Hemifacial preferences for the perception of emotion and attractiveness differ with the gender of the one beheld

Though the left cheek appears more emotive, perceptions of attractiveness vary with gender. For the first time, this study assessed the relationship between perceptions of emotion (happiness) and attractiveness in naturalistic photographic portraits. One hundred ninety-two participants (63 male; 129 female) viewed pairs of left and right cheek poses, and made a forced-choice decision indicating which image appeared (a) more emotive and (b) more attractive (order counterbalanced). Half the images were mirror-reversed to control for perceptual biases. Results indicated a striking gender difference: for males, the left cheek appears both more emotive and more attractive; for females, preferences are subject to stronger perceptual influences, with the right cheek bias for emotion and attractiveness reversing to a left cheek bias when images are mirror-reversed. These findings suggest that if you want to show the world your “best side”, men should lead with the left but for women, the right cheek is right.     

An examination of trait,spontaneous and instructed emotion regulation in dysphoria

Depression is thought to be characterised by impaired emotion regulation, although the mechanisms of that regulation are not yet well understood. The present study examined trait, spontaneous and instructed emotion regulation in dysphoric (n = 66) and non-dysphoric (n = 86) participants. Participants were randomly assigned to use reappraisal while watching a sadness-inducing film clip (instructed emotion regulation condition) or were not given specific viewing instructions (spontaneous emotion regulation condition). Participants also completed trait measures of emotion regulation. Dysphoric individuals reported greater spontaneous use of rumination and suppression than non-dysphoric individuals, and these strategies were associated with greater negative emotional reactivity to the sadness-inducing film clip. Both participant groups were able to effectively use reappraisal when instructed to do so. The clinical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Arrogant or self-confident? The use of contextual knowledge to differentiate hubristic and authentic pride from a single nonverbal expression

Two studies tested whether observers could differentiate between two facets of pride—authentic and hubristic—on the basis of a single prototypical pride nonverbal expression combined with relevant contextual information. In Study 1, participants viewed targets displaying posed pride expressions in response to success, while causal attributions for the success (target's effort vs. ability) and the source of this information (target vs. omniscient narrator conveying objective fact) were varied. Study 2 used a similar method, but attribution information came from both the target and an omniscient narrator; the congruence of these attributions was varied. Across studies, participants tended to label expressions as authentic pride, but were relatively more likely to label them as hubristic pride when (a) contextual information indicated that targets were arrogant and (b) no mitigating information about the target's potential value as a hard-working group member (i.e., that success was actually due to effort) was presented.     

Worry spreads: Interpersonal transfer of problem-related anxiety

This paper distinguishes processes potentially contributing to interpersonal anxiety transfer, including object-directed social appraisal, empathic worry, and anxiety contagion, and reviews evidence for their operation. We argue that these anxiety-transfer processes may be exploited strategically when attempting to regulate relationship partners’ emotion. More generally, anxiety may serve as either a warning signal to other people about threat (alerting function) or an appeal for emotional support or practical help (comfort-seeking function). Tensions between these two interpersonal functions may account for mutually incongruent interpersonal responses to expressed anxiety, including mistargeted interpersonal regulation attempts. Because worry waxes and wanes over time as a function of other people's ongoing reactions, interpersonal interventions may help to alleviate some of its maladaptive consequences.     

Lack of habituation to shocking words: The attentional bias to their spatial origin is context free

Following a suggestion made by Aquino and Arnell (2007), we assumed that the processing of emotional words is influenced by their context of presentation. Supporting this idea, previous studies using the emotional Stroop task in its visual or auditory variant revealed different results depending on the mixed versus blocked presentation of the stimuli (Bertels, Kolinsky, Pietrons, & Morais, 2011; Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, & Williams, 1992). In the present study, we investigated the impact of these presentation designs on the occurrence of spatial attentional biases in a modified version of the beep-probe task (Bertels, Kolinsky, & Morais, 2010). Attentional vigilance to taboo words as well as non-spatial slowing effects of these words were observed whatever the mixed or blocked design, whereas attentional vigilance to positive words was only observed in the mixed design. Together with the results from our previous study (Bertels et al., 2010), the present data support the reliability of the effects of shocking stimuli, while vigilance to positive words would only be observed in a threatening context.     

Leader emotion as a catalyst of effective leader communication of visions,value-laden messages,and goals

Despite the importance that effective leader communication of visions, value-laden messages, and goals seems to have in leadership, we know very little about which leader behavior is conducive to effective persuasive communication of desired end states. The current research highlights leader emotion as useful for leaders to make followers receptive to leaders’ communicated end state. Across four experiments we found that follower performance was highest when there was a match between leader emotion and end state in terms of implied regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention). Three of these experiments tested the proposed underlying mechanism of this pattern and found that leader enthusiasm (agitation) primed followers with promotion (prevention) focus, which in turn generated high follower performance when leaders communicated end states that sustained this focus, that is, when visions appealed to promotion (prevention); persuasive messages contained openness (conservatism) values; and when goals were defined as maximal (minimal) goals.     

Moses,Michelangelo and Freud: From an interlacement of stories in history to some suggestions for treatment theory

Abstract

The first part of this paper is inspired by Freud's interpretation of Michelangelo's Moses, which as the author shows, profoundly expresses Freud's subjectivity and personal features. With reference to clinical treatment, when the analyst “reasons” without considering his or her partner's position, the setting is lacking from a relational point of view. The consequence is that the analyst is missing a precious resource, that is, his or her patient and the documental sources he or she transmits in the analytic dialogue. In the second part of the paper, the author analyzes the nature of documental sources. This information pertains to both the patients’ pasts and their histories, expressing their rigid conservative needs, and to their evolution and transformational needs, in view of future possible change. Evolution needs are not visible, because they are implicitly present, and—according to the author—they could be recognized through the method of discrete details proposed by the Italian art critic G. Morelli. A broader vision of analytic listening is also considered: the past should be taken into account with the aim of interpreting the present and the future, as changing spaces. Change in therapy is announced through nonrepressed unconscious signals and by the language of the implicit. In the conclusion, the author exposes the connections of change, implicit, symbol, metaphorical language and waiting time.     

Mithraic iconography and ideology

L. Ron Hubbard created in Scientology an immense landscape of alternative worlds, realities, and possibilities. Scientology cosmology, mythology, and eschatology are inescapably linked to galactic events and Hubbard's retelling of human history is replete with science-fiction tropes – many of which found popularity in the early science-fiction tradition to which he belonged. In his therapeutic and religious teachings, Hubbard proposed a complex narrative that re-defined the essence of self and society in relation to the cosmos. For Scientologists, the fantastic becomes mundane as they position themselves within a vast and heavy quest to reshape themselves, the rest of humanity, and, for some, the entire universe. Understood within the science-fiction context from which Scientology emerged, one can better understand the grand nature of Hubbard's proposals as belonging to a specific tradition within the genre – namely, space opera. Consequently, this article analyses Hubbard's propositions using space-opera concepts, and argues that Hubbard re-defined a unique tradition in the course of creating a new reality.     

Reflections on the early stages of the Oedipus complex: The parental couple in relation to psychoanalytic work

The author refers to the parental couple as it appears in relation to the Oedipus complex at the various levels of development and psychical maturation. A 'pathological' Oedipus situation is differentiated from a 'normal' one. Accordingly the author distinguishes the primitive Oedipal fantasies about the parental couple represented in the myth by the parents of Thebes and the parents of Corinth (and the influence that these can have on the psychoanalytic work), from a couple who have reached truly creative functioning. Furthermore, it is pointed out how elements are activated in the therapist's mind: emotional qualities of a feminine maternal and masculine paternal kind that either collaborate in containing and promoting the psychoanalytic process and psychic development of the patient or else fail in this task.