The legitimation of wife abuse among women: The impact of belief in a just world and gender identification

Past research has found that when victims are ingroup members, observers’ social identification interacts with general belief in a just world (GBJW) to predict judgments about those victims. In this correlational study (N = 284 women, ages from 18 to 80) we aimed to test whether and how women’s explicit endorsement of BJW, both personal belief in a just world (PBJW) and GBJW, interacts with their identification as women to predict wife abuse legitimization.We predicted and found that the interaction between PBJW and social identification predicted legitimization of wife abuse. Specifically, for highly identified women, PBJW was positively associated with wife abuse legitimization, for less identified women, PBJW was not associated with wife abuse legitimization. This interaction was significant above and beyond other variables associated with this phenomenon: hostile and benevolent sexism, empathy (cognitive and emotional), and social desirability. On the contrary, the interaction between GBJW and social identification was a nonsignificant predictor of legitimization of wife abuse. These results contribute to reconceptualize the role of PBJW and GBJW on judgments about victims and to highlight the importance of considering the victimization situations in the social context and the social groups in which they actually occur.     

Belief in a just world and subjective well-being: mothers of normal and Down syndrome children

A cross-sectional study examined the relationship between three dimensions of the belief in a just world and the subjective well-being of Pakistani mothers of normal and Down syndrome children (n = 100 each). Personal belief in a just world and two dimensions of general belief in a just world-beliefs in immanent and ultimate justice-were assessed along with four dimensions of subjective well-being: life satisfaction, mood, state anxiety, and depression. It was hypothesized that personal belief in a just world and belief in ultimate justice would be positively associated with subjective well-being for both groups of mothers. Results were obtained through moderated regression analyses. In line with our hypothesis, personal belief in a just world positively predicted life satisfaction and mood level and negatively predicted state anxiety and depression in both groups of mothers. In contrast, beliefs in immanent and ultimate justice were not consistently adaptive. In particular, the more the mothers of a Down syndrome child believed in immanent justice, the more anxiety they experienced the previous week. In addition, the more the mothers of normal children believed in ultimate justice, the more they experienced anxiety. The pattern of results persisted when controlled for mothers' education, the total number of their children and marital status. Overall, the results support the role of personal belief in a just world as a personal resource in adverse as well as normal life circumstances.     

Disentangling the belief in God and cognitive rigidity/flexibility components of religiosity to predict racial and value-violating prejudice: A Post-Critical Belief Scale analysis

Past research indicates that being religious is associated with prejudice toward racial and value-violating out-groups. However, this past research treated religiosity as a unidimensional construct without taking into account how different components of religiosity—belief in a higher power and the rigidity/flexibility of religious beliefs—are associated with measures of prejudice. Two studies examined the relationship between these two components of religiosity, as measured by the Post-Critical Beliefs Scale, and racial (African Americans, Arabs) and value-violating prejudices (atheists, gay men). As the flexibility of religious beliefs increased (literal vs. symbolic dimension), attitudes toward racial and value-violating out-groups became more positive (Study 1). As belief in God strengthened (exclusion vs. inclusion of transcendence dimension), attitudes toward value-violating out-groups became more negative. Study 2 demonstrated that these two components of religiosity fully mediated the relationship between general religiosity and prejudice toward African Americans, Arabs, and gay men and partially mediated the relationship between religiosity and prejudice toward atheists. Results are discussed in light of reexamining the conclusion that simply being religious is associated with prejudice.     

Dynamic orientation cues decrease the viewpoint cost of mental rotation

Mental rotation, as a covert simulation of motor rotation, could benefit from spatial updating of object representations. We are interested in what kind of visual cue could trigger spatial updating. Three experiments were conducted to examine the effect of dynamic and static orientation cues on mental rotation, using a sequential matching task with three-dimensional novel objects presented in different views. Experiment 1 showed that a rotating orientation cue with constant speed reduced viewpoint costs in mental rotation. Experiment 2 extended this effect with a varied-speed rotating orientation cue. However, no such benefit was observed with a static orientation cue in Experiment 3. These findings indicated that a visually continuous orientation cue is sufficient to elicit spatial updating in mental rotation. Furthermore, there may be differences in the underlying mechanisms of spatial updating on the basis of constant-speed rotating cues and varied-speed rotating cues.     

Belief–logic conflict resolution in syllogistic reasoning: Inspection-time evidence for a parallel-process model

An experiment is reported examining dual-process models of belief bias in syllogistic reasoning using a problem complexity manipulation and an inspection-time method to monitor processing latencies for premises and conclusions. Endorsement rates indicated increased belief bias on complex problems, a finding that runs counter to the “belief-first” selective scrutiny model, but which is consistent with other theories, including “reasoning-first” and “parallel-process” models. Inspection-time data revealed a number of effects that, again, arbitrated against the selective scrutiny model. The most striking inspection-time result was an interaction between logic and belief on premise-processing times, whereby belief – logic conflict problems promoted increased latencies relative to non-conflict problems. This finding challenges belief-first and reasoning-first models, but is directly predicted by parallel-process models, which assume that the outputs of simultaneous heuristic and analytic processing streams lead to an awareness of belief – logic conflicts than then require time-consuming resolution.     

Updating beliefs in light of uncertain evidence: Descriptive assessment of Jeffrey's rule

Jeffrey (1983) proposed a generalisation of conditioning as a means of updating probability distributions when new evidence drives no event to certainty. His rule requires the stability of certain conditional probabilities through time. We tested this assumption (“invariance”) from the psychological point of view. In Experiment 1 participants offered probability estimates for events in Jeffrey's candlelight example. Two further scenarios were investigated in Experiment 2, one in which invariance seems justified, the other in which it does not. Results were in rough conformity to Jeffrey's (1983) principle.     

The ecological imagination

This paper offers a psychoanalytic exploration of meaning within the concept of ecology. From a starting point in the experience of primal anxiety, originating in the work of Freud, Jung and Klein, links are made to cultural themes through a developing comparison of case studies in literature, mythology, the public sphere and clinical practice. It is argued that the application of psychoanalytic ideas to environmental concern has validity. The idea emerges that individual and public attitudes to our environment might be open to positive change through an appreciation of the concept of early anxiety, currently available to us in work of the imagination.     

Response demands and the recruitment of heuristic strategies in syllogistic reasoning

Two experiments investigated whether dealing with a homogeneous subset of syllogisms with time-constrained responses encouraged participants to develop and use heuristics for abstract (Experiment 1) and thematic (Experiment 2) syllogisms. An atmosphere-based heuristic accounted for most responses with both abstract and thematic syllogisms. With thematic syllogisms, a weaker effect of a belief heuristic was also observed, mainly where the correct response was inconsistent with the atmosphere of the premises. Analytic processes appear to have played little role in the time-constrained condition, whereas their involvement increased in a self-paced, unconstrained condition. From a dual-process perspective, the results further specify how task demands affect the recruitment of heuristic and analytic systems of reasoning. Because the syllogisms and experimental procedure were the same as those used in a previous neuroimaging study by Goel, Buchel, Frith, and Dolan (2000), the result also deepen our understanding of the cognitive processes investigated by that study.     

Survival from the Brain's Perspective

The concern about man's harmful impact on the environment focuses attention on the external environment, i.e., the real world out there, which may not survive in a form to support life. But supporting life of an individual is in the hands of that individual's brain, which is primarily concerned with various needs of the internal environment, also referred to as the self. Confronted with diverse and often competing needs, the brain has evolved a complexity in man, which makes it doubtful that any one collective strategy may be effective in preserving the external environment.     

Individual differences in cognitive control processes and their relationship to emotion regulation

Cognitive control and emotional control share many similarities, but the specific relationship between these processes is not well understood. This study explored the relationship between three types of cognitive control (working memory updating, response inhibition and set-shifting) and two emotional regulation strategies (expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal). Corrugator electromyography, behaviour and self-reports of affect were measured as indices of emotion regulation. Results indicate that working memory updating predicted negative affect reduction during reappraisal and during expressive suppression. This study specifically shows that the working memory component of cognitive control is associated with negative affect reduction. Response inhibition and set-shifting were not specifically related to negative affect reduction, but these variables did predict aspects of emotional behaviour and regulation. These results suggest a general role for cognitive control in some aspects of emotion regulation as well as a specific modulatory role for working memory updating in the regulation of negative affect.