent with our predictions, multiple regression analysis results showed that low-activated negative affect was positively related to innovative behaviour only when mindfulness was high (vs. low), whereas high-activated negative affect was directly associated with higher innovativeness. Our findings challenge the assumption that low-activated negative affects are associated with undermined innovative behaviour, suggesting that these affective states can be related to increased innovativeness if employees are mindful. On the other hand, they support the view that high-activated negative affects provide the energizing potential for instigating innovative actions. This study is unique in examining mindfulness as a moderator that is capable of shaping the link between deactivating negative affect and employee innovativeness. As such, it answers recent calls for research on how mindfulness can contribute to workplace functioning. Moreover, this is the first study to take into account the role of activation level in the negative affect-innovative work behaviour relationship.     

Natality or Birth? Arendt and Cavarero on the Human Condition of Being Born

This essay offers a critical analysis of Hannah Arendt's notion of natality through the lens of Adriana Cavarero's feminist philosophy of birth. First, I argue that the strength of Arendtian natality is its rootedness in an ontology of uniqueness, and a commitment to human plurality and relationality. Next, I trace with Cavarero three critical concerns regarding Arendtian natality, namely that it is curiously abstract; problematically disembodied and sexually neutral; and dependent on a model of vulnerability that assumes equality rather than asymmetry. This last issue is further developed in the final section of the essay, where I examine the idea that birth, for Cavarero, becomes the very concept by which we can distinguish and normatively differentiate acts of care and love from acts of wounding and violence. Upholding the normative distinction here depends on a conceptual distinction between vulnerability and helplessness. To maintain the ethical potential of the scene of birth, I argue that we have to insist on the very characteristics Cavarero attributes to it—ones, as this essay aims to show, that are ultimately missing in the Arendtian account thereof.     

Changes in research on Judaism in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods

This article offers an overview of what every theologian and scholar of religion should know about changes in biblical studies that have taken place concerning the past depreciation of Second Temple Judaism, the use of newly discovered sources and their implications, as well as integrative approaches to top-down (reflected beliefs, prescribed practices, textual sources) and bottom-up (intuitive beliefs, lived practices, material culture) processes. Changes in the field lead to the re-writing of the history of the Bible and of Judaean society in the Greco-Roman context. By means of this co-authored research article, we wish to demonstrate the benefit of, as well as the need for, interdisciplinary work in the study of antiquity.     

Effects of exposure to alcohol‐related cues on racial discrimination

Prior research has shown that exposure to alcohol‐related images exacerbates expression of implicit racial biases, and that brief exposure to alcohol‐related words increases aggressive responses. However, the potential for alcohol cue exposure to elicit differential aggression against a Black (outgroup) relative to a White (ingroup) target—that is, racial discrimination—has never been investigated. Here, we found that White participants (N = 92) exposed to alcohol‐related words made harsher judgments of a Black experimenter who had frustrated them than participants who were exposed to nonalcohol words. These findings suggest that exposure to alcohol cues increases discriminatory behaviors toward Blacks.     

No advantage for remembering horizontal over vertical spatial locations learned from a single viewpoint

Previous behavioral and neurophysiological research has shown better memory for horizontal than for vertical locations. In these studies, participants navigated toward these locations. In the present study we investigated whether the orientation of the spatial plane per se was responsible for this difference. We thus had participants learn locations visually from a single perspective and retrieve them from multiple viewpoints. In three experiments, participants studied colored tags on a horizontally or vertically oriented board within a virtual room and recalled these locations with different layout orientations (Exp. 1) or from different room-based perspectives (Exps. 2 and 3). All experiments revealed evidence for equal recall performance in horizontal and vertical memory. In addition, the patterns for recall from different test orientations were rather similar. Consequently, our results suggest that memory is qualitatively similar for both vertical and horizontal two-dimensional locations, given that these locations are learned from a single viewpoint. Thus, prior differences in spatial memory may have originated from the structure of the space or the fact that participants navigated through it. Additionally, the strong performance advantages for perspective shifts (Exps. 2 and 3) relative to layout rotations (Exp. 1) suggest that configurational judgments are not only based on memory of the relations between target objects, but also encompass the relations between target objects and the surrounding room—for example, in the form of a memorized view.     

Like Father,like Child: Early Life Family Adversity and Children’s Bullying Behaviors in Elementary School

Family adversity has been associated with children’s bullying behaviors. The evidence is, however, dominated by mothers’ perceptions of the family environment and a focus on mothers’ behaviors. This prospective population-based study examined whether children’s bullying behaviors were associated with mother- and father-reported family adversity, assessed before and after child birth. Peer-nominations were used to assess bullying behaviors of 1298 children in elementary school (mean age 7.5 years). The following paternal risk factors were prospectively associated with children’s bullying behaviors: (1) father-reported prenatal family distress, (2) fathers’ hostility at preschool age, and (3) fathers’ harsh disciplinary practices at preschool age, but effect sizes were relatively small. The effect of maternal risk factors was less consistent, only mother-reported family distress in childhood was associated with children’s bullying behaviors. The associations were independent of background family risk factors (i.e., life stress, contextual factors, and other background factors such as parental education and risk taking record) and early childhood externalizing problems. Moreover, our results indicated that father-reported family adversity predicted children’s bullying behaviors over and above the background family risk factors, early childhood externalizing problems and mother-reported family adversity. We also demonstrated that the association of fathers’ prenatal hostility and family distress with subsequent bullying behavior of their child at school was partly mediated by fathers’ harsh disciplinary practices at preschool age. Our findings highlight the importance of fathers’ behaviors in the development of children’s bullying behaviors.     

You Are My Friends: Pastoral Care with Young Mexican Men

In this article, the author discusses the significance of friendship in caring for and counseling with young men. Following Seward Hiltner, he affirms the distinction between friendliness (or friendly disposition) and friendship. Insofar as friendliness implies warmth and genuine concern, caregiving and counseling relationships can benefit from the minister’s friendly disposition. The author argues that ministers can effectively counsel with young Mexican men who are both their parishioners and their friends. To illustrate this point, he presents and discusses the case of a Mexican minister (Pastor Garza) and a young Mexican man (Alonso). By reflecting on the friendship motif in the Gospel of John, he concludes the article with the idea that friendship and counseling can coexist despite the power differential and imperfect mutuality between the minister and the care seeker.