Reactive and Proactive Aggression: Attachment and Social Competence Predictors

In this study, 107 boys and girls aged 3 to 8 years were rated by their mothers on 6 factors: Reactive and Proactive Aggression, Secure and Insecure Attachment, and Prosocial Orientation and Social Initiative (i.e., social competence). Both secure attachment and prosocial orientation predicted proactive and reactive aggression, but prosocial orientation mediated the attachment–aggression relation in the case of reactive but not proactive aggression.     

Life Events and Prosocial Behaviors Among Young Adults: Considering the Roles of Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern

The authors examined the altruism born of suffering model in a culturally diverse sample of young adults. They hypothesized that major life events would interact with perspective taking to predict empathic concern, which would predict multiple types of prosocial behaviors among young adults. The sample included 202 young adults (M age = 20.94?years; 76.5% girls; 36.5% White, 50.5% Latino) who reported on their exposure to major life events, perspective taking and empathic responding, and tendency to engage in six forms of prosocial behaviors. Life events indirectly, positively predicted prosocial behaviors via empathic concern. Empathic concern and perspective taking also interacted to predict empathic responding. The results demonstrated links that support the altruism born of suffering model, suggesting that life stressors might not always be negative and might promote resilience and social connection among young adults under specific conditions.     

Stimulus Determinants of Aggregative Behavior in the Domestic Chicken

Identity status and self-esteem were determined for 88 undergraduate college women. Identity status was measured two ways: with the sexual values questions included, and with the ORP (occupational goals, religious ideology, and political ideology) interview alone. Significant differences in self-esteem as measured by the Texas Social Behavior Inventory (TSBI) were found for women in the four identity statuses. These differences were significant on the basis of both methods of identity assessment. Achievement women scored higher than Moratorium and Diffusion women, but not Foreclosure women. Moratorium women had the lowest self-esteem in the sample. Results were discussed as supportive of the notion that achievement of identity is enhancing of self-esteem in women, and that nontraditional areas of identity development are becoming more important determiners of adjustment in women. The differential adaptability of Moratorium and Foreclosure statuses for women was discussed.     

Family Functioning,Parental Psychological Distress and Child Behaviours: Evidence from the Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Study

We examined, using data from the 2006 Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Study (VCHWS), whether family functioning is associated with parental psychological distress and children's behavioural difficulties. The VCHWS was a statewide cross‐sectional telephone survey to 5,000 randomly selected primary caregivers of 0‐ to 12‐year‐old children between October 2005 and March 2006. Only parents or guardians of children aged 4–12 years (n = 3,370) were included in this study. After adjusting for sociodemographic variables and ethnicity, parents or guardians scoring higher on the family functioning scale (i.e., from poorly functioning households) were at greater risk of psychological distress and had children with lower levels of prosocial behaviour and higher levels of behavioural difficulties relative to those from healthily functioning households. Mental health prevention programmes addressing child mental and conduct problems should consider the family environment and target those families functioning poorly.     

Individual treatment needs in the therapeutic environment of a special school

This paper is about the therapeutic process and technique in psychotherapy with deprived children. The need to monitor as a coherent whole both the broader environmental setting and the movements of the transference is illustrated by clinical case material. It is concluded that a) the child's attack on the setting and therapeutic relation has to be picked up and contained both in the transference relationship and in the broader network by the team-work, and b) by carefully following the transference, the child can be helped to a dependent relationship inside which feelings can be made sense of, thus furthering resilience by achieving a better ability to separate good qualities of the self from self-destructive, anti-social aspects of the internal object.     

The Detection of Prosocial Lying by Children

The purpose of the present study was to explore the detection of prosocial lying in children. Six‐ to 11‐year‐olds and adults were videotaped telling the truth or a lie about the desirability of an object, sometimes being asked a follow‐up question (i.e., elaborative trials) and other times not (i.e., regular trials). A different group of adults and children then judged the veracity of the individuals' statements in the video clips. Adults and children performed significantly better than chance at detecting lies in the youngest age group, and children's detection performance was unrelated to their age. Child lie detectors, unlike the adults, were also able to discriminate between adults' truthful and untruthful statements in the regular trials, but misidentified adults' truthful responses as lies. They appeared to be more trusting of other children. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Encouraging Prosocial Decisions: The Role of Fairness Salience and Uncertainty

Although the decision to engage in prosocial behavior has received research attention, the literature offers a limited understanding of fairness and uncertainty as antecedents. We propose that one can encourage prosocial decision making simply by invoking the notion of fairness because of its effects on the perceived trustworthiness of the invoking party. We also elucidate the complex role of uncertainty in prosocial decisions in that it has a negative effect while also serving to strengthen the positive effect of fairness salience. Our ideas are tested in two prosocial decision contexts, including participative pricing (i.e., “pay what you want”) and charitable giving. Data from an archival study of a naturally occurring event and two controlled experiments offer support for our arguments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

道德推脱与大学生亲社会行为：道德认同的调节效应

运用问卷调查的方法,以550名大学生为研究对象,探讨了道德认同在道德推脱影响大学生亲社会行为过程中的调节效应。采用潜变量调节效应模型的无约束估计方法研究发现：(1)道德推脱会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的负向影响,道德认同会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的正向影响,并且道德认同会对道德推脱与亲社会行为之间的关系产生显著的调节作用;(2)在高道德认同水平下,大学生的亲社会行为会随着道德推脱水平的升高而显著地减少,而在低道德认同水平下,大学生的亲社会行为并无明显的变化。     

Cognitive Science of Religion: Looking Back,Looking Forward

The cognitive science of religion (CSR) arose out of attempts to “science up” religious studies and the anthropology of religion without eliminating interpretive approaches. While maintaining this historical orientation, CSR holds promise to help bridge to other areas within the scientific study of religion. Particularly fruitful areas of future collaboration and complementary study are evolutionary studies of religion, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, and archeology of religion. In response to an invitation to explore the potential of CSR for the 50th anniversary of this journal, I briefly summarize CSR's history and current state and then offer exemplary future directions that might bring CSR into fruitful connection with other areas in the greater scientific study of religion.