Fluctuating confidence: the dynamic consequences of true/false affirmatives and denials on how a listener appraises their personal past

The present study examined the mnemonic consequences of true/false denials and affirmatives on how a listener appraises their personal past. To this end, participants (listeners) rated the extent to which they were confident certain events occurred during their childhood. They rated these events both before and after a confederate (speaker) denied or affirmed the occurrence of four different childhood events each, for a total of eight “rehearsed” events. For each set (denials and affirmatives) of events, half were true and half were false. In turn, this created four types of events (two each): true denials, true affirmatives, false denials, and false affirmatives. Additionally, half of the participants were told that the speaker was provided independent information about the veracity of the event’s occurrence (“expert” condition). Overall, listeners were less confident in the occurrence of false denial events, but more so when they believed the speaker to be more knowledgeable of the listeners memories, more confident in false affirmative events and, counter intuitively, more confident in the occurrence of true denial events. These results underscore the importance of a nuanced approach to the mnemonic consequences of true and false denials and affirmations in the course of social interactions.     

“Oh Events” for the Professor: Studies and Stories of Religious Studies Abroad

This response explains three ways in which the preceding essays are a significant contribution to the study of study abroad, explores three additional issues, and makes three suggestions for future work on religious studies and study abroad. This response is published alongside of six other essays, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).     

The bark and bite of the logically negative soul: further reflections on Rilke's dog of ‘divine inseeing’

Following on the approach taken in the previous essay, this article critically reflects Rilke's account of his having imaginatively entered into the interior of a passing dog more deeply into itself. In doing so, it illustrates the concepts of logical negativity and absolute negative interiorization, which are core concepts of the speculative turn within analytical psychology that is known by the name ‘psychology as the discipline of interiority’. Just as analytical psychology often thinks in terms of the alchemical figure of ‘the stone that is not a stone’, so in this article the bark and bite of a logically negative ‘dog that is not a dog’ is grappled with. Further insights into what is meant by the author's phrase, ‘the Archimedean‐less interiority of the soul’, are imparted.     

Does cardiovascular reactivity during speech reflect self-construction processes?

Abstract

Substantial empirical research has been undertaken on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). however interpretation of this research is hampered by a lack of theoretical frameworks. This paper develops a framework initially stimulated by evidence demonstrating that the cardiovascular system increases in activity during communication, and that the extent of this activation depends upon numerous and diverse psychosocial factors. We attempt to account for this phenomenon using merit post-structuralist ideas concerning the constructive nature of language and its centrality to an individual's sense of self. Our theoretical framework proposes that the CVR exhibited during language use is explicable in terms of self-construction - From this analysis we hypothesised that CVR would differ across conversations about private self. public self and non-self topics, and that these differences would depend upon people's speaking histories. We found that the blood pressure and heart rate of 102 women was most reactive when they talked in a laboratory with a stranger about aspects of their private self, and least reactive during non-self talk, whilst their heart rate was most reactive during talk about their public self. Overall the results highlight the inextricable link between our inherent socialness and our cardiovascular systems.

SUMMARY

The explanatory scheme outlined here is an attempt to provide a social reconceptualisation of a phenomenon that is typically interpreted in individualistic psychophysiological terms, and which is consistent with the notion that repeated exposure to situations which provoke large haemodynamic changes may lead to CHD disease progression. The explanation draws heavily on post-structuralist ideas regarding language, and the social constructionist notion that engaging in language use is central to constructing and maintaining a sense of self. This sense of self is a central theoretical entity in our everyday lives, produced and maintained in our interactions with others. We argue that it is this centrality of self-construction that helps to explain the extraordinary consistency of elevated CVR in conversation. Further, we have noted the striking parallels between those features of conversations that make the self salient, and those that have been associated with elevated CVR. To examine it more explicitly, it needs to be tested empirically with new data, using explicitly derived operationalisations and hypotheses.     

Playing to their strengths: Can focusing on typical in-group strengths be detrimental to people of colour?

With increasing awareness about racism, portrayals of communities of colour are shifting away from negative representations. Emphasizing their strengths could counter negative stereotypes about who they are and low expectations for who they can be, but could also backfire. In two experiments centring adolescents (n = 198) and adults of colour (n = 321), the effect of reflecting on a typical strength was moderated by perceived misalignments between racial/ethnic and ideal future selves (i.e., ethnic–ideal self-discrepancy). For participants perceiving them as aligned, reflecting on a typical in-group strength reduced actual–ideal self-discrepancy. However, for participants perceiving them as misaligned, reflecting on a typical in-group strength increased actual–ideal self-discrepancy. Reflecting on a typical strength also indirectly influenced engagement, through actual–ideal self-discrepancy. Reflecting on an atypical in-group strength did not yield significant effects. Thus, emphasizing typical aspects of stigmatized communities, even when positive, sometimes impede identity and motivation.