小学儿童问题行为、同伴关系与孤独感的特点及其关系

本研究以246名小学三至五年级儿童为被试,考察了儿童问题行为、同伴关系与孤独感的特点及其关系。结果发现：(1)儿童的外部问题行为、社会喜好、社会影响及孤独感均存在性别差异,内、外部问题行为和孤独感均存在年级差异;(2)儿童内、外部问题行为对其孤独感的影响方式不同：外部问题行为通过社会喜好和社会影响两个中介变量实现对孤独感的间接影响,其直接作用不显著,内部问题行为则直接影响儿童孤独感;(3)不同社会地位儿童的问题行为和孤独感也存在差异。     

Culture, memory, and the self: An analysis of the personal and collective self in long-term memory

We used a memory paradigm to test whether the nature of representations of the self within long-term memory differed as a function of cultural background. In Western samples words encoded in relation to the self are typically remembered better, and Euro-Canadian participants here showed this standard self-reference effect. However, Asian-Canadian participants were slower to recognize personal traits (as opposed to collective traits) when these traits had been encoded in reference to the self, suggesting a more elaborate representation of the collective self than the personal self in long-term memory. Further, memory was actually inhibited for Asian-Canadians when personal traits were encoded in reference to the self (vs. encoded with other referents). Differences in long-term memory trace strength for self-related data may emerge even as differences in the working self do not, and implications of this difference are discussed.     

Body representations and cognitive ontology: Drawing the boundaries of the body image

The distinction between body image and body schema has been incredibly influential in cognitive neuroscience. Recently, researchers have begun to speculate about the relationship between these representations (Gadsby, 2017, 2018; Pitron & de Vignemont, 2017; Pitron et al., 2018). Within this emerging literature, Pitron et al. (2018) proposed that the long-term body image and long-term body schema co-construct one another, through a process of reciprocal interaction. In proposing this model, they make two assumptions: that the long-term body image incorporates the spatial characteristics of tools, and that it is distorted in the case of Alice in wonderland syndrome. Here, I challenge these assumptions, with a closer examination of what the term “long-term body image” refers to. In doing so, I draw out some important taxonomic principles for research into body representation.     

分析思维降低情感预测影响偏差

人们在决策前需要对决策可能带来的结果进行预测。人们往往会高估未来事件对情感的影响,这被称为影响偏差。本研究从双系统理论出发,考察了分析思维是否会降低情感预测影响偏差。实验1(采用图片启动)和实验2(采用语言流畅性任务)考察了分析思维对影响偏差的影响,并分析了情感预测程度的中介作用。实验3在现场中以真实的决策(生育二孩)为例,考察了分析思维启动对情感预测的影响。结果发现:分析思维会降低情感预测强度,进而降低影响偏差。     

Fertile women are more demanding: Ovulatory increases in minimum mate preference criteria across a wide range of characteristics and relationship contexts

The ovulatory shift hypothesis (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Garver-Apgar, 2005) makes three predictions. First, it posits that during peak fertility, women are more attracted to males who display characteristics of good genes. Secondly, it predicts that women predominantly experience ovulatory shifts when evaluating males as short-term sexual partners. Lastly, it predicts that ovulatory shifts should be non-existent when measuring mate preferences associated with long-term partner quality. However given that female preferences are formulated as a means to offset costs associated with reproduction (Buss, 1994) and such costs are more likely to be incurred during peak fertility, the current study (via the ovulatory reproductive safeguards hypothesis) posits that women during peak fertility should show a general increase in their mate preference criteria across a variety of characteristics and relationships. Using a within-subjects design and hormonal markers of fertility status, the present study investigates the degree to which ovulatory shifts in preferences are limited to short-term sexual liaisons and the degree to which such shifts are associated with characteristics related to long-term partner quality. Contrary to the ovulatory shift hypothesis (and in support of the ovulatory reproductive safeguards hypothesis), ovulatory shifts were found across a wide range of relationship contexts and preference characteristics.     

Trial-to-trial dynamics of selective long-term-memory retrieval with continuously changing retrieval targets

How do we control the successive retrieval of behaviorally relevant information from long-term memory (LTM) without being distracted by other potential retrieval targets associated to the same retrieval cues? Here, we approach this question by investigating the nature of trial-by-trial dynamics of selective LTM retrieval, i.e., in how far retrieval in one trial has detrimental or facilitatory effects on selective retrieval in the following trial. Participants first learned associations between retrieval cues and targets, with one cue always being linked to three targets, forming small associative networks. In successive trials, participants had to access either the same or a different target belonging to either the same or a different cue. We found that retrieval times were faster for targets that had already been relevant in the previous trial, with this facilitatory effect being substantially weaker when the associative network changed in which the targets were embedded. Moreover, staying within the same network still had a facilitatory effect even if the target changed, which became evident in a relatively higher memory performance in comparison to a network change. Furthermore, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) showed topographically and temporally dissociable correlates of these effects, suggesting that they result from combined influences of distinct processes that aid memory retrieval when relevant and irrelevant targets change their status from trial to trial. Taken together, the present study provides insight into the different processing stages of memory retrieval when fast switches between retrieval targets are required.     

Comparative Religious Ethics Among the Ruins

This is a response to the recent essay by Elizabeth M. Bucar and Aaron Stalnaker on “Comparative Religious Ethics as a Field of Study.” I clarify my earlier positions on method and virtue in comparative religious ethics and try to respond to some of the issues that Bucar and Stalnaker raise in regard to my arguments specifically and the field more generally. I argue that while we need not measure the practical impact of scholarly work in comparative religious ethics purely in terms of political or social action, I nevertheless worry that defining the goals of comparative inquiry in terms of the production of bewilderment, intellectual vertigo, or skeptical questions can lead to impressionistic or therapeutic methodological norms. In a similar vein, I refine my earlier position on externalism that acknowledges the impossibility of a purely externalist approach but also notes the desirability of coming to understand others “in their own terms” prior to engaging in the process of transmutation. I also question Bucar and Stalnaker's pessimism about the potential of producing “rigorously convincing ethical theory from the lived experience of regular folk,” suggesting that perhaps we are working with different conceptions of the sociology of knowledge. Finally, I consider whether we are currently in the midst of an epistemological crisis and conclude with some reflections on the rationality of the craft of comparative religious ethics.     

Countering anti-Muslim attitudes among Christian and religiously unaffiliated 13- to 15-year-old students in England and Wales: testing the contact hypothesis

ABSTRACT

Drawing on data provided by 5,811 students from schools in England, Wales, and London who self-identified as either ‘no religion’ or as Christian, this study explored the effect of the contact hypothesis (having friends who are Muslims) on scores recorded on the seven-item Scale of Anti-Muslim Attitude (SAMA), after controlling for type of school (with or without a religious character), location (England, Wales, and London), personal factors (sex and age), psychological factors (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism) and religious factors (self-assigned affiliation as Christian, worship attendance, and belief in God). The data demonstrated the positive effect of having friends who are Muslim on lowering anti-Muslim attitudes. The path is then described from educational research to curriculum development in the design of resources that offer young learners vicarious experience of having friends who are Muslims.