Moral migration: Desires to become more empathic predict changes in moral foundations

Many people want to change their personality traits—and research on volitional change has documented their success in doing so. In the present study, we examine whether people also wish to change their levels of empathy, and whether these desires precede shifts in dispositional empathy and morality over a 15-week period. We recorded participants’ change goals, followed by weekly measurements of empathic concern and perspective-taking, as well as moral foundations. Results indicated that most participants wished to cultivate empathic concern and, especially, perspective-taking. Those who sought to develop these qualities tended to actually do so at a faster rate than their peers who did not—and, as a consequence, also drifted toward a characteristically liberal, individualizing morality.     

New Directions in the Conceptualization and Assessment of Personality—A Dynamic Systems Approach

In this paper, we demonstrate how an integrative approach to personality—one that combines within-person and between-person differences—can be achieved by drawing on the principles of dynamic systems theory. The dynamic systems perspective has the potential to reconcile both the stable and dynamic aspect of personality, it allows including different levels of analysis (i.e. traits and states), and it can account for regulatory mechanisms, as well as dynamic interactions between the elements of the system, and changes over time. While all of these features are obviously appealing, implementing a dynamic systems approach to personality is challenging. It requires new conceptual models, specific longitudinal research designs, and complex data analytical methods. In response to these issues, the first part of our paper discusses the Personality Dynamics model, a model that integrates the dynamic systems principles in a relatively straightforward way. Second, we review associated methodological and statistical tools that allow empirically testing the PersDyn model. Finally, the model and associated methodological and statistical tools are illustrated using an experience sampling methodology data set measuring Big Five personality states in 59 participants (N = 1916 repeated measurements). © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

参照依赖和损失规避对个体收入分配公平判断的影响

收入分配公平判断是人们对自己收入所得公平与否的主观评价。通过对参照点和收入金额的控制,探讨参照依赖和损失规避对收入分配公平判断的共同影响。结果发现,(1)民众的收入公平判断受参照点的影响,在有参照点的情景下比无参照点情景下更感觉不公平;(2)不同工资水平下,民众的公平判断具有显著差异,而且民众对低于平均工资的“受损”比高于平均工资同等金额的“受益”赋予的公平感的权重更大,即存在得失感受的不对称;(3)不同的工资参照点、多得和少得的分配结果共同影响民众的公平判断,即损失规避在参照依赖对公平判断的影响中起调节作用。     

内隐觉察的行为和神经活动特征

变化盲视是指在某些条件下人们往往觉察不到视觉场景中实质性的改变。最近研究表明,变化盲视发生时个体虽然不能有意识地报告变化,但却能无意识地对变化刺激进行加工和反应,也就是产生了内隐觉察。内隐觉察能够引导注意、影响反应速度。与觉察和无觉察相比,内隐觉察的眼动模式具有鲜明的特征。与无变化试次相比,盲视试次可以观察到显著的脑电活动变化以及不同的脑区激活。内隐觉察的研究虽然取得了丰富的成果,但也还存在着一些需要明确和解决的问题,如左侧前额叶在内隐觉察中的作用,以及如何将没有视觉干扰的范式应用到变化觉察的神经活动测量中等。     

经济不平等对阶层流动感知的影响及其机制

经济不平等是影响阶层流动感知的重要因素。研究发现,经济不平等可能抑制、也可能提升阶层流动感知。在梳理两者之间复杂关系的基础上,本文提出了经济不平等影响阶层流动感知的作用机制模型。经济不平等可能通过影响不同的心理过程,继而对阶层流动感知产生抑制或提升作用;此外,两者关系也会受到微观个体因素和宏观社会因素的调节,从而呈现出不同的关系模式。未来研究应进一步考察和完善经济不平等影响阶层流动感知的整合模型。     

Coherentist Contraction

A model of coherentist belief contraction is constructed. The outcome of belief contraction is required to be one of the coherent subsets of the original belief set, and a set of plausible properties is proposed for this set of coherent subsets. The contraction operators obtained in this way are shown to coincide with well-known belief base operations. This connection between coherentist and foundationalist approaches to belief change has important implications for the philosophical interpretation of models of belief change.     

Religiosity and obsessive-compulsive behavior in Israeli Jews

Individual differences in obsessive-compulsive (OC) behavior in various cultures correlate with religiosity. The current paper explored the so far unstudied relationship between religiosity and OC behavior in Israeli Jews. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 focused on the relationship between religiosity and OC behavior in a representative sample of Israeli students. Study 2 focused on religious change and OC behavior in a non-random sample of 31 individuals who had become more religious (the MR group), and 30 individuals who were less religious (the LR group) than their parents. Instruments used were the Maudsley obsessive-compulsive inventory (MOCI), the student religiosity questionnaire, and questions about parental home observance, upbringing, and changes in religiosity. In the first study, no association was found between religiosity and OC behavior. Religiosity was related to some degree to perfectionism and to the parental attitude to upbringing. In the second study, a significant difference was observed between the MR and the LR groups on OC behavior as measured by the MOCI. Conclusion, among Israeli Jews a lot of religious observance is non-reflective, and is not associated with individual differences in personality or OC symptoms. Those who undergo religious change may do so in response to their behavioral propensities. One such path is that the more OC become MR, and the less OC less religiously observant.     

Contemporary Psychotherapy: Promoting Personal Responsibility for Therapeutic Change

An assortment of factors in modern society can be involved in the etiology and treatment of mental illness. Theories about etiology usually underlie, and therefore guide, most strategies for treatment. Although a comprehensive bio-psycho-social approach to mental illness can help to foster the collaboration of an interdisciplinary treatment team, a heavy emphasis on biological factors or cultural deprivation may reduce the client's feelings of personal responsibility for change. Contemporary psychotherapy can help clients reduce their tendency to attribute blame to biological predispositions or external societal factors. Instead, it is more helpful to cultivate attributions for personal responsibility for change, growth, and maturation.     

Rate of conditioned reinforcement affects observing rate but not resistance to change

The effects of rate of conditioned reinforcement on the resistance to change of operant behavior have not been examined. In addition, the effects of rate of conditioned reinforcement on the rate of observing have not been adequately examined. In two experiments, a multiple schedule of observing-response procedures was used to examine the effects of rate of conditioned reinforcement on observing rates and resistance to change. In a rich component, observing responses produced a higher frequency of stimuli correlated with alternating periods of random-interval schedule primary reinforcement or extinction. In a lean component, observing responses produced similar schedule-correlated stimuli but at a lower frequency. The rate of primary reinforcement in both components was the same. In Experiment 1, a 4:1 ratio of stimulus production was arranged by the rich and lean components. In Experiment 2, the ratio of stimulus production rates was increased to 6:1. In both experiments, observing rates were higher in the rich component than in the lean component. Disruptions in observing produced by presession feeding, extinction of observing responses, and response-independent food deliveries during intercomponent intervals usually were similar in the rich and lean components. When differences in resistance to change did occur, observing tended to be more resistant to change in the lean component. If resistance to change is accepted as a more appropriate measure of response strength than absolute response rates, then the present results provide no evidence that higher rates of stimuli generally considered to function as conditioned reinforcers engender greater response strength.     

Time trends in the adjustment of Swedish teenage girls: a 26-year comparison of 15-year-olds

The aim of this study was to investigate stability and change over 26 years in self-reported adjustment of Swedish teenage girls. Data were collected with the same questionnaire from two school-cohorts in a middle-sized Swedish community: 522 girls attending Grade 8 (approximately at age 15) in 1970, and 529 girls attending Grade 8 in 1996. The first cohort was part of the longitudinal research programme Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA). In most domains, adjustment problems were approximately as common in 1996 as in 1970, with two exceptions: more girls reported problems with self-esteem and antisocial problems in 1996. In the antisocial domain, a polarization process was indicated, with an increase also in the number of girls without adjustment problems. In the relational domains, especially peer relations, there was an increase in positive adjustment. The results are discussed in relation to earlier findings and to social changes during the period.