Adaptive modes of rumination: the role of subjective anger

Rumination has been demonstrated to have negative consequences on affect, behaviour, and physiological markers. Recent studies, however, suggest that distinct “modes” of anger-associated rumination may lead to several positive consequences. Previous research primarily used recall procedures of anger episodes to elicit anger. By contrast, the present study focused on the effect of subjective anger on the process of rumination and tested its effects in a “staged” social interaction where a confederate provoked participants. Subsequently, participants engaged in rumination about the anger-eliciting event either in an abstract-distanced or a concrete-immersed rumination mode. Results showed an adaptive effect of abstract-distanced rumination on subjective anger primarily if anger is high prior to rumination. The findings also suggest different self-reported anger-related coping strategies in response to subjective anger intensity. These findings highlight that an abstract-distanced rumination may have differential effects on affective outcomes and anger-related coping strategies.     

Why Talk about Chinese Metaphysics?

Chinese philosophy in the twentieth century has often been related to some sort of cultural or other particularism or some sort of philosophical universalism. By and large, these still seem to be the terms along which academic debates are carried out. The tension is particularly manifest in notions such as “Chinese philosophy,” “Daoist cosmology,” “Neo-Confucian idealism,” or “Chinese metaphysics.” For some, “Chinese metaphysics” may be a blatant contradictio in adiecto, while others may find it a most ordinary topic to be discussed at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this article, I set out to examine two major discourses in which talk about “metaphysics” is frequent and popular and to which talk of “Chinese metaphysics” may wish to contribute: the history of philosophy and analytic philosophy. My contention is that it is usually far from obvious what reasons are behind putting “Chinese metaphysics” on the academic agenda and to what precise purpose this is done. What my discussion seeks to highlight is the as yet often largely unarticulated dimension of the politics of comparative philosophy—of which talk about “Chinese metaphysics” may but need not be an example.     

Expert memory: the interaction of stimulus structure,attention, and expertise

This experiment focuses on the three‐way interaction between domain‐relevant structure, attention to domain‐relevant structure, and expertise in their effect on recall for field‐hockey information. It was predicted that experts' recall would decrease with the amount of domain‐relevant structure, but only when they were able to attend to the structure within the stimuli. Novices' recall was not predicted to vary with these factors. The study used a 3 × 2 × 2 mixed‐design with one between‐subjects factor, field hockey expertise (expert and novice), and two within‐subjects factors, domain‐relevant structure (high, moderate and low) and attention to structure (attending and non‐attending). Twenty‐four experts and 24 novices each listened to six audio‐taped scenarios (1 in each of the 6 structure × attention conditions) describing a sequence of field hockey play and recall was tested. The results demonstrated significant main effects for expertise, structure, and attention, and interactions of (a) structure and expertise, and (b) structure and attention. Importantly, the significant structure, attention, and expertise interaction provided the first direct empirical support for the constraint attunement hypothesis (Vicente and Wang, 1998 ) and for that aspect of the template theory (Gobet and Simon, 1996a , b ). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research and Theory: Relationships Among Spirituality,Social Support and Childhood Maltreatment in University Students

The authors investigated relationships among spirituality, social support, childhood maltreatment, and symptoms of distress. One hundred and fifty‐eight upper‐level university students completed questionnaires related to childhood maltreatment, distress symptomatology, spirituality, and social support. Significant associations were found for (a) maltreatment with high symptoms of distress, low existential spiritual well‐being, and low social support from family; (b) symptoms of distress with low existential spiritual well‐being and low social support from family; and (c) receiving counseling for maltreatment with high symptoms of distress and low support from family.     

A domain‐specific risk‐attitude scale: measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors

We present a psychometric scale that assesses risk taking in five content domains: financial decisions (separately for investing versus gambling), health/safety, recreational, ethical, and social decisions. Respondents rate the likelihood that they would engage in domain‐specific risky activities (Part I). An optional Part II assesses respondents' perceptions of the magnitude of the risks and expected benefits of the activities judged in Part I. The scale's construct validity and consistency is evaluated for a sample of American undergraduate students. As expected, respondents' degree of risk taking was highly domain‐specific, i.e. not consistently risk‐averse or consistently risk‐seeking across all content domains. Women appeared to be more risk‐averse in all domains except social risk. A regression of risk taking (likelihood of engaging in the risky activity) on expected benefits and perceived risks suggests that gender and content domain differences in apparent risk taking are associated with differences in the perception of the activities' benefits and risk, rather than with differences in attitude towards perceived risk. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of payout and probability magnitude on the Allais paradox

The Allais paradox decision bias was first offered as a challenge to the expected utility theory over 60 years ago. Although the Allais paradox is a standard challenge for normative theories of risky choice, its causes are not well understood. The present experiment uses two manipulations of the Allais paradox to investigate the commonly proposed probability-weighting explanation of the paradox. Reducing the magnitude of the outcomes did not affect the size of the Allais paradox, contradicting previous literature and supporting the probability weighting hypothesis. Reducing the probability of the nonzero outcomes to eliminate certainty reduced, but did not eliminate, the Allais paradox, a result inconsistent with probability weighting and other theories of the Allais paradox. The results suggest that the certainty effect alone cannot explain the Allais paradox.     

Aesthetics of streetscapes: influence of fundamental properties on aesthetic judgments of urban space

This experiment was designed to investigate the relationship between the fundamental visual, spatial properties of existing complex streetscapes and aesthetic judgments. Participants performed aesthetic judgments over 35 photographs of typical spatial situations taken along the Meissner Strasse in Radebeul, Germany. In a modified Q-Sort procedure, the participants assigned the pictures to five categories, including 1 (beautiful) and 5 (not beautiful). Vegetation, Stylistic Uniformity, Homogeneity of Scale, and Symmetry were identified as primary components of aesthetic judgment by using principal component analysis. Stimuli, photographically edited according to these factors, were then tested using the same Q-Sort procedure, which confirmed these determinants. These results are intended to help the development of the theoretical understanding of the link between the influence of selected spatial properties and the aesthetic judgment of the visual quality of urban spaces.     

Emotional irritation before mental stress is associated with enhanced peripheral norepinephrine

Research suggests equivocal findings on associations of catecholamines and mood. Our study investigated the associations of emotional state, blood pressure and catecholamines in 55 healthy males undergoing mental stress. We especially checked the reported link between norepinephrine (NE) and emotional irritation. Blood pressure (SBP, DBP) and heart rate (HR) were continuously monitored. NE and epinephrine (EPI) were measured before, after, and 20 minutes after stress. Participants were divided into irritated versus non-irritated and anxious versus non-anxious subjects by median split on their baseline questionnaires. The task elicited significant cardiovascular, hormonal, and psychological stress responses. NE levels were significantly correlated with irritation before stress. Irritated subjects showed significantly higher DBP and NE than non-irritated subjects. The higher NE and DBP levels in the irritated participants suggest detrimental psycho-physiological interrelations promoting the development of stress-mediated cardiovascular diseases. Heightened emotional irritation before stress may be regarded as a psychological risk factor.     

Is Equality Essentially Comparative?

Larry Temkin has shown that Derek Parfit’s well-known Mere Addition Paradox suggests a powerful argument for the intransitivity of the relation “better than.” The crux of the argument is the view that equality is essentially comparative, according to which the same inequality can be evaluated differently depending on what it is being compared to. The comparative view of equality should be rejected, I argue, and hence so too this argument for intransitivity.