Whose promises are worth more? How social status affects trust in promises

Promises are among the most widely used tools for increasing trust in social hierarchies; yet the effect of social status on trust in promises is unknown. Here we used a modified version of the Trust Game, in which participants, acting as Investors, were paired with Trustees of varying social status who were given the opportunity to promise (or not) to return at least half of the multiplied amount (i.e., 4 × the amount invested). No return feedback was provided. Participants invested more in partners who promised than those who did not or whose promise information was concealed. Importantly, in both lab-manipulated (Exps. 1–3: math-induced) and pre-existing (Exp. 4: university-based) hierarchies, participants invested more in promises given by high status than low status partners. Post-experiment measures suggest that this may be due to greater expectations of honesty for high status than low status others. Potential explanations and implications are discussed.     

The effects of violent video games and shyness on individuals’ aggressive behaviors

The general aggression model (GAM) has suggested that the interaction between person factors (e.g., personality variables) and situation factors (e.g., playing violent video games [VVGs]) can increase individuals’ aggressive behaviors through their cognition (e.g., hostile attributions), affect (e.g., negative affect), and/or arousal. The present study employed a modified competitive reaction time task to test the effects of shyness, violent (vs. nonviolent) gameplay, and shyness on individuals’ positive–negative affect, hostile attributions, and aggressive behaviors. In addition, the present study also employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the mediation (by cognition and affect) and moderation (by shyness). Results showed that playing a VVG increased aggressive behaviors, negative affect, and hostile attributions primarily among shy participants. In addition, the results of SEM also revealed that this moderating role was mediated by negative affect and hostile attributions. The present study supported GAM and showed that individuals’ aggressive behaviors are differentially susceptible to VVGs, depending on their level of shyness in a “for bad and for worse” manner.     

Suicidality Among Gay and Bisexual Men in Taiwan: Its Relationships with Sexuality and Gender Role Characteristics,Homophobic Bullying Victimization,and Social Support

This study aimed to examine the associations of suicidality in emerging adulthood with time of coming out, gender role nonconformity, sexual orientation, traditional and cyber homophobic bullying victimization, and family and peer support during childhood in gay and bisexual men in Taiwan. The frequency of “experiencing suicide ideation” and “attempting suicide” in the past year among 500 gay or bisexual men was examined. The participants’ time of coming out, level of subjective masculinity, sexual orientation, experiences of traditional and cyber homophobic bullying victimization, and levels of family and peer support during childhood were also evaluated. In total, 31% (n = 155) of participants reported experiencing suicide ideation (n = 82) or attempting suicide (n = 73). Early coming out, traditional homophobic bullying victimization, and low family support during childhood increased the risk of suicidality in emerging adulthood; by contrast, family support did not moderate the association of early coming out or traditional bullying victimization with current suicidality. A high proportion of participants reported experiencing suicide ideation and attempt in emerging adulthood. Hence, effective suicide prevention is required for gay and bisexual men. Suicide prevention programs should consider time of coming out, traditional homophobic bullying victimization, and level of family support.     

Training Young Children to Acknowledge Mixed Emotions

Abstract

The failure of children to acknowledge mixed, contradictory emotions is equally of developmental and clinical interest. Developmentally, children do not ordinarily acknowledge the existence of mixed emotions until late in middle childhood. Clinically, the failure to recognise mixed feelings toward others or self is a common presenting problem. The question addressed here is, how readily can such limitations be corrected in children of different ages. Two studies are reported showing that children as young as 6 and 7 years, who initially revealed little understanding of mixed feelings, showed more insight after a short training session. In Experiment 1. two groups of children were equated for their inability to diagnose the mixed feelings of a story character. Subsequently, both groups were presented with a second story containing a similar conflictual event, but only one group was prompted to consider the character's emotional reaction to each component of the conflict. Children in the prompted group were more accurate in diagnosing the character's emotional reaction at the end of the story than the control group, and they maintained their superiority on a post-test story where no prompts were given. Experiment 2 included a similar training procedure. but with a more stringent measure of post-test generalisation: Children were asked to describe or invent their own examples of emotionally charged conflictual situations. Four- and five-year-olds showed little benefit from the training session, but six- and seven-year-olds again showed considerable benefit. Taken together, the two experiments suggest that young school age children often fail to acknowledge mixed feelings because they engage in a cursory appraisal of the elements of an emotionally charged situation; highlighting the elements is sufficient to improve performance. Preschool children, however, appear to suffer from more basic limitations in their ability to integrate the relevant information.     

政治生活中的哲人:柏拉图论“建议”

本文从柏拉图书简入手,关注柏拉图有关"建议"的论述,并细致分析了柏拉图《书简七》中有关"建议"的原则,力图通过对比柏拉图给人和城邦提建议的原则,揭示柏拉图在政治生活中究竟是怎样一位哲人。     

市民社会的德性之维:以苏格兰启蒙运动为中心的考察

在思想史上,civil society是一个复杂、多义而又不断流变的概念与范式。德语bürgerliche Gesellschaft术语在凸显与强化国家与市民社会相界分的同时,不同程度上忽视与舍弃了civil society的丰富内涵与多维视野,尤其是18世纪以休谟、斯密、弗格森等为代表的苏格兰启蒙学者在"共同体"向"社会"转型之际从德性的维度对市民社会所做的思想启蒙与理论思考。     

试论太极图所蕴含的内丹文化内涵

太极图与道教内丹术之间联系紧密,其中蕴含着丰富的内丹文化思想。一方面,太极图反映了内丹术所依据的哲学思想,表现了在天人合一与天人同构思想的支配下,内丹对于宇宙与生命的认识,具体体现在对宇宙创生之道、自然变化之道以及生人之道与人身之道的理解之中。另一方面,太极图集中概括了内丹术的基本原理,同时也凝练地表达了炼精化炁阶段的基本要求,对该阶段中的两个主要环节(调外药和小周天运火炼药)进行了简明扼要的阐释。     

Culture variation in the average identity extraction: The role of global vs. local processing orientation

ABSTRACT

Research has shown that observers often spontaneously extract a mean representation from multiple faces/objects in a scene even when this is not required by the task. This phenomenon, now known as ensemble coding, has so far mainly been based on data from Western populations. This study compared East Asian and Western participants in an implicit ensemble-coding task, where the explicit task was to judge whether a test face was present in a briefly exposed set of faces. Although both groups showed a tendency to mistake an average of the presented faces as target, thus confirming the universality of ensemble coding, East Asian participants displayed a higher averaging tendency relative to the Westerners. To further examine how a cultural default can be adapted to global or local processing demand, our second experiment tested the effects of priming global or local processing orientation on ensemble coding via a Navon task procedure. Results revealed a reduced tendency for ensemble coding following the priming of local processing orientation. Together, these results suggest that culture can influence the proneness to ensemble coding, and the default cultural mode is malleable to a temporary processing demand.