Status signals: adaptive benefits of displaying and observing the nonverbal expressions of pride and shame

A growing body of research suggests that pride and shame are associated with distinct, cross-culturally recognised nonverbal expressions, which are spontaneously displayed in situations of success and failure, respectively. Here, we review these findings, then offer a theoretical account of the adaptive benefits of these displays. We argue that both pride and shame expressions function as social signals that benefit both observers and expressers. Specifically, pride displays function to signal high status, which benefits displayers by according them deference from others, and benefits observers by affording them valuable information about social-learning opportunities. Shame displays function to appease others after a social transgression, which benefits displayers by allowing them to avoid punishment and negative appraisals, and observers by easing their identification of committed group members and followers.     

Does an instruction to forget enhance memory for other presented items?

In an item-method directed forgetting paradigm, participants were required to attend to one of two colored words presented on opposite sides of a central fixation stimulus; they were instructed to Remember or Forget the attended item. On a subsequent recognition test, the Attended words showed a typical directed forgetting effect with better recognition of Remember words than Forget words. Our interest was in the fate of the Unattended words. When the study display disappeared before the memory instruction, there was no effect of that instruction on unattended words; when the study display remained visible during presentation of the memory instruction, there was a reverse directed forgetting effect with better recognition of unattended words from Forget trials than from Remember trials. Incidental encoding of task-irrelevant stimuli occurs following presentation of a Forget instruction - but only when those task-irrelevant stimuli are still visible in the external environment.     

Teaching World Religions without Teaching “World Religions”

Tomoko Masuzawa and a number of other contemporary scholars have recently problematized the categories of “religion” and “world religions” and, in some cases, called for its abandonment altogether as a discipline of scholarly study. In this collaborative essay, we respond to this critique by highlighting three attempts to teach world religions without teaching “world religions.” That is, we attempt to promote student engagement with the empirical study of a plurality of religious traditions without engaging in the rhetoric of pluralism or the reification of the category “religion.” The first two essays focus on topical courses taught at the undergraduate level in self‐consciously Christian settings: the online course “Women and Religion” at Georgian Court University and the service‐learning course “Interreligious Dialogue and Practice” at St. Michael's College, in the University of Toronto. The final essay discusses the integration of texts and traditions from diverse traditions into the graduate theology curriculum more broadly, in this case at Loyola Marymount University. Such confessional settings can, we suggest, offer particularly suitable – if somewhat counter‐intuitive – contexts for bringing the otherwise covert agendas of the world religions discourse to light and subjecting them to a searching inquiry in the religion classroom.     

Bingo! Externally supported performance intervention for deficient visual search in normal aging, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease

External support may improve task performance regardless of an individual's ability to compensate for cognitive deficits through internally generated mechanisms. We investigated if performance of a complex, familiar visual search task (the game of bingo) could be enhanced in groups with suboptimal vision by providing external support through manipulation of task stimuli. Participants were 19 younger adults, 14 individuals with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), 13 AD-matched healthy adults, 17 non-demented individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD), and 20 PD-matched healthy adults. We varied stimulus contrast, size, and visual complexity during game play. The externally supported performance interventions of increased stimulus size and decreased complexity resulted in improvements in performance by all groups. AD also obtained benefit from increasing contrast, presumably by compensating for their contrast sensitivity deficit. The general finding of improved performance across healthy and afflicted groups suggests the value of visual support as an easy-to-apply intervention to enhance cognitive performance.     

The Quadratic Relationship Between Body Mass Index and Suicide Ideation: A Nonlinear Analysis of Indirect Effects

A nonlinear indirect effects framework was used to investigate potential interpersonal indirect effects (i.e., perceived burden and thwarted belonging) accounting for the nonlinear relationship between body mass index (BMI) and suicide ideation. Using a sample of 338 undergraduates, results revealed a significant quadratic effect of BMI on suicide ideation via perceived burden only, which became significant as BMI fell below 18.00 kg/m² and above 28.00 kg/m². Our results provide novel information relevant for suicide risk screening in the context of weight‐ and health‐related interventions and provide justification for future longitudinal trials assessing suicide risk across the BMI spectrum.     

Increased chronic stress predicts greater emotional negativity bias and poorer social skills but not cognitive functioning in healthy adults

Background and Objectives: Chronically stressed individuals report deficits spanning cognitive and emotional functioning. However, limitations to clinical populations and measures of stress have impeded the generalisability and scope of results. This study investigated whether chronic stress predicted cognitive and emotional functioning, and whether these relationships differed between males and females, in a large representative sample of healthy participants.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Method: 1883 healthy adults sampled from the Brain Resource International Database reported stress using the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Participants then completed a cognitive and emotional assessment battery (IntegNeuro), as well as questionnaires related to sleep, emotional functioning, and self-regulation.

Results: In contrast to previously reported results, chronic stress did not predict cognitive functioning. However, higher stress predicted a greater negativity bias and poorer social skills, confirming previous research identifying these links.

Conclusions: Cognitive deficits related to stress are absent in healthy participants when stress is measured using the 21-items Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Identifying how chronic stress is associated with aspects of emotional functioning can lead to personalized interventions for individuals to better manage the negative outcomes resulting from stress.