BEAUTY IN THE LIVING WORLD

Almost all admit that there is beauty in the natural world. Many suspect that such beauty is more than an adornment of nature. Few in our contemporary world suggest that this beauty is an empirical principle of the natural world itself and instead relegate beauty to the eye and mind of the beholder. Guided by theological and scientific insight, the authors propose that such exclusion is no longer tenable, at least in the data of modern biology and in our view of the natural world in general. More important, we believe an empirical aesthetics exists that can help guide experimental design and development of computational models in biology. Moreover, because theology and science can both contribute toward and equally profit from such an aesthetics, we propose that this empirical aesthetics provides the foundation for a living synergy between theology and science.     

Interpersonal effects of Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity

Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity (Appearance-RS) is the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection based on one’s physical attractiveness. In the present research, we examined how sensitivity to appearance-based rejection influenced desire for social contact. High Appearance-RS participants wanted to avoid social interaction in general (Study 1) and even close others (Study 2) following appearance-based rejection, but not appearance-based acceptance or rejection based on perceived intelligence. Results of a daily diary study revealed that high Appearance-RS participants showed greater social avoidance on days when they felt sensitive to rejection based on their looks (Study 3). High Appearance-RS individuals therefore overreact to appearance rejection by withdrawing from social interactions. Implications for motivation, interpersonal processes, and clinical disorders are discussed.     

Toward an intersectional understanding of violence and resilience: An exploratory study of young Southeast Asian men in Alameda and Contra Costa County, California

There is a nascent, but growing, literature on Southeast Asian youth violence that focuses on the role of acculturation, portraying violence as a problem of maladaptation. However, scholars overlook the ways in which violence holds meaning for the youth who experience it and how violence may be related to racial and gender identity formation. We conducted a qualitative study with young Southeast Asian men to elicit the role violence plays in their understanding of what it means for them to be Southeast Asian and male. We conducted focus groups and semi-structured individual interviews with an ethnically diverse group of 21 young Southeast Asian men 13–17 years of age from Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, California. Data were analyzed using the extended case method approach. Our findings illustrate that violence and engagement with community-based organizations are situational tools that these young Southeast Asian men use to navigate their social contexts in an attempt to be resilient in ecological contexts marked by alienation and discrimination, as well as to construct accepted and successful racial and gender identities. Furthermore, we found that their actions were guided by gendered codes of conduct, such as a “code of the street.”     

Une étude de la pratique professionnelle de jeunes juristes : la nécessaire compétence en relations humaines

Some professions require more than others competences in human relations. It is the case of the profession of judge. Thus, Gangloff and Hardy (2006), noted that students in right did not use any criteria of social order for better knowing the person than they had to judge. This led them to take decisions without references to the individual contrary to what envisages the penal code of procedure. In the study which follows, young lawyers are confronted with actors of the school world. Cases where they have to evaluate the responsibility for actors in various situations of attacks (verbal, with the goods and physics) are submitted to them, to pupils of class of third and teachers of secondary school. It is noted that the decisions of the future lawyers are particularly different from other groups in particular on the cases of verbal attacks. Those, indeed, take little account of these kinds of damages, whereas they are very present in mind for the others. How then, not to generate incomprehension between worlds which have more and more the occasion to meet in this societal context where the right supplants morals?To prolong this reflection, it is permissible to think that additional training in human relations within the framework of the legal studies would make it possible to support the competence of the judges.     

国外社会惰性的理论与相关研究概述

社会惰性是团队成员在从事趋向共同目标活动中出现的努力程度和平均贡献随着群体成员增加而减少的现象。该研究从社会惰性的概念、起源和发展、理论解释,影响因素及形成过程等几个方面对国外社会惰性的研究状况进行了述评,并指出存在的问题及今后研究的方向     

Examining “fat talk” experimentally in a female dyad: How are women influenced by another woman's body presentation style?

Fat talk, the verbal dissatisfaction that women express about their bodies, was studied in a female dyad whereby participants interacted with a female confederate who either self-derogated, self-accepted, or self-aggrandized. A 2 (participant body esteem: high vs. low) ×3 (confederate style of body image presentation) design was used. Results revealed that participants’ public disclosure of their body image varied according to confederate's style. Consistent with a reciprocity effect, participants disclosed the lowest public body image ratings in the self-derogate condition, with moderate ratings in the self-accept condition, and highest ratings in the self-aggrandize condition. Moreover, participants with low compared to high body esteem stated lower public body image. Participants’ judgments of the confederates’ likeability did not vary as a function of the confederate's body presentational style. Findings support the recursive nature of the social psychology of body image such that personal body image dissatisfaction is partially influenced by fat talk social norms.     

对我国性别刻板印象的分析

心理学在当代中国迅速发展,其中对性别刻板印象的研究也十分全面。本文探讨了性别刻板印象的表现,分析了影响其产生的因素,并进一步介绍了减弱性别刻板印象的对策。     

Origins of the stuttering stereotype: stereotype formation through anchoring-adjustment

The stereotype of people who stutter is predominantly negative, holding that stutterers are excessively nervous, anxious, and reserved. The anchoring–adjustment hypothesis suggests that the stereotype of stuttering arises from a process of first anchoring the stereotype in personal feelings during times of normal speech disfluency, and then adjusting based on a rapid heuristic judgment. The current research sought to test this hypothesis, elaborating on previous research by [White, P. A., & Collins, S. R. (1984). Stereotype formation by inference: A possible explanation for the “stutterer” stereotype. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 27, 567–570]. Participants provided ratings of a hypothetical typical person who stutters, a person suffering from normal speech disfluency and a typical male on a 25-item semantic differential scale. Results showed a stereotype of people who stutter similar to that found in previous research. The pattern of results is consistent with the anchoring–adjustment hypothesis. Ratings of a male stutterer are very similar to a male experiencing temporary disfluency, both of which differ from ratings of a typical male. As expected, ratings of a stutterer show a small but statistically significant adjustment on several traits that makes the stereotype of stutterers less negative and less emotionally extreme than the temporarily disfluent male. Based on the results of this research, it appears that stereotype formation is a result of generalization and adjustment from personal experience during normal speech disfluency.

Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) explain how the negative stereotype of people who stutter arises; (2) discuss the negative implications of stereotypes in the lives of people who stutter; and (3) summarize why the stereotype of people who stutter is so consistent and resistant to change.     

小学儿童假设检验思维策略的发展

采用自创的“固定样例”程序,利用自行设计的两种不同任务的图形推理材料,研究了小学儿童假设检验策略的发展。550名不同年级的被试参加了本研究：结果发现,在该研究条件下：(1)答案存在多种可能性的任务Ⅰ明显难于答案确定的任务Ⅱ;(2)小学儿童假设检验能力随年级提高而增长,但增长的速度因任务不同而不同;(3)随着年级的提高,小学儿童使用的不成功策略逐步下降,成功策略显著上升,但这也受任务不同的影响;(4)固定样例程序较好地克服了变化样例程序所带来的假设检验研究的缺陷。     

On the Correlation between Synchronized Oscillatory Activities and Consciousness

Recent experiments have shown that the amplitudes of cortical gamma band oscillatory activities that occur during anesthesia are often greater than amplitudes of similar activities that occur without anesthesia. This result is apparently at odds with the hypothesis that synchronized oscillatory activities constitute the neural correlate of consciousness. We argue that while synchronization and oscillatory patterning are necessary conditions for consciousness, they are not sufficient. Based on the results of a binocular rivalry study of Fries et al. (1997), we propose that the degrees of oscillatory strength and synchronization of neuronal activities determine the degree of awareness those activities produce. On the other hand, the overal firing rates of neurons in cortical sensory areas are not correlated with the degree of awareness the activities of those neurons produce. The results of the experiment of Fries et al. (1997) appear to conflict with the results of another binocular rivalry experiment, in which monkeys were trained to pull a lever in order to report which stimulus object was being perceived (Leopold & Logothetis, 1996). In the latter experiment, it was demonstrated that the firing rates of neurons in striate cortex did not change during perceptual alterations, while 90% of neurons in inferior and superior temporal cortices changed their firing rate when the perceived image changed. This result led to the conclusion that activities in temporal cortex are correlated with visual awareness, but those in striate cortex are not. We argue that activities in temporal cortex contribute little, if anything, to perceptual awareness, and that their primary function is computational. Thus the correlation between the firing rates of neurons in these areas and the responses of the monkeys is due to the recognition of a particular stimulus object, which in turn is due to the computations made there.