Illegitimacy improves goal pursuit in powerless individuals

The effects of power legitimacy on self-regulation during goal pursuit were examined. Study 1 focused on goal-setting and goal-striving. Specifically, it examined how much time legitimate and illegitimate powerless individuals needed to set goals, and how many means they generated to pursue these goals. Study 2 examined persistence in the face of difficulties. Consistently across these studies illegitimacy improved self-regulation in powerless individuals. Illegitimate powerless individuals behaved similarly as control participants. They took less time to decide on a course of action, used more flexible means to strive for goals, and persisted longer in the face of difficulties, compared to their legitimate counterparts. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Logicality of Language: A new take on Triviality, “Ungrammaticality”, and Logical Form*

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth‐conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the ‘logicality of language’, accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter‐examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is ‘blind’ to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non‐classical—indeed quite exotic—kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis‐á‐vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical.     

When lack of control enhances closeness to others: The case of unemployment and economic threat

When personal control is threatened, people often turn to their own group and show negativity towards others. In three studies, we tested an alternative prediction that the salient lack of personal control (vs. control) experienced in the context of unemployment can lead to connectedness and more positive perception of similar others (e.g., members of groups affected by unemployment or the economic crisis). In two European countries, we found experimental (Study 1: Poland) and correlational (Study 2: Spain) evidence that a lowered sense of control of unemployed people was related to more favorable intergroup evaluations. Furthermore, when lack of control related to unemployment threat was experimentally induced, participants perceived a Greek outgroup more positively, and this effect was mediated by identification with and similarity to this group (Study 3). We discuss the role of the shared experience of collective uncontrollability in promoting positive intergroup relations.     

Powerless people don't yell but tell: The effects of social power on direct and indirect expression of anger

Expressing anger can engender desired change, but it can also backfire. In the present research we examined how power shapes the expression of anger. In Study 1, we found that powerless individuals were less inclined to express their anger directly but more inclined to express it indirectly by sharing it with others. Powerless participants’ reluctance to express anger directly was mediated by negative social appraisals. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of power on direct anger expression in a situation in which participants had actual power (or not). Anger was evoked in the laboratory using an ecologically valid procedure, and participants were given an opportunity to express anger. Study 3 showed that powerless participants expected direct anger expression to arouse more anger than fear in the target, whereas the opposite was true for indirect anger expression. Powerful participants always expected to elicit more fear than anger in the target.     

The Conversos of Valencia: Prosopography of a Socio-Religious Community (1391–1420)

Since the nineteenth century, conversos have been among the most prolific lines of research for medievalists and early modern historians. The persecution they suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, the veracity of the claims that attributed to them a clear tendency to remain Jewish in secret long after they were baptized, and their role as cultural agents and active contributors to Spanish culture, particularly in the field of literature, have appealed greatly to researchers. However, in contrast to the vast amount of academic research focusing on Jews from a social perspective, our knowledge of the first generations of conversos is limited. In this article, we present the results of prosopographical research devoted to the converso collective of Valencia from July 9, 1391—the year of the violent and massive conversion of the city’s Hebrew population—to 1420. In particular, we discuss the methodological obstacles presented by such research; evaluate whether the converted population in Valencia can be considered a community after 1391; analyze the socio-professional structure and general economic activities of conversos; and study the social dynamics and interpersonal conflicts that developed both within the group and with Old Christians during this thirty-year period.

     

Transfer of spatial behaviour controlled by a landmark array with a distinctive shape

In two experiments, rats swam to a submerged platform in one corner of a rectangular or kite-shaped array created by four identical landmarks attached to the walls of a circular pool. After training in the rectangular array, rats expressed a preference for the corner in the kite-shaped array that was geometrically equivalent to where the platform was located previously. After training in either array, the removal of two landmarks from the rectangular array, or the landmark at the apex of the kite-shaped array, did not affect the control over searching exerted by the remaining landmarks. The results imply that rats use local rather than global spatial representations when searching for a hidden goal with reference to an array of landmarks.