A reanalysis of the personal/impersonal distinction in moral psychology research

Greene and colleagues [Greene, J., Sommerville, B. R., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2108.] have revealed an apparent distinction in folk psychology between ‘up close and personal’ and ‘impersonal’ moral dilemmas. Reasoning about these types of dilemmas is purportedly supported by partially dissociable neural systems. However, further investigation of the data supporting this hypothesis indicated that only a small number of stimuli used by Greene et al. are driving the effect originally found. Implications of the apparent distinction initially reported and of other research in the domain of moral psychology are discussed.     

Spanish adaptation of the Personal Meaning Profile-Brief: Meaning in life,psychological well-being,and distress

Background/ObjectiveThis study aimed to adapt the Personal Meaning Profile-Brief (PMP-B) to the Spanish-speaking population and investigate its psychometric properties. The PMP-B is a 21-item instrument that assesses meaning in life through seven sources: relationship, intimacy, achievement, self-acceptance, self-transcendence, fair treatment, and religion.MethodParticipants were 546 Spanish adults comprised of a community sample (n = 171) and university students (n = 375). The PMP-B, the Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale were administrated.ResultsThe PMP-B showed a bifactor structure with one general factor and seven subfactors. Measurement invariance was found across age, gender, and samples. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were generally good. Older people showed higher PMP-B scores than younger people. The PMP-B scores, especially relational sources of meaning, were positively associated with psychological well-being and negatively related to psychological distress, mainly to depression.ConclusionsThe validity evidence gathered in this study supports the reliable use of the PMP-B to measure meaning in life. The PMP-B can be a noteworthy contribution to the meaning-centered research.     

Surrendering personal control to automation: Appalling or appealing?

There has been a growing interest in Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology worldwide over the last decade. Nevertheless, various studies have noted some potential socio-psychological challenges to AV use and ownership. These challenges can be mitigated by designing AV that accounts for users’ personalities, such as their perceived control and power. The complex relationship between personal control and automation, two concepts that intuitively sound contradictory to each other, is less explored. In this study, two dimensions of personal control, the desire for control and the driver locus of control, were hypothesized to influence the attitude toward AV. The relationships were moderated by power distance, a cultural factor related to one’s sense of control. The hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach via the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) software. As many as 457 respondents from two sample groups, Hungarian and Indonesian drivers were gathered via an online questionnaire and compared. The results reveal that 1) the higher the desire for control, the more negative the attitude toward AV 2) the higher the external driver locus of control, the more positive the attitude toward AV 3) the more positive the attitude toward AV, the higher the intention to use AV and 4) power distance moderates the relationship between the desire for control and the attitude toward AV, such that the negative effect of the desire for control is strengthened in high power distance orientation. This study also provides theoretical contributions and managerial implications, especially to AV designers.     

Personality Foundations of Ideological Divide: A Comparison of Women Members of Parliament and Women Voters in Italy

Empirical research is crucial for understanding the personality foundations of political preferences in modern democracies. However, few studies have addressed the personality of top politicians using standard methods to assess basic traits and personal values. In the current research, traits and values of 106 female members of the Italian Parliament were assessed in accordance with the Five‐Factor Model of personality and Schwartz's taxonomy. The same variables were measured in a sample of 864 voters taken from the general population. We investigate the extent to which differences in traits and values contribute to ideological orientation of politicians and voters of rival coalitions. A similar pattern of relations was found in both groups. Yet, traits and values contributed to partisanship of politicians much more than to political preferences of voters. Whereas values fully mediated the contribution of traits to voting, energy/extraversion and agreeableness contributed to political partisanship both directly and indirectly, through values.     

Sinistrals’ upper hand: Evidence for handedness differences in the representation of body space

A difference in the perception of extrapersonal space has been shown to exist between dextrals and sinistrals. On the classical line bisection task, this difference is evident in a greater left bias for dextrals compared to sinistrals. Different modalities and regions of space can be affected. However, it has not yet been investigated whether a systematic bias also exists for the perception of personal or body space. We investigated this by using three tasks which assess different aspects of personal space in an implicit and explicit way. These tasks were performed by strongly right-handed (dextrals), strongly left-handed (sinistrals) and mixed-handed participants. First, a task of pointing to three areas of one’s own body without the use of visual information showed dextrals to have an asymmetric estimation of their body. In right hemispace, dextrals’ pointing was at a greater distance from the midsagittal plane compared to pointing in left hemispace. No such asymmetry was present for sinistrals, while mixed-handers’ performance was intermediate to that of strong right- and strong left-handers. Second, a task of recovering circular patches from their body surface whilst blindfolded also showed superior performance of sinistrals compared to dextrals. On these two tasks, there was also a moderate relationship between handedness scores and performance measures. Third, a computer-based task of adjusting scaled body-outline-halves showed no handedness differences. Overall, these findings suggest handedness differences in the implicit but not explicit representation of one’s own body space. Possible mechanisms underlying the handedness differences shown for the implicit tasks are a stronger lateralization or a greater activation imbalance for dextrals and/or greater access to right hemispheric functions, such as an “up-to-date body” representation, by sinistrals. In contrast, explicit measures of how body space is represented may not be affected due to their relying on a different processing pathway.     

“Making things better”: Personal construct counselling for young children

A personal construct counselling approach that we are using with young children is presented here, an approach based on the construct of “wellness”, a medium to promote the well-being of troubled children and their families. The case study we share with you shows a counselling intervention based on play, with experiments drawn from self-related construct systems of “making things better” rather than construct systems of “fixing things up”. We present a case study of a young girl grieving over the death of her father. Emphasis is placed on the relationship of trust between the child and the counsellor, to encourage experimentation with relationship experiences to help the child to reconstrue events outside the counselling context. Working hypotheses drawn from cognitive and emotional developmental research into young children are provided, and the subsequent investigations which guide our intervention. Suggestions for process and outcome research in this area are finally made.     

Locus-of-hope and life satisfaction: The mediating roles of personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem

Research has demonstrated that hope is linked to better psychological well-being; however, little research has been conducted to examine the mechanisms underlying the link between hope and psychological well-being. The current study examined whether two types of self-esteem (personal and relational) would mediate the relationship between four loci-of-hope (internal, family, peers, and spiritual) and life satisfaction among Hong Kong and Macau college students (n = 1008). Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. Consistent with the hypotheses, both personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem partially mediated the effects of internal hope on life satisfaction. Moreover, relational self-esteem mediated the effect of external-family locus-of-hope on life satisfaction. Interestingly, a suppressing effect of personal self-esteem on the relationship between external-peers locus-of-hope and life satisfaction was found. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Functions of personal and vicarious life stories: identity and empathy

The present study investigates functions of personal and vicarious life stories focusing on identity and empathy. Two-hundred-and-forty Danish high school students completed two life story questionnaires: one for their personal life story and one for a close other’s life story. In both questionnaires, they identified up to 10 chapters and self-rated the chapters on valence and valence of causal connections. In addition, they completed measures of identity disturbance and empathy. More positive personal life stories were related to lower identity disturbance and higher empathy. Vicarious life stories showed a similar pattern with respect to identity but surprisingly were unrelated to empathy. In addition, we found positive correlations between personal and vicarious life stories for number of chapters, chapter valence, and valence of causal connections. The study indicates that both personal and vicarious life stories may contribute to identity.     

Interrelations that foster learning: An investigation of two correlational studies

The theoretical tenets of academic engagement, as outlined by Schaufeli and colleagues, have received limited attention. There is credence to indicate that Schaufeli et al.'s conceptualization has educational implications. Extending this avenue of inquiry, we report two longitudinal studies that explore the motivation‐related attributes of engagement within the framework of self‐efficacy. A number of research questions were developed for examination—for example, does enactive learning experience influence academic achievement, via students' engrossment (i.e. absorption) of a subject matter? Does students' sense of resilience and persistence (i.e. vigor) heighten their self‐efficacy beliefs for academic learning? For the two studies (Study 1: 311 Year 11 students; Study 2: 249 Year 12 students), utilizing different cohorts, we measured these constructs at multiple time points. Existing Likert‐scale inventories were administered repeatedly, and data collected were analysed using causal modeling procedures. MPlus 7.2 yielded a number of key findings—for example: (a) the positive impact of Time 1 enactive learning experience on Time 2 absorption and vigor, (b) the positive impact of Time absorption on Time 3 self‐efficacy, (c) the positive impact of Time 2 absorption on Time 4 achievement and (d) the positive impact of Time 1 self‐efficacy on Time 2 absorption and vigor.     

Level of service of pedestrian facilities: Modelling human comfort perception in the evaluation of pedestrian behaviour patterns

The paper presents a new methodology for evaluating the quality of operation of pedestrian facilities: the methodology is based on the individual level of comfort perceived by each pedestrian that moves in the area.At each time instant, each pedestrian perceives a comfort level which is a function of the space they feel currently available and of his required space. The required space depends on the subject’s walking direction as well as on physical and psychological factors. The available space depends on the current positions of pedestrians. The proposed methodology quantifies the current discomfort due to pedestrian interactions as a continuous function of the interpersonal distances.The proposed methodology has been applied to empirical data. The experimental data are presented, discussed and compared with widely accepted level of service assessment methods.