Are curmudgeon personality scales resistant to response distortion?

Curmudgeon personality, which is assessed by having participants evaluate a heterogeneous set of attitude objects, provides an applied value beyond that of more established personality traits. Recent research, for instance, suggests that curmudgeon personality is distinct from the Five Factor Model personality traits and that it predicts unique variance in important criteria, such as job attitudes and well-being. In the current paper we contribute to this literature by testing an explanation of how curmudgeon personality is distinct from other traits—their potential resistance to response distortion. We estimated response distortion for scales of curmudgeon personality and FFM traits across two quasi-experimental studies. As expected, the score shifts between nonapplicant and applicant conditions were smaller for scales of curmudgeon personality compared to scales of emotional stability and conscientiousness. We argue that curmudgeon personality scales may be more resistant to response distortion than are measures of other traits because curmudgeon personality items are semi-implicit and lack an obvious desirable response. The resistance to response distortion should serve as a call to future researchers to test the criterion validity of curmudgeon personality in regard to performance criteria.     

自我关联汉字的内隐记忆研究

实验用实字、虚字、与被试自身相关字三类汉字作刺激材料,将直接测量（再认任务）和间接测量（喜好判断任务）进行匹配,考察了被试对不同类别汉字在两种测量方式中的反应。结果发现：实字和虚字间在各种不同的实验处理中均未表现出明显的差异;中性汉字和自我关联汉字都在直接测量的两种注意水平间产生了显著差异,而在间接测量时未产生显著差异;“拥有效应”的作用不是单向的,当自我关联汉字处于注意焦点以外的位置时,直接测量出现了反转的结果。     

Manipulations of vasopressin alter aggression differently across testing conditions in monogamous and non‐monogamous Peromyscus mice

Differences in the distribution of arginine vasopressin (AVP) and a subtype of AVP receptors, the V_1a receptor, may explain dissimilarities in social behavior of monogamous and non‐monogamous rodents. Intracerebroventricular infusions of AVP and a V_1a antagonist were used in sexually naive males of two mouse species, the monogamous and highly aggressive California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) and the non‐monogamous and less aggressive white‐footed mouse (P. leucopus), to begin testing the interaction between the social system of a species and the effects of AVP on aggression. Two testing conditions, the resident‐intruder aggression test (R‐I) and the neutral arena aggression test, were used because they may differ in function and underlying biological mechanisms. In the R‐I test, administration of the antagonist lengthened attack latencies in California mice. In contrast, blocking V_1a receptors did not alter attack latencies in the R‐I test in white‐footed mice or in the neutral arena aggression test in both species. AVP also did not alter aggression in either species in either behavioral test. Overall, these results suggest that AVP may be more likely to be associated with offensive aggression as measured in the R‐I test than with neutral arena aggression and that the effects of AVP manipulations may differ between monogamous and non‐monogamous rodents. Aggress. Behav. 31:000–000, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

From Virtue to Freedom through Emotion

Spinoza conceived human freedom as a matter solely of rationality, but an understanding of the role emotion plays in moral virtue can lead one toward viewing emotionality as also essential to human freedom. A large part of human freedom consists in our tendency to give intrinsic importance to people or things outside ourselves and take them into our lives; this sense of importance, in rich and various ways, brings emotion into the center of our lives and our freedom as individuals.     

小学生对无性别事物的性别编码

采用拟人化配声和对形容词进行性别倾向评定的方法,对小学生对无性别事物的性别编码进行了研究。结果表明：（1）小学生对无性别事物存在着性别编码倾向,而且相当稳定。这种倾向一年级时已经基本形成,传统文化和生活经验会加强这种倾向。（2）小学生对无性别事物的性别编码总体趋势一致,但也存在一定的年级差异。随年级增长,将雌性倾向事物划分为女性的比率在增长,将雄性倾向事物划分为男性的比率也在增长。（3）小学生对无性别事物的性别编码也具有性别差异。男生和女生存在以自身性别为中心的倾向。男生更多地看到中性事物的男性特征,女生更多地注意到中性事物的女性特征。与男生相比,女生性别编码的倾向更强些。     

多个非线索化位置易代的一项实验研究

现在采用返回抑制范式所进行的空间非信息线索作用的研究,大多以非线索化位置反应时为参照,发现线索化位置的反应先易化后抑制。后者即返回抑制。本研究采用在返回抑制范式上增设中性线索化条件的方法,发现当靶子可以出现的位置为四个时,相对于中性线索化条件,非线索化位置反应快。这种非线索化位置的易化作用是独立存在的,它能使生物体尽快地对出现在多个非线索化位置的靶子作出反应。     

THEISTIC EVOLUTION IN THE POSTGENOMIC ERA

How to reconcile the theory of evolution with existing religious beliefs has occupied minds since Darwin's time. The majority of the discourse on the subject is still focused on the Darwinian version of evolutionary theory, or at best, the mid‐twentieth century version of the Modern Synthesis. However, evolutionary thought has moved forward since then with the insights provided by the advent of comparative genomics in recent decades having a particularly significant impact. A theology that successfully incorporates evolutionary biology needs to take such developments into account, because range of truly viable options among the many versions of theistic evolution that have been proposed in the past may narrow down when this is done. Here I present these previously underappreciated strains of contemporary evolutionary thought and discuss their potential theological impact.     

Happiness increases distraction by auditory deviant stimuli

Rare and unexpected changes (deviants) in an otherwise repeated stream of task‐irrelevant auditory distractors (standards) capture attention and impair behavioural performance in an ongoing visual task. Recent evidence indicates that this effect is increased by sadness in a task involving neutral stimuli. We tested the hypothesis that such effect may not be limited to negative emotions but reflect a general depletion of attentional resources by examining whether a positive emotion (happiness) would increase deviance distraction too. Prior to performing an auditory‐visual oddball task, happiness or a neutral mood was induced in participants by means of the exposure to music and the recollection of an autobiographical event. Results from the oddball task showed significantly larger deviance distraction following the induction of happiness. Interestingly, the small amount of distraction typically observed on the standard trial following a deviant trial (post‐deviance distraction) was not increased by happiness. We speculate that happiness might interfere with the disengagement of attention from the deviant sound back towards the target stimulus (through the depletion of cognitive resources and/or mind wandering) but help subsequent cognitive control to recover from distraction.     

PANENTHEISM,NEUTRAL MONISM,AND ADVAITA VEDANTA

It is argued that when it comes to the hard problem of consciousness neutral monism beats out the competition. It is further argued that neutral monism provides a unique route to a novel type of panentheism via Advaita Vedanta Hinduism.     

Differential emotion attribution to neutral faces of own and other races

Past research has demonstrated differential recognition of emotion on faces of different races. This paper reports the first study to explore differential emotion attribution to neutral faces of different races. Chinese and Caucasian adults viewed a series of Chinese and Caucasian neutral faces and judged their outward facial expression: neutral, positive, or negative. The results showed that both Chinese and Caucasian viewers perceived more Chinese faces than Caucasian faces as neutral. Nevertheless, Chinese viewers attributed positive emotion to Caucasian faces more than to Chinese faces, whereas Caucasian viewers attributed negative emotion to Caucasian faces more than to Chinese faces. Moreover, Chinese viewers attributed negative and neutral emotion to the faces of both races without significant difference in frequency, whereas Caucasian viewers mostly attributed neutral emotion to the faces. These differences between Chinese and Caucasian viewers may be due to differential visual experience, culture, racial stereotype, or expectation of the experiment. We also used eye tracking among the Chinese participants to explore the relationship between face-processing strategy and emotion attribution to neutral faces. The results showed that the interaction between emotion attribution and face race was significant on face-processing strategy, such as fixation proportion on eyes and saccade amplitude. Additionally, pupil size during processing Caucasian faces was larger than during processing Chinese faces.