Consequences of socially sharing emotions: testing the emotion-response congruency hypothesis

We test the emotion-response congruency hypothesis, which predicts that the consequences of socially sharing one's negative emotions depend on the congruency between the shared emotion and the response that is obtained from the interaction partner. Experiment 1a shows that the response that people prefer is dependent on the specific emotion shared. Experiment 1b, however, reveals that the responses that interaction partners provide do not differ across emotions. Yet, and crucially, Experiment 2 shows that the outcomes of sharing are affected by the congruency between the response that people receive and the emotion they share, thus supporting the emotion-response congruency hypothesis. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Many stimuli are frightening,but some are more frightening than others: The contributions of preparedness,dangerousness, and unpredictability to making a stimulus fearful

The nonrandom distribution of situational fears has been explained by evolutionary survival relevance of specific fears. Thirty-eight stimuli were taken from the literature on preparedness and were scored on fearfulness, objective dangerousness, and spatiotemporal unpredictability by three separate groups of students. The same items were scored on survival relevance by 15 biologists. Fearfulness of cues significantly correlated not only with survival relevance but also, and even more strongly, with dangerousness and unpredictability. While the fear/survival relevance association virtually disappeared when the unpredictability contribution was partialed out, the fear/unpredictability correlation was only marginally affected when controlling for survival relevance. This suggests that nonrandomness of feared stimuli may result from the spatiotemporal unpredictability that is attributed to these stimuli. The current practice of using snakes and spiders as phobia-relevant, and flowers and mushrooms as neutral, cues was not justified by the ratings of the 15 independent experts.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon, 560-268-001).     

Partial monotonicity and a new version of the Ramsey test

We introduce two new belief revision axioms: partial monotonicity and consequence correctness. We show that partial monotonicity is consistent with but independent of the full set of axioms for a Gärdenfors belief revision sytem. In contrast to the Gärdenfors inconsistency results for certain monotonicity principles, we use partial monotonicity to inform a consistent formalization of the Ramsey test within a belief revision system extended by a conditional operator. We take this to be a technical dissolution of the well-known Gärdenfors dilemma.In addition, we present the consequential correctness axiom as a new measure of minimal revision in terms of the deductive core of a proposition whose support we wish to excise. We survey several syntactic and semantic belief revision systems and evaluate them according to both the Gärdenfors axioms and our new axioms. Furthermore, our algebraic characterization of semantic revision systems provides a useful technical device for analysis and comparison, which we illustrate with several new proofs.Finally, we have a new inconsistency result, which is dual to the Gärdenfors inconsistency results. Any elementary belief revision system that is consequentially correct must violate the Gärdenfors axiom of strong boundedness (K^*8), which we characterize as yet another monotonicity condition.This work was supported by the McDonnell Douglas Independent Research and Development program.     

The development of general competence and domain-specific competencies

The development of competence was studied in a longitudinal sample of 98 children, with measurement points when the children were 7, 10, and 12 years old. Competence was defined in terms of adequate adaptation to developmental tasks, both on a general and on a domain-specijic level. The general form of competence was measured by ego-resiliency, reflecting fexibility and ability to solve developmental problems Domain-specific competencies were measured by school achievement and social preference. The results showed that ego-resiliency was related to the two domain-specific competencies, although the hypothesized causal direction from general competence to specific competencies was not supported. Both domain-specific competencies were found to have a feedback effect on ego-resiliency. This feedback effect was stronger for social preference. These results suggest a transactional relationship between general and domain-specific competencies, and point to the importance of domain-specific competencies (especially social preference by the peer group) in the development of general competence in the child.     

Relevance and digressions in argumentative discussion: A pragmatic approach

Digressions in argumentative discussion are a kind of failure of relevance. Examination of what actual cases look like reveals several properties of argumentative relevance: (1) The informational relevance of propositions to the truth value of a conclusion should be distinguished from the pragmatic relevance of argumentative acts to the task of resolving a disagreement. (2) Pragmatic irrelevance is a collaborative phenomenon. It does not just short-circuit reasoning; it encourages a failure to take up the demands of an argumentative task. (3) Pragmatic irrelevance can occur not simply by the absence of a connection between what is said and some standpoint in dispute, but also by the presence of a connection between what is said and a competing use of the information. (4) Pragmatic relevance must be accomplished through communicative action.     

Effects of speaking upon the rate and variability of concurrent finger tapping in children

Tapping rate and variability were measured as 73 normal, right-handed children in Grades 1–4 engaged in speeded unimanual finger tapping with and without concurrent recitation. Speaking reduced the rate of tapping and increased its variability to a greater extent in younger children than in older children. Developmental changes in variability but not rate were attributable to a greater number of lengthy (>500 ms) pauses in the tapping of younger children. Speaking slowed the right hand more than the left, and the degree of this asymmetry was constant across grade levels. The right-hand effect for tapping rate was not attributable to lengthy pauses. In contrast, asymmetric increases in tapping variability occurred only among children in Grade 1 and only when lengthy pauses were included in the data. The results implicate three mechanisms of intertask interference: one involving capacity limitations, a second involving cross-talk between motor control mechanisms for speech and finger movement, respectively, and a third factor involving occasional diversion of attention from tapping to speaking. These mechanisms are discussed in relation to developmental changes in mental capacity.