Social Status and the Desire to Resort to Violence: Using the Example of Uganda's Former Child Soldiers

Committing violent acts can be appealing, fascinating, exciting, and addictive (i.e., appetitive). Cultural settings that accept violence as a means to power and success promote this appetitive form of aggression. Former child soldiers of Uganda with military rank reported committing a greater variety of violent acts compared to those without rank. They experienced aggressive behavior as more positive than both those without rank and controls who had never been involved in armed groups. The relation between the number of individually committed offense types and appetitive aggression is weaker in former child soldiers without rank compared to those with rank. This indicates that the potential for rapid development of appetitive aggression is rewarded with higher social status in war-afflicted communities.     

Religiosity and fear of death: a three‐nation comparison

Numerous studies have sought to determine if religiosity is correlated with fear of death. Findings have been anything but consistent, with reports of negative relationships, positive relationships, no relationship, and even curvilinear associations. To shed light on this still contentious issue, the present study was undertaken among college students in three countries – Malaysia, Turkey, and the United States. Overall, the patterns in all three countries were similar. When linearity was assumed, there is a substantial positive correlation between most religiosity measures and fear of death. Assuming curvilinearity added slightly to the strength of the relationships in the US data and nothing to data from Malaysia or Turkey. Other findings were that on average females were more religious and feared death more than did males, and Muslims expressed considerably greater fear than did members of any other major religion. Results were discussed in the context of a new theory – called death apprehension theory. Among other things, it specifically predicts that death apprehension will be positively related to most religious beliefs and practices.     

Empower my decisions: The effects of power gestures on confirmatory information processing

Recent research has shown that social power systematically influences information processing in many ways, and can be induced simply via powerful gestures or postures. The current studies investigated the impact of embodied power on confirmatory information processing after decision making. Based upon previous social power research, we hypothesized that individuals who posed in powerful ways (making a clenched fist or sitting in an open, expansive posture) would systematically prefer decision-consistent over decision-inconsistent information; an effect known as selective exposure, or biased assimilation. Four studies consistently indicated that bodily positioning associated with high levels of power induced greater confirmatory tendencies in the evaluation and search stages of a subsequent, decision-relevant information task (Studies 1–4). This tendency is unlikely to be due to mere physical strain (Study 4), and was mediated by differences in experienced decision certainty (Studies 3 and 4); indicating that the embodiment of high power makes people more confident regarding the validity of their decisions. Consequently, high-power posers systematically prefer information that is consistent with their decision preference.     

Failure Causes Fear: The Effect of Self-Esteem Threat on Death-Anxiety

ABSTRACT

According to terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, 1986 Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T. and Solomon, S. 1986. “The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory”. In Public self and private self, Edited by: Baumeister, R. F. 189–212. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), self-esteem protects people from anxiety associated with the knowledge of certain mortality. A number of studies provide evidence consistent with this assertion, but no studies have experimentally examined the effect of threatened self-esteem on death-anxiety. In the current study, self-esteem was manipulated and death-anxiety measured. A self-esteem threat increased death-anxiety relative to a self-esteem boost and non-self threat control condition.     

The effect of viewing ultra-fit images on college women's body dissatisfaction

Modern ideals of female attractiveness include an extremely toned and fit appearance in addition to extreme thinness. Although viewing thin models has a negative effect on women's body image, research has not tested the effect of exposure to the ultra-fit physique separate from the thin-ideal. This randomized, posttest-only experiment tested the effects of the athletic aspect of the current ideal by exposing 138 undergraduate women to thin and athletic models, normal weight athletic models, or a control condition consisting of neutral objects. The study also tested the moderating effects of thin-ideal and athletic-ideal internalization. Exposure to thin ultra-fit models, but not normal weight ultra-fit models, produced an increase in body dissatisfaction and neither internalization variable moderated this effect. Findings suggest that interventions that focus on the benefits of fitness while challenging the desirability of thinness may offer promising results.     

Ideology,Fear of Death,and Death Anxiety

Ideological beliefs have long attracted the attention of social psychologists, who have investigated their genesis as well as their influence on a host of social phenomena. Conservatism, from the Motivated Social Cognition framework, stems from epistemic and existential needs of the individual, and notably the fear of death. However, Terror Management Theory proposes a view of conservatism and its contrary, liberalism, as equivalent cultural worldviews, equally fit to fulfill such needs. In the present contribution, results are presented from five studies, which test the contrasting hypotheses derived from these two perspectives. A new perspective is considered that accounts for these and previous findings.     

儿童青少年大脑认知功能事件相关电位P_（300）的年龄特征

从发展心理学的角度．对幼儿到大学六个年龄组的儿童青少年进行了事件相关电位Ｐ_（３００）测定．结果发现：反映大脑认知功能的事件相关电位Ｐ_（３００）各成分随着年龄增长而发展的趋势十分明显,从而进一步说明了认知发展的特点与大脑高级神经系统活动功能发展特点的密切关系。     

睡眠过程中信息加工的ERP研究进展

本文综述了事件相关电位(ERP)外源性成分———N1、MMN、N550和内源性成分———P3、N300、N400在睡眠过程中的特点,以及论述了各成分在睡眠信息加工中的作用。     

The roles of trauma exposure,rejection sensitivity,and callous‐unemotional traits in the aggressive behavior of justice‐involved youth: A moderated mediation model

Research has demonstrated an association between childhood trauma exposure and adolescent aggression. This association may be explained by rejection sensitivity, defined as anger, or anxiety in the anticipation of rejection, which can be a consequence of trauma exposure. Callous‐unemotional (CU) traits also are associated with trauma exposure and aggressive behavior; however, research has not yet investigated the interactive roles that rejection sensitivity and CU traits play in the relation between trauma exposure and aggression. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the role of rejection sensitivity in the association between trauma exposure and aggression, and whether this indirect effect was moderated by CU traits. Participants included 380 detained youth (98 girls, 282 boys) who completed self‐report measures of trauma exposure, angry, and anxious rejection sensitivity, CU traits, and aggression. Results of moderated mediation demonstrated that the relation between trauma exposure and aggression exhibited an indirect effect through angry rejection sensitivity, but only at moderate or high levels of CU traits. This pattern was not found for anxious rejection sensitivity. Results suggest that interventions aimed to decrease aggressive behavior in traumatized adolescents may benefit from considering how youth respond to rejection, as well as whether youth endorse CU traits, as this may help to limit further involvement in the juvenile justice system after release.

     

“Pain is forgotten where gain follows:” The masking effect of positive outcomes on emotional suffering

Previous research has shown that people tend to overstate or understate their past feelings in memory when asked to recall their past emotional experiences. Drawing from cognitive reappraisal theory and mood congruence theory, we presented an integrative explanation that the type of outcome of stressful events influences the magnitude and direction of bias in emotional memory. The results of two studies showed that individuals who succeeded in a postgraduate recruitment interview or a job interview tended to overstate positive emotions and understate negative emotions. In contrast, individuals who failed in an interview understated positive emotions and overstated negative emotions. This phenomenon can be named “pain is forgotten where gain follows.” These results shed light on the controversy between mood congruent theory and the appraisal model as well as application values in intervention research on emotional biases.