Observed actions affect body-specific associations between space and valence

Right-handers tend to associate “good” with the right side of space and “bad” with the left. This implicit association appears to arise from the way people perform actions, more or less fluently, with their right and left hands. Here we tested whether observing manual actions performed with greater or lesser fluency can affect observers' space–valence associations. In two experiments, we assigned one participant (the actor) to perform a bimanual fine motor task while another participant (the observer) watched. Actors were assigned to wear a ski glove on either the right or left hand, which made performing the actions on this side of space disfluent. In Experiment 1, observers stood behind the actors, sharing their spatial perspective. After motor training, both actors and observers tended to associate “good” with the side of the actors' free hand and “bad” with the side of the gloved hand. To determine whether observers' space–valence associations were computed from their own perspectives or the actors', in Experiment 2 we asked the observer to stand face-to-face with the actor, reversing their spatial perspectives. After motor training, both actors and observers associated “good” with the side of space where disfluent actions had occurred from their own egocentric spatial perspectives; if “good” was associated with the actor's right-hand side it was likely to be associated with the observer's left-hand side. Results show that vicarious experiences of motor fluency can shape valence judgments, and that observers spontaneously encode the locations of fluent and disfluent actions in egocentric spatial coordinates.     

Inclusive Essential Luther—Invitation for Global Scholarship

Lutheran theology does not have a monopoly on grace. “Grace alone” statements do not suffice in unfolding what “all” grace is and does. In comparison to Catholic tradition, the Lutheran imagination of grace appears abstract and excludes experience. Feminist theology, in conversation with the tradition, promises to expand Lutheran hermeneutics and epistemology, starting with grace. In the footsteps of Tuomo Mannermaa, returning to Luther's transformative experience of grace, new avenues open up for reforming Lutheran grace‐language. With Luther, a holistic approach to grace can be developed, one that includes Mary the mother of God.     

Defining greed

Although greed is both hailed as the motor of economic growth and blamed as the cause of economic crises, very little is known about its psychological underpinnings. Five studies explored lay conceptualizations of greed among US and Dutch participants using a prototype analysis. Study 1 identified features related to greed. Study 2 determined the importance of these features; the most important features were classified as central (e.g., self‐interested, never satisfied), whereas less important features were classified as peripheral (e.g., ambition, addiction). Subsequently, we found that, compared to peripheral features, participants recalled central features better (Study 3), faster (Study 4), and these central features were more present in real‐life episodes of greed (Study 5). These findings provide a better understanding of the elements that make up the experience of greed and provide insights into how greed can be manipulated and measured in future research.     

Longitudinal trajectories of bicultural identity integration in recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents: Links with mental health and family functioning

This study examined, in a sample of recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents in Miami and Los Angeles, the extent to which bicultural identity integration (BII; involving the ability to synthesise one's heritage and receiving cultural streams and to identify as a member of both cultures) is best understood as a developmental construct that changes over time or as an individual‐difference construct that is largely stable over time. We were also interested in the extent to which these trajectories predicted mental health and family functioning. Recent‐immigrant 9th graders (N = 302) were assessed 6 times from 9th to 12th grade. Latent class growth analyses using the first 5 timepoints identified 2 trajectory classes—one with lower BII scores over time and another with higher BII scores over time. Higher heritage and US identity at baseline predicted membership in the higher BII class. At the 6th study timepoint, lower BII adolescents reported significantly poorer self‐esteem, optimism, prosocial behaviour and family relationships compared with their higher BII counterparts. These findings are discussed in terms of further research on the over‐time trajectory of biculturalism, and on the need to develop interventions to promote BII as a way of facilitating well‐being and positive family functioning.     

Contacting a 19 month‐old mute autistic girl: A clinical narrative

Conveying that psychoanalysis offers rich opportunities for the very early treatment of autistic spectrum disorders, this clinical communication unfolds the clinical process of a 19 month‐old ‘shell‐type’ encapsulated mute autistic girl. It details how, in a four‐weekly‐sessions schedule, infant Lila evolved within two years from being emotionally out‐of‐contact to the affective aliveness of oedipal involvement. Following Frances Tustin's emphasis on the analyst's ‘quality of attention’ and Justin Call's advice that in baby–mother interaction the infant is the initiator and the mother is the follower, it is described how the analyst must, amid excruciating non‐response, even‐mindedly sustain her attention in order to meet the child half‐way at those infrequent points where flickers of initiative on her side are adumbrated. This helps attain evanescent ‘moments of contact’ which coalesce later into ‘moments of sharing’, eventually leading to acknowledgment of the analyst's humanness and a receptiveness for to‐and‐fro communication. Thus the ‘primal dialogue’ (Spitz) is reawakened and, by experiencing herself in the mirror of the analyst, the child's sense of I‐ness is reinstated. As evinced by the literature, the mainstream stance rests on systematic early interpretation of the transference, which has in our view strongly deterred progress in the psychoanalytic treatment of autistic spectrum disorders.