Misunderstood Stoicism: The negative Association Between Stoic Ideology and well-Being

Journal of Happiness Studies - Ancient philosophy proposed a wide range of possible approaches to life which may enhance well-being. Stoic philosophy has influenced various therapeutic traditions....     

Effects of location, frequency region, and time course of selective attention on auditory scene analysis

Often, the sound arriving at the ears is a mixture from many different sources, but only 1 is of interest. To assist with selection, the auditory system structures the incoming input into streams, each of which ideally corresponds to a single source. Some authors have argued that this process of streaming is automatic and invariant, but recent evidence suggests it is affected by attention. In Experiments 1 and 2, it is shown that the effect of attention is not a general suppression of streaming on an unattended side of the ascending auditory pathway or in unattended frequency regions. Experiments 3 and 4 investigate the effect on streaming of physical gaps in the sequence and of brief switches in attention away from a sequence. The results demonstrate that after even short gaps or brief switches in attention, streaming is reset. The implications are discussed, and a hierarchical decomposition model is proposed.     

Hash browns for breakfast,baked potatoes for dinner: Changes in food attitudes as a function of motivation and context

Two studies investigated whether participants' motivational state and the context in which attitude reports are made influence food attitudes. Specifically, these studies examined whether hunger and the time‐typicality of foods (i.e. match or mismatch between the time when a food is typically eaten and the time the attitude is reported) interact to influence reported attitudes. Study 1 suggests that hunger leads to more positive attitudes toward foods that are typically eaten at the time the attitude report is made (e.g. breakfast foods in morning) compared to foods not typically eaten at the time the attitude report is made (e.g. breakfast foods in evening). Study 2 replicates this time‐typical effect of hunger and suggests that time‐typical experience rather than general experience with foods is important for hunger induced attitude change. By demonstrating that food attitudes are influenced by motivational states and the match between when the attitude is reported and when it is typically encountered, the present studies extend previous attitude theory and research that has identified other contextual factors that influence attitude reports. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When I saw me standing there: first-person and third-person memories and future projections,and how they relate to the self

We studied visual perspective of three autobiographical memories and three projected future events (i.e. whether the events were experienced from a first-person or third-person perspective, or in between) in 117 undergraduate students. Perspective proved to be a reliable individual-differences variable. The majority of narratives trended toward the first-person perspective, with memories more likely to yield first-person perspective than future events. Perspective was predicted by detail (higher level of participant-reported visual detail was more likely to elicit first-person perspective), and temporal distance (events reported as being further away in time were more likely to elicit third-person perspective). Detail, in turn, was explained (among others) by the individual-differences variable of depression/social uncertainty (a factor-derived scale consisting of rumination scales, the inverse of the Sense Of Self Scale, the Social Phobia Scale, and, to a lesser extent, the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale). Generally, predictors for memories and future events overlapped. The results underscore the need for including individual-differences variables in research on the determinants of memory perspective.     

Prime and prejudice: co-occurrence in the culture as a source of automatic stereotype priming

It has been argued that stereotype priming (response times are faster for stereotypical word pairs, such as black-poor, than for non-stereotypical word pairs, such as black-balmy) is partially a function of biases in the belief system inherent in the culture. In three priming experiments, we provide direct evidence for this position, showing that stereotype priming effects associated with race, gender, and age can be very well explained through objectively measured associative co-occurrence of prime and target in the culture: (a) once objective associative strength between word pairs is taken into account, stereotype priming effects disappear; (b) the relationship between response time and associative strength is identical for social primes and non-social primes. The correlation between associative-value-controlled stereotype priming and self-report measures of racism, sexism, and ageism is near zero. The racist/sexist/ageist in all of us appears to be (at least partially) a reflection of the surrounding culture.     

Beyond Affect and Cognition: Identification of the Informational Bases of Food Attitudes1

Two studies were conducted to identify the informational bases of food attitudes. Study 1 was an exploratory study in which participants indicated the importance of food characteristics and emotional reactions for determining their attitudes toward a variety of foods. On the basis of a series of exploratory factor analyses, 5 informational bases of food attitudes were identified: positive affect, negative affect, specific sensory qualities, abstract cognitive qualities, and general sensory qualities. A second confirmatory study corroborated the appropriateness of this 5‐factor structure. Furthermore, the food‐specific attitude structure model was found to have better fit than a more traditional attitude structure model. The implications of these findings for attitude theory, understanding eating behavior, and changing food selection are discussed.     

On Being Found: How Habitual Patterns of Thought Influence Creative Interest,Behavior, and Ability

This study on 138 undergraduate students used path analysis to investigate the relationship between creativity (interest, measured by a creative activities survey; and ability: fluency, originality, and elaboration) and different aspects of thought patterns presumed to influence the preparation and illumination phase of the creative process: habitual patterns of thought (ruminative brooding, ruminative self-reflection), thought suppression, thought intrusion, mind wandering, and associative ability. Such relationship was hinted at in Wallas’s classical model of the creative sequence, but is rarely investigated. We found that creative behavior/interest was driven by self-reflection, thought intrusion, and the lack of a need for thought suppression; creative ability was fueled mainly by associative ability. The only variable that influenced both aspects of creativity was the lack of resistance to thought suppression; this distinguished the creativity variables from dysphoria, which was associated with a desire for thought suppression. The results suggest that what drives the need to create is not creative ability per se, but rather self-focused attention, as well as the feeling or experience of being found by thought, rather than finding it. That is, the need to create is associated with having thoughts that interrupt one’s ordinary stream of consciousness and that are seen as welcome rather than interfering.