Pursuing moral outrage: Anger at torture

Moral outrage—anger at violation of a moral standard—should be distinguished from anger at the harm caused by standard-violating behavior. Recent research that used experimental manipulation to disentangle these different forms of anger found evidence of personal and empathic anger, but not of moral outrage. We sought to extend this research by assessing anger at a more extreme moral violation: torture. If the person tortured is a member of one’s group (nationality), anger may not be over the moral violation but over the harm done to one of “us.” In an experiment designed to create the necessary appraisal conditions, we found clear evidence of identity-relevant personal anger (anger when a person from one’s nationality is tortured) but little evidence of moral outrage (anger even when a person from an identity-irrelevant nationality is tortured). Implications for understanding moral emotion and moral motivation are discussed.     

Dynamic Interracial/Intercultural Processes: The Role of Lay Theories of Race

ABSTRACT This paper explores how the lay theory approach provides a framework beyond previous stereotype/prejudice research to understand dynamic personality processes in interracial/ethnic contexts. The authors conceptualize theory of race within the Cognitive–Affective Personality System (CAPS), in which lay people's beliefs regarding the essential nature of race sets up a mind-set through which individuals construe and interpret their social experiences. The research findings illustrate that endorsement of the essentialist theory (i.e., that race reflects deep-seated, inalterable essence and is indicative of traits and ability) versus the social constructionist theory (i.e., that race is socially constructed, malleable, and arbitrary) are associated with different encoding and representation of social information, which in turn affect feelings, motivation, and competence in navigating between racial and cultural boundaries. These findings shed light on dynamic interracial/intercultural processes. Relations of this approach to CAPS are discussed.     

How to Make Sense of the Claim “True Knowledge is What Constitutes Action”: A New Interpretation of Wang Yangming’s Doctrine of Unity of Knowledge and Action

No one denies the importance of applying knowledge to actions. But claiming identity (unity) of knowledge and action is quite another thing. There seem to be two problems with the claim: (1) the identity claim implies that the sole cause for one to fail to act on what one judges to be right is ignorance, but it is obviously false that the sole cause of failure in moral actions is ignorance. (2) The identity statement implies non-separation of knowledge and action. But knowledge does not necessarily lead to action. However, the identity of knowledge and action is what a famous Ming Confucian scholar, Wang Yang-ming, proposed and the concept became the central doctrine of his teaching. Though there are several major interpretations of Wang’s doctrine in contemporary literature, it is not clear to me how they deal with the above mentioned difficulties. In this article, I will discuss these interpretations of the doctrine and propose a new interpretation. My purpose is to give an interpretation of Wang’s doctrine that has the capacity of dealing with these challenges to the doctrine and also captures the essence of his teaching.     

Essentializing race: implications for bicultural individuals' cognition and physiological reactivity

It is a widely held belief that racial groups have underlying essences. We hypothesized that bicultural individuals who hold this essentialist belief about race are oriented to perceive rigid interracial boundaries and experience difficulty passing between their ethnic culture and the host culture. As predicted, we found that the more strongly Chinese American participants endorsed an essentialist belief about race, the less effective they were in switching rapidly between Chinese and American cultural frames in a reaction time task (Study 1), and the greater emotional reactivity they exhibited (reflected in heightened skin conductance) while they talked about their Chinese and American cultural experiences (Study 2). Taken together, these findings suggest that essentialist beliefs about race set up a mind-set that influences how bicultural individuals navigate between their ethnic and host cultures.     

从耗散理论解读肿瘤的发病及治疗

肿瘤的综合治疗方案,即药物-社会-心理治疗已广泛地应用于临床,虽效果显著,但其机制尚缺乏确切的实验依据。笔者从耗散结构理论来解读这种综合疗法,认为药物、社会及心理治疗均是通过增加机体的负熵,使肿瘤患者的内环境处于有序平衡状态而改善其病情。从耗散理论出发可以将肿瘤的综合疗法更好地应用于临床。     

降压达标在高血压治疗中的意义

随着高血压发病人数的增加,高血压所造成的心、脑、肾等重要靶器官损伤、功能衰竭日益受到重视.临床研究证明,为减少由高血压造成的重要器官损伤、提高患者的生活质量、降低病死率,通过各种方式尽快将血压控制在所要求的达标范围内是非常必要的.     

组间竞争对小学生合作绩效及言语互动策略的影响*

以80名小学生为被试,采用拼图任务,对小组在竞争与非竞争情境下的合作绩效和言语互动策略进行比较。结果发现：（1）组间竞争提升了小学高年级儿童的合作效率,但对低年级儿童的合作绩效无明显影响。（2）组间竞争抑制了低年级儿童在小组合作过程中的言语沟通,而同样情境下高年级小组成员的言语沟通量显著增加。（3）组间竞争促进了高年级小组成员之间的积极言语互动。年级和情境在建议、询问、表扬、应答和指令等言语互动策略上的交互作用显著。由此可见,组间竞争对小学儿童的合作绩效和言语互动策略存在影响,但这种影响在不同年级存在差异。     

自恋人格调节信任博弈的结果评价

自恋人格个体表现出亲社会行为的减少和对他人的反馈敏感。信任是人类社会互动行为的基础,自恋人格特质可能影响他们的信任决策。为了探究自恋水平如何影响信任博弈中结果评价的大脑活动,本研究采用事件相关电位技术记录了38名被试完成单次信任博弈时的脑电波。行为结果发现相对高自恋者的信任选择率显著低于相对低自恋者的信任选择率。脑电结果表明,相对高自恋者信任损失反馈减互惠获利反馈所得的FRN差异波(d FRN)显著地大于相对低自恋者,并且相对高自恋者结果评价诱发的P300波幅显著地大于相对低自恋者。本研究提供了自恋人格个体信任博弈中结果评价的初步神经电生理学证据。     

Probe distractors can influence negative priming by perceptual grouping

Negative priming occurs when a response is slower to a target that was a previously ignored stimulus. According to a computational model of inhibition, negative priming results from relative activation between a target and a distractor in probe trials. Thus, the degree of competition in the probe trial should influence negative priming. The results from three experiments supported this hypothesis. Probe distractors grouped with a target by a rectangle produced a larger negative priming effect than did distractors isolated from the target. Moreover, neither prime-probe similarity nor perceptual interference could explain the grouping effect. The results suggest that perceptual mechanisms can influence negative priming via a race in the probe trial.