Misattribution theory of tendentious humor

Male and female subjects were treated rudely or in a normal manner by a female experimenter in order to establish (a) a negative or (b) a neutral affective disposition toward her. Subjects then witnessed her in one of three conditions: (a) She experienced a misfortune that was associated with innocuous humor cues; (b) she experienced the same misfortune, but the humor cues were not present; (c) the same humor cues were present, but no misfortune was experienced. Subjects' facial expressions of mirth were unobtrusively recorded and later coded by naive judges. No appreciable sex differences in mirth were found. Negative dispositions led to greater mirth reactions to the misfortune than neutral dispositions whether or not humor cues were associated with than misfortune. The dispositional variation was of no consequence in the reactions to humor cues as such, however. Under conditions of neutral disposition, mirth in response to the misfortune plus the humor cues was the sum of the mirth reactions to the component parts in isolation. Under conditions of negative disposition, mirth in response to the combination of misfortune and humor cues exceeded the sum of the responses to the components. A misattribution theory of tendentious humor was developed from Freudian thinking, and the findings were considered to be consistent with it although not definitive. Additionally, the findings were considered to give further support to the disposition theory of mirth.     

An examination of encoding and retrieval processes in reading disabled children

A choice reaction time experiment was performed in order to assess the information processing characteristics of 12-year-old reading disabled children. Eight reading disabled children were compared to a sample of nondisabled readers. The stimuli consisted of consonants presented in three memory load conditions. A Stimulus Quality manipulation was included in the design in order to assess the encoding process. The results of the research indicated that the rate of encoding differed between disabled and nondisabled readers. In addition, support for the hypothesis that disabled and nondisabled readers do not differ in terms of central processes was also obtained.     

Regional cerebral blood flow response in a patient with remitted global amnesia

A case of remitted global amnesia, believed to have residual left medial temporal lobe damage, is tested by the same recognition memory paradigm used by Wood, Taylor, et al. in the previous paper. On two different testing occasions, once using an intentional and once an incidental memory procedure, the patient's right occipital flows were inversely correlated with memory accuracy and the values were very close to the regression line for 10 normals relating occipital flow to memory accuracy. The left occipital flows did not fit the regression line, however. The results were interpreted as consistent with the notion that occipital flow is inversely related to medial temporal lobe activation. Another surprising feature of this case is the unexpected persistence of amnesia for a period from about 5 to 10 years before her episode to about 2 weeks after the episode, with recovery of memory functioning for the period since that time.     

Theoretical Orientations of New Zealand Psychologists: An International Comparison

Registered practicing psychologists in New Zealand (n = 221) were surveyed concerning their predominant theoretical orientation. Results were compared with findings obtained among Australian psychologists by Byrne and Reinhart (1990), British psychologists by Garrett and Davis (1995), and North American psychologists by Norcross, Karg, and Prochaska (1997a). The results showed that while New Zealand psychologists use cognitive approaches more often than both British and North American psychologists, they use behavioral and psychodynamic approaches less often. Overall, it was found that the eclectic approach is the most popular theoretical orientation obtained in surveys of Australian, New Zealand, and North American psychologists, in that no group subscribed exclusively to a single theoretical orientation.     

角色压力、工作家庭冲突和心理抑郁的中美比较--社会支持的调节作用

在中国和北美两个样本中,探讨了工作家庭冲突模型的共性和差异。首先使用多组验证性因子分析找到适用于中美样本的模型,然后采用结构方程模型和多层次回归进行假设检验。结果显示,中美员工感知到的工作-家庭(家庭-工作)冲突在工作(家庭)角色压力和心理抑郁的关系中都起中介作用。此外,情境的差异导致中美员工在工作支持和家庭支持的调节作用上有不同的表现,即中国员工感受到的工作(家庭)支持对角色压力和冲突间关系的调节作用不显著,在北美样本中,工作支持负向调节工作角色压力到工作-家庭冲突的关系,而工作支持和家庭支持正向调节家庭角色压力到家庭-工作冲突的关系。本文的发现能够帮助管理者意识到情境因素的重要作用,从而制定更为有效的管理决策。     

Quaker ideology,colonialism and American Indian education

William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, set out to found a ‘Holy Experiment’ based on Quaker ideals. While he regarded the Native American Indians whose land he purchased as spiritual equals, he still expected them to convert to Christianity and live under British law. Later, Quakers continued to follow this goal, eventually becoming leaders, under President Grant, in the residential school system for Native American Indian children. They supported assimilation, contributing to the destruction of native culture and society, in contradiction to their principles of equality and integrity. This paper explores the process by which Quakers came to feel it necessary to pursue such measures in spite of their egalitarian beliefs.     

Underground railroads: citizen entitlements and unauthorized mobility in the antebellum period and today

In recent years, some scholars and prominent political figures have advocated the deepening of North American integration on roughly the European Union model, including the creation of new political institutions and the free movement of workers across borders. The construction of such a North American Union, if it included even a very thin trans-state citizenship regime, could represent the most significant expansion of individual entitlements in the region since citizenship was extended to former slaves in the United States. With such a possibility as its starting point, this article explores some striking parallels between the mass, legally prohibited movement across boundaries by fugitive slaves in the pre-Civil War period, and that by current unauthorized migrants to the United States. Both were, or are, met on their journeys by historically parallel groups of would-be helpers and hinderers. Their unauthorized movements in both periods serve as important signals of incomplete entitlements or institutional protections. Most crucially, moral arguments for extending fuller entitlements to both groups are shown here to be less distinct than may be prima facie evident, reinforcing the case for expanding and deepening the regional membership regime.     

ACTIONS AND AGENTS: NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL RECONSIDERED

Using a process‐oriented understanding of the relation between actions and agents, the author argues that an ontological agent is the ongoing effect or by‐product rather than the antecedent cause of actions. Applied to the relation between natural and supernatural in philosophical cosmology, this allows one to claim, first, that agents (whether natural or supernatural) are not sensibly perceived, but only inferred from the ongoing observation of empirical actions; second, that the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is then conceivably a distinction between interrelated processes rather than between independently existing agents; and third, that a higher order process of supernatural origin could be operative in a lower order empirical process without interference even though its existence and activity could only be established on the basis of a faith commitment, not empirical evidence. What Paul Ricoeur referred to as a “surplus of meaning” over and above the scientific explanation of an event would be in play with the claim of divine guidance for the cosmic process.