Ignorance of the costs and benefits of actions, like aiding someone in distress without thinking twice, is a reliable moral signal of altruism and trustworthiness-such actions, performed while ignorant, risk incurring costs with little or no benefit. Why care? First, this paper contributes to the literature applying signaling theory to moral issues. Second, it highlights some moral benefits of ignorance. And finally, it stresses how reliable self-signals increase the likelihood that those who are benevolent, in the present, will act comparably in the future-moral identity motivates future moral action, and reliable signals shape that identity.
Mnemic Neglect (MN) is a well-established finding within Western culture; individuals selectively retain the memory of positive rather than negative self-relevant information in the service of self-enhancement/protection (Sedikides et al., 2016). There have, however, been no cross-cultural investigations of MN, despite an ongoing debate about the universality of self-enhancement motivations. A study with American and Chinese participants was conducted to examine cross-cultural differences in MN. Evidence of MN was found for both American and Chinese participants, and there was no indication that it was more pronounced among the former group. This research, with its use of an indirect measure, contributes to the debate on the relative prevalence of self-protection and self-enhancement in both Western and East Asian cultures.
To examine cultural differences in beliefs about social categories, two studies examined whether there are differences between Northern Ireland and the US in the strength of essentialist beliefs about eleven social dimensions including culturally salient dimensions of religion and race. In both studies religion categories were essentialized more by participants in Northern Ireland who viewed them as more natural but no more cohesive than US participants. Essentialist beliefs about race categories did not differ cross-culturally. In general, these findings suggest that-as in the case of belief about religion categories in Northern Ireland-social categories may be essentialized because they are culturally salient or in the absence of salience-as in the case of beliefs about race categories in Northern Ireland-because of more general conceptual proclivities. These findings also suggest a potentially important role for ontological beliefs about religion categories in the formation of religious prejudice.
The aim of this paper is to explore the possible collaboration between the cognitive and evolutionary human sciences and ethnography. My purpose is to show that certain kinds of behaviour and attitudes that can be observed by means of the ethnographic method can also be properly explained from an evolutionary perspective. Iwill explore the plausibility of an evolutionary point of view on ethnographic material by means of a case study: the analysis of the religious beliefs and practices of an Irish family. The theoretical proposal of this paper is twofold: first, that in this case we do not have one but two modes of religiosity, doctrinal and experiential; second, that ethnography can reveal the existence of the forms of popular religiosity that originate in the experiential mode of religiosity while an evolutionary perspective can explain their persistence.
Dual models of art processing propose two pathways for aesthetic liking: an early, perceptual route, and a higher order elaborative route. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of accompanying verbal information (descriptive vs. interpretive) and its relationship with the perceptual and elaborative routes in art appreciation, by systematically varying the way it was presented (simultaneous vs. sequential). While there was no difference under the sequential condition, when both the artwork and its accompanying information were presented at the same time descriptive texts were associated with lower liking scores in comparison with interpretive texts. Additionally, the positive effect of interpretive information was partially mediated by perceived comprehension. Overall, these results suggest that verbal information can influence aesthetic liking in a way consistent with the two-route explanation.
Cultural beliefs and practices often spread because they appeal to existing cognitive mechanisms. Science, however, appears to be an exception. Scientific concepts are highly counterintuitive, and people know very little about science, yet it is among the most trusted institutions. Here, we test a cognitive model of trust in science that is compatible with these observations: the rational impression account. According to this account, people trust scientists because they are impressed by their findings, and this impression persists after specific knowledge has vanished. We present evidence for this model in two experiments (total n = 696) with UK participants. In Experiment 1, exposure to more impressive scientific findings led participants to think of the relevant scientists as more competent and their scientific discipline as more trustworthy. In Experiment 2, we show that participants have these impressions despite almost immediately forgetting relevant content.
Furries are fans of media featuring anthropomorphized animal characters. As part of this interest, most furries construct a fursona-an anthropomorphized animal representation of themselves. Many of the species commonly chosen by fans for their fursonas have stereotypes associated with them. Based on prior research, we hypothesized that funy participants shown profiles of hypothetical furries would be more likely to remember details of profiles with species stereotype-consistent information as compared to those with species stereotype-inconsistent information. Participants showed better memory for profiles whose personality matched (vs. mismatched) the stereotypes associated with their fursona species. We discuss these results in the context of prior research-both on the furry fandom specifically and on the role of schemas in memory more generally.
Around the mid-twentieth century, Lévi-Strauss highlighted the need for structure and order as a foundation of human thought, and expressed the goal of legitimizing what he called “savage mind” in light of the scientific knowledge of his time. Today, through a re-examination of the characteristics of this form of thought and the proposal of the neuroscientific model known as the Free Energy Principle, it can be hypothesized that it constitutes the evolutionary outcome of a process of maximizing and optimizing Shannon’s entropy contained in the inference structures upon which both neurobehavioral adaptation and the human being’s potential for self-realization depend.
Stonehenge has received a plethora of explanations as to the purpose of its construction, the function it was intended to serve. Given the size, weight and overall difficulty in handling the materials employed in the massive structure, we can be sure there was a specific reason for the way it was constructed. Identifying the functional purpose of Stonehenge has been rendered feasible by recent advances in understanding the human cognitive system, which has identified certain features of the traditional, pre-modern mindset, how it understands the working of the world and how to go about effecting desired changes in the world. That traditional mindset was heavily dedicated to a belief in the reality and efficacy of magic, consisting of supernatural forces (and beings) and the special human powers and techniques capable of manipulating those forces to achieve changes in worldly conditions. Understanding the details of how that magical control was exercised, tells us how Stonehenge was intended to function, what purpose it was intended to serve.
Myths fulfill both social and cognitive functions, enabling humans to acquire knowledge intuitively through metaphors and behavioral prototypes. Mythological narratives constitute a form of storytelling marked by universality and imbued with cognitive as well as ritual structures to which they are frequently connected. The aim of this article is to present my hypothesis of the Cognitive Circularity of Myth as a theoretical framework for the study of mythology. This paradigm demonstrates that understanding the experiential ground from which myth emerges is essential for its interpretation, while, conversely, myth itself provides a privileged lens through which to apprehend the culture that produced it. Just as literal language is a prerequisite for the comprehension of analogical and metaphorical discourse, mythological narration constitutes a medium for interpreting lived reality and transmitting knowledge. Accordingly, from embodied experience the mythological narrative takes shape, and through the mythological narrative, lived experience is rendered intelligible.
The Dayak Iban tribe at Sungai Utik faces various threats of industrialization and land dispossession, which has made the community more marginalized. Despite the marginalization, the Dayak Iban women are trying to empower the community and pass down the cultural heritage beyond generations. To shed light on the strug-gles and resilience of Dayak Iban women, this study is conducted using a narrative inquiry approach. These data were collected through naturalistic observation and five interviews with Sungai Utik inhabitants, which were then analyzed using the Social Identity approach. This study finds that the Dayak Iban women's roles extended across several domains: domestic, tradition, education, activism, and economy. Dayak Iban women's active role in empowering and preserving the community heritages is driven by their cohesiveness and solid social identity. This highlights the importance of the protection and sustainable development of indigenous communities.
This work intended to analyse how Chinese people who have different degrees of exposure to Portuguese language make affective assessments of the emotional dimensions of audio stimuli in both Mandarin Chinese and European Portuguese. A sample of 23 native Chinese speakers with different levels of proficiency in Portuguese evaluated the affective valence and physiological arousal of a set of 10 negative, 10 positive, and 10 neutral words, presented in three different versions: a) in Portuguese spoken by a native speaker; b) in Portuguese spoken by a Chinese individual; c) and in Mandarin Chinese spoken by a native speaker. Our results reveal an interesting effect of increasing time of learning of Portuguese. The effects of prosody versus content in perception of emotional speech are verified. A brief analysis on emotional production in a foreign language is also included.
The present analysis explores the effects of the aggregate stress exposure measure on values endorsement and quality of life in Ukraine following the full-scale invasion. The results suggest that in the context of an armed conflict, nearly all classes of values, regardless of their individual or collective nature, predicted fusing one’s individual identity with that of a group in Ukrainian sample. While the summative stressful experiences did not reveal direct statistically significant links with the majority of values scales, it is likely that these effects might not be instantaneous or the relationships between the constructs might be mediated by personality traits. For those respondents who stayed in Ukraine, higher stress exposure proportionately predicted one’s self-reported willingness to engage in self-sacrificial behavior. The role of childhood environment and dispositional traits as factors affecting individual responses to adversity and perceptions of threat in adulthood are discussed.
Attachment security priming has shown positive affective, cognitive, and behavioral effects, but most research has been conducted in laboratory settings with younger adults, and overlooked cultural facets of attachment organization. Using attachment security schema and cultural fluency theories we designed and produced five short films based on the same Covid-19 scenario, which differed in terms of: whether the film primed attachment security (experimental conditions) or positive emotions (control condition) and whether, among the security priming conditions collectivistic primes were also present. Participants who viewed the security-priming films reported higher feelings of security compared to controls. Among the security priming conditions, collectivistic primes elicited stronger feelings of security and intentions to socially connect. Attachment orientations moderated the effects of collectivistic versus non-collectivistic security primes. These findings suggest that film-based priming of secure attachment in older adults can be effective, and that cultural fluency aspects can integrate with attachment security schemas.
The Dayak Iban tribe at Sungai Utik faces various threats of industrialization and land dispossession, which has made the community more marginalized. Despite the marginalization, the Dayak Iban women are trying to empower the community and pass down the cultural heritage beyond generations. To shed light on the struggles and resilience of Dayak Iban women, this study is conducted using a narrative inquiry approach. These data were collected through naturalistic observation and five interviews with Sungai Utik inhabitants, which were then analyzed using the Social Identity approach. This study finds that the Dayak Iban women’s roles extended across several domains: domestic, tradition, education, activism, and economy. Dayak Iban women’s active role in empowering and preserving the community heritages is driven by their cohesiveness and solid social identity. This highlights the importance of the protection and sustainable development of indigenous communities.
Semantic domains can be considered in the light of prototype theory, making a distinction between ‘cultural’ and ‘natural kinds’. To sample this distinction, we compared the structure of three well-studied semantic domains in Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language: musical instruments, body parts and animal names. We used the method of listing to collect data which we analyse with the method of multidimensional scaling. Points-of-view analysis provides the opportunity to extract alternative conceptual structures, which are the extremes of individual variations among the participants. For body parts for instance, which are arranged in a hierarchical or partonomic structure, the hierarchy can be explored level by level – beginning with prototypes – or branch by branch. For musical instruments, one extreme map contributed significantly more to lists from musical performers, and was structured by instrumental classification and roles rather than by prototypes. These results suggest some empirical implications of the distinction between natural and cultural kinds.
The mental number line ( MNL ) represents numbers spatially, with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right, as demonstrated by the SNARC effect. This effect is influenced by reading direction, with left-to-right languages (e.g., English) showing a stronger SNARC effect compared to right-to-left languages (e.g., Hebrew). However, previous research has shown the absence of SNARC in Turkish samples, despite a left-to-right reading orientation. This study explored the role of reading habits in the SNARC effect among Turkish participants ( N = 50). Participants, categorized as light or heavy readers, completed a parity judgment task. Both one-sample t-tests and Bayesian analysis revealed no SNARC effect in either group. These findings suggest that reading habits alone may not explain the absence of SNARC in Turkish participants. The lack of the effect may be influenced by other factors, such as cultural differences or the specific characteristics of the Turkish language.
Elite athletes’ on-field performance are increasingly resorting to prohibited performance- enhancing drugs ( PED s) to gain a competitive advantage, raising significant concerns in the sports world. While the theoretical underpinnings of the metacognitive approach to doping have been elucidated, the role of metacognition as a moderator remains unexplored. To address this crucial gap in our understanding, the present research endeavours to investigate metacognition as a moderator in the relationship between the non-cognitive trait of grit and athletes’ intentions regarding the use of performance enhancement drugs. This study encompasses a sample of 428 athletes (215 females and 212 males). Utilizing the Hayes Process module, we conducted a rigorous analysis to unveil a significant moderation effect, which was subsequently probed using the Johnson- Neyman technique to discern nuanced interactions. Our findings reveal a noteworthy relationship: gritty athletes, when equipped with high levels of metacognitive skills, exhibit a heightened propensity to consider the use of performance-enhancing substances. This insight underscores the intricate interplay between personal determination (grit) and metacognitive abilities in elite athletes’ decision-making processes related to PED s. Our suggested future directions focus on the development of targeted interventions and programs aimed at enhancing athletic performance through legitimate means, thereby steering athletes away from potentially harmful shortcuts.
This paper explores metacognition , the process of thinking about one’s own thinking, and its connection to students’ academic success. Research consistently shows that students who engage in metacognitive practices are more likely to perform well academically. The paper also examines the role of emotional maturity in academic performance, highlighting its importance for managing stress and navigating challenges in educational settings. Through a systematic review of existing studies, the research confirms a strong positive relationship between metacognition, emotional maturity, and academic achievement. Students who actively reflect on their learning strategies and manage their emotions effectively tend to achieve higher academic outcomes. Teachers play a crucial role in fostering these skills by encouraging self-reflection and emotional growth in students. The findings suggest that both metacognitive awareness and emotional maturity are key factors that enhance student performance and overall success in education.
The present report of research on language learning compares two groups of immigrants from Vietnam who settled in Taiwan in some ways under similar circumstances, and in other ways very different. While both groups faced the task of learning or improving their proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, the second group, of the present study, were all speakers of another language of the Chinese family of languages. In this report, we mainly consider the task of second language learning of Mandarin and literacy learning as part of the process of transition toward new citizenship. The participants in the project are representative of populations that were part of multi-cultural societies in their home country. In particular, the experience of the bilingual immigrants in the present study includes already having attained literacy in Chinese. Their experience of integration is qualitatively different from that of all non-Chinese-speaking immigrant populations, and is important to study as it presents itself as an important contrast, in particular in regard to the factor of language awareness. The comparisons and contrasts between these two immigrant populations from Vietnam we hope will serve in part as a template for better understanding the experience of other immigrant groups.
