THE INTERTWINED ROLES OF GENES AND CULTURE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION

This essay critiques dual-inheritance theory as presented in Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd's book Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2005). The theory states that culture became prominent in human evolution because it allowed relatively rapid adaptation to changing environments by means of imitation. Imitating the behavior of other members of one's community produces adaptive behaviors more readily than either genetic evolution or individual learning. Imitation follows a number of patterns: imitating high-status individuals, imitating the most common forms of behavior, imitating behaviors perceived to be the most effective solutions to various problems relevant to survival. This process combined with occasional innovations in behavior lead to a process of cultural evolution involving populations of cultural variants. Different local human populations were associated with different local populations of cultural variants, and both the human and the cultural populations evolved over time. Human evolution cannot be understood without taking into account these parallel processes of genetic and cultural evolution. Not by Genes Alone traces the implication of dual-inheritance theory for understanding human evolution and refers to various bodies of evidence relevant to the theory.     

参照群体类型与自我—品牌联系

自我－品牌联系(Self-brand Connection)指消费者使用某品牌构建、强化和表达自我的程度。研究参照群体的类型对消费者的自我－品牌联系的影响。研究结果表明：三种非成员群体对自我－品牌联系的影响是不同的,消费者会使用品牌形象与渴望群体一致的品牌来表明自己是什么类型的人,也会使用品牌形象与规避群体相悖的品牌来表明自己不是什么类型的人;消费者对成员群体的情感承诺程度会调节成员群体对自我－品牌联系的影响,情感承诺度高、中的成员群体比情感承诺度低的成员群体对自我－品牌联系的影响更大     

The mystery of the well-attended group. A model of Personal Construct Therapy for adolescent self-harm and depression in a community CAMHS service

This paper describes a style of weekly group therapy offered in a city CAMHS department for adolescent girls who are depressed and self-harming. Research has found that such girls typically have other psychological problems, such as anger, anxiety, low self-esteem, poor school performance, grief reactions and poor school attendance. This paper describes a group based upon Personal Construct Theory (Kelly, 1955 Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs, Vol. 1. New York: Routledge  [Google Scholar]) which addresses the management of symptoms and the problems underlying them. It takes into account each girl's unique history and her personal priorities, and group sessions aim to encourage each individual to understand and address their own difficulties. The group is open, has no set number of sessions to attend, and has no set week-by-week curriculum. Instead, it takes the individual's personal construction of their difficulties and works with it through the principles and techniques of Personal Construct Therapy. The group has been well-attended and has a positive atmosphere in sessions with the emphasis upon each individual taking responsibility for her own progress inside and outside the group. This paper will describe the principles and practice that are used in the group and the need for further research into the efficacy of this therapeutic treatment is highlighted.     

Signalling signalhood and the emergence of communication

A unique hallmark of human language is that it uses signals that are both learnt and symbolic. The emergence of such signals was therefore a defining event in human cognitive evolution, yet very little is known about how such a process occurs. Previous work provides some insights on how meaning can become attached to form, but a more foundational issue is presently unaddressed. How does a signal signal its own signalhood? That is, how do humans even know that communicative behaviour is indeed communicative in nature? We introduce an experimental game that has been designed to tackle this problem. We find that it is commonly resolved with a bootstrapping process, and that this process influences the final form of the communication system. Furthermore, sufficient common ground is observed to be integral to the recognition of signalhood, and the emergence of dialogue is observed to be the key step in the development of a system that can be employed to achieve shared goals.     

School‐based integrated and segregated interventions to reduce aggression

The goal of the study was to assess two types of school‐based interventions—a class intervention (integrated) and a small group counseling (segregated) intervention for highly aggressive children—and to determine which is more efficacious in reducing individual and classroom aggression, lessening internalizing and externalizing behavior, and increasing positive classroom relationships. The study, conducted in Israel, included 904 children from 13 schools. In each school, one age level was selected and divided randomly into three experimental conditions: psychoeducational class intervention, small group counseling, and control. In all classrooms, the highly aggressive children were identified a priori (n=166). Analyses were conducted separately for the aggressive children and their nonaggressive classmates, in a nested procedure (mixed models). Results showed similar positive outcomes on all variables in both treatment groups, and higher compared with the control group. The discussion focuses on the strengths of each type of intervention. Aggr. Behav. 35:342–356, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Identifying and changing the normative beliefs about aggression which lead young Muslim adults to join extremist anti‐Semitic groups in Pakistan

Two studies investigated the role of beliefs about the acceptability of aggression (“normative beliefs”) against Jews in determining who would join an extremist group. In Study 1, students in a university in Pakistan (N=144) completed self‐report attitude measures, and were subsequently approached by a confederate who asked whether they wanted to join an extremist anti‐Semitic organization. Normative beliefs about aggression against Jews were very strong predictors of whether participants agreed to join. In Study 2, participants (N=92) were experimentally assigned to either a brief educational intervention, designed to improve inter‐group relations, or to a control group. They also filled in self‐report attitude measures pre and post intervention. Participants in the intervention group were much less likely to agree to join the extremist group, and this effect of the intervention on joining was mediated by changes in normative beliefs about aggression against Jews. The results have implications for theories of inter‐group aggression and interventions to prevent people from being recruited into extremist groups. Aggr. Behav. 35:514–519, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Sociopsychological profiles of students that leave the ingroup or engage in social competition

We present a study of the sociopsychological profiles of students who are disposed to engage in social competition on behalf of ingroup interests. Five predictors were selected: the advantageous or unfavourable context for ingroup interests, group identification, meritocracy, just-world beliefs, and social dominance orientation. It was found that those students who were prepared to invest personal resources on behalf of ingroup interests were characterized by a strong group identification and middle or low scores in the meritocracy and social dominance orientation. In contrast, students with the lowest disposition to social competition were defined by their low identification and/or middle-high scores in the meritocracy and social dominance orientation. Against our expectation, the manipulation of the favourable versus unfavourable situation of the ingroup did not have a significant influence. In order of their importance, the variables that showed stronger effects were group identification, followed by meritocracy, social dominance orientation, and world-just beliefs.     

内隐地域刻板印象的IAT和SEB比较研究

本研究以上海行政区为划分标准,探讨了"上海人"和"非上海人"群体的地域刻板印象以及"内-外群体效应"。结果发现:(1)IAT结果表明,被试在不相容条件下的反应时显著高于相容条件(t(25)=3.282,p<0.01);(2)SEB结果表明,被试对于不符合刻板印象的句子做出解释的次数显著多于符合刻板印象的句子(t(73)=2.844,p<0.01),且不同地域来源的被试做出的内、外归因也有显著差异(t(72)=3.172,p<0.01)。研究采用两种测验方法证实了地域刻板印象的存在,并且通过实践验证了SEB作为内隐社会认知研究方法的有效性。     

影响博弈结果的方法效应研究

最后通谍博弈和独裁者博弈是实验经济学的经典博弈,也被心理学家用来研究人的公平和利他行为。该研究考查了经济学和心理学通常的报酬支付方式、博弈中待分配的金额是否影响博弈结果,以及两个博弈进行组内实验时是否会产生顺序效应。结果发现支付方式和金额不影响博弈结果,但有顺序效应产生。该研究对国内研究者进一步借用这两个博弈的相关研究打下了一定的方法学基础。     

The Masochism of the Group Therapist

With tongues firmly in cheek, the authors catalogue and explicate the many miseries of the group therapist. They hypothesize a deep well of masochism to account for the otherwise inexplicable tenacity of group therapists in forming and leading their groups.