Cross-cultural similarities and differences in person-body reasoning: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom and Brazilian Amazon

We report the results of a cross-cultural investigation of person-body reasoning in the United Kingdom and northern Brazilian Amazon (Marajó Island). The study provides evidence that directly bears upon divergent theoretical claims in cognitive psychology and anthropology, respectively, on the cognitive origins and cross-cultural incidence of mind-body dualism. In a novel reasoning task, we found that participants across the two sample populations parsed a wide range of capacities similarly in terms of the capacities' perceived anchoring to bodily function. Patterns of reasoning concerning the respective roles of physical and biological properties in sustaining various capacities did vary between sample populations, however. Further, the data challenge prior ad-hoc categorizations in the empirical literature on the developmental origins of and cognitive constraints on psycho-physical reasoning (e.g., in afterlife concepts). We suggest cross-culturally validated categories of "Body Dependent" and "Body Independent" items for future developmental and cross-cultural research in this emerging area.     

Perceiving communion in the dyadic relationship of others

The present research took an ecological approach to explore a relational issue in social perception ? are the perceived personality characteristics of dyad members and their perceived behavioural exchanges related to perceptions of that dyad’s perceived level of friendship? To this end, observers reported on a dyad they knew well using an indigenous measure of personality perception and the Dyadic Behavioural Exchange Scale, combined with an adapted version of Hays’ Friendship Observation Checklist. Perceived similarity of personality on the dimensions of application, emotional stability (negative) and helpfulness (negative) along with the perceived level of dyadic behaviour exchange were found to be additive predictors of perceived communion or friendship strength. This interplay of personal and interpersonal processes has demonstrated the application of methodological relationalism in the social domain, and broadened the ambit of social cognition to include knowledge of relationship units of which the observer is not a member, but which plays a part in his or her social world.     

Not Just Doing Time: Distinct Typologies of Attitudes and Emotions among Juvenile Justice‐Involved Youth

Adolescents’ views of the legal system, just world beliefs, and moral emotions are interrelated and form an important frame of reference, particularly for young people involved in the juvenile justice system. Yet past scholarship has generally treated these as independent indices of youths’ experience. This study took a person‐centered, latent profile approach to attitudes and beliefs among 136 male youth incarcerated within secure US juvenile facilities. Three heterogeneous profiles were found (negative attitudes/low emotion, moderate attitudes/mixed emotions, and positive attitudes/positive emotion) which were differentially associated with antisocial behavior. Youth who belonged to historically marginalized populations had significantly lower odds of belonging to a protective profile characterized by positive legal attitudes, just world beliefs, and emotions (positive attitudes/positive emotion). Findings highlight our gaps in understanding young people’s experiences with legal and judicial entities and illustrate significant heterogeneity in youth’s frame of reference within the juvenile justice system.     

Context and Perceptual Salience Influence the Formation of Novel Stereotypes via Cumulative Cultural Evolution

We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions—color, movement, and shape—thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien‐attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien‐attribute assignments participants produced during test were used as the training materials for the next participant in the transmission chain. As information was repeatedly transmitted an increasingly simplified, learnable stereotype‐like structure emerged for targets who shared the same color, such that by the end of the chains targets who shared the same color were more likely to share the same attributes (a reanalysis of data from Martin et al., 2014 which we term Experiment 1). The apparent bias toward the formation of novel stereotypes around the color category dimension was also found for objects (Experiment 2). However, when the category dimension of color was made less salient, it no longer dominated the formation of novel stereotypes (Experiment 3). The current findings suggest that context and category salience influence category dimension salience, which in turn influences the cumulative cultural evolution of information.     

Judging a Book by its Cover: The Influence of Implicit Self‐Theories on Brand User Perceptions

Do people judge others based on the brands they use? Prior research finds evidence to this effect, yet we argue this phenomenon is far from universal. Drawing on research on implicit self‐theories, we find that only entity (but not incremental) theorists are prone to judging people based on their brand use (Studies 1 and 2). We show that entity theorists infer that people use brands to signal who they are to others, thereby forming perceptions of these people based on the personality of the brands they use, but incremental theorists are reluctant to make inferences about brand users’ signaling motives (Studies 3, 4, and 5). When tendencies to make signaling inferences are reduced, entity theorists no longer judge people based on their brand use (Studies 3 and 4). Furthermore, even incremental theorists judge people based on their brand use when given the information that their brand use is not driven by situational forces, but is potentially driven by a signaling motivation (Study 5).     

Folk concepts of person and identity: A response to Nichols and Bruno

Nichols and Bruno (2010) claim that the folk judge that psychological continuity is necessary for personal identity. In this article, we evaluate this claim. First, we argue that it is likely that in thinking about hypothetical cases of transformations, the folk do not use a unitary concept of personal identity, but instead rely on different concepts of ‘person’, ‘identity’, and ‘individual’. Identity can be ascribed even when post-transformation individuals are no longer categorized as persons. Second, we provide new empirical evidence suggesting that the folk do not consider psychological continuity to be necessary for an individual to be categorized as a person or for ascribing identity over time and through transformations. In this, we assume, along with Nichols and Bruno, that folk judgments about identity can be read off the use of proper names. Furthermore, we raise some doubts about the ability of current experimental designs to adequately distinguish between qualitative and numerical identity judgments. We conclude that these claims give us a good reason to be skeptical about the prospects of using folk intuitions in philosophical theorizing about personal identity.     

《管子》的养生智慧

在古代中国,作为一种人格理想典型的“圣人”具有导向作用,《管子》塑造圣人品格,当然也是为了给人们确立人生目标。故而,学习圣人也就包括学习养生在内。在《管子·白心》篇中有一个养生的重要命题,叫做“执仪服象,敬迎来者”,这不仅是就如何“成圣”说的,而且对于一般人的生活而言也具有养生的借鉴价值。根据圣人理想人格的修养标准,《管子》不仅将治国与养生结合起来,而且具体探究如何“理气”的问题。     

A matter of design: Priming context and person perception

A matter of considerable debate is whether people spontaneously use categorical knowledge (i.e., stereotypes) to guide their interactions with others. Despite initial evidence for the unconditional automaticity of category activation, recent research has identified a range of factors that moderate this process. Extending this line of inquiry, the current investigation explored the extent to which contextual influences—specifically the order in which priming stimuli are presented to participants—may modulate person categorization. Using a standard semantic-priming paradigm to index category and stereotype activation, participants were presented with priming stimuli that were either intermixed or blocked by sex. The results revealed that: (i) category and stereotype activation are moderated by the order in which priming stimuli are presented; and (ii) priming effects decrease monotonically as a function of category repetition. The theoretical implications of these findings are considered.     

Female sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly, and automatically from the face and its features

Whereas previous work has shown that male sexual orientation can be accurately and rapidly perceived from the human face and its individual features, no study has examined the judgment of female sexual orientation. To fill this gap, the current work examined the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of judgments of female sexual orientation from the face and from facial features. Study 1 showed that female sexual orientation could be accurately judged from the face and from just eyes without brows and limited to the outer canthi. Study 2 then examined the speed and efficiency of these judgments, showing that judgments of the faces following very brief, near subliminal (40 ms) exposures were significantly better than chance guessing. Finally, Study 3 tested the automaticity of judgments of female sexual orientation by examining the effects of deliberation on accuracy. Participants who made snap judgments of female sexual orientation were significantly more accurate than participants who made thoughtful and deliberated judgments. These data therefore evidence a robust, reliable, and automatic capacity for extracting information about female sexual orientation from nonverbal cues in the face.