Intra-Israeli Conflict

: The distinction between automatic and nonautomatic processing has been prominent recently in social cognition, but little research to date has examined the development of automatism of social judgments and other social information processing tasks. This paper reports two studies exploring a number of aspects of the development of automatism, to determine the rate of its development and what theoretically expected correlates can be detected. Results show that automatism can develop relatively rapidly (within a few dozen trials) and requires repeated execution of the same process, not necessarily with the same content. Increases in processing efficiency, the ability to transfer the increased efficiency to new information content, and memory storage are shown to be related to automatism of a process developed through practice. We give a tentative theoretical account that relates these results to others in social cognition and cognitive psychology. Keywords: Social inference; Cognition processes; and Memory.

Computational models and studies in cognitive and social psychology propound that visual recognition of facial expressions requires an intermediate step to identify visible facial changes caused by the movement of specific facial muscles. Because facial expressions are indeed created by moving one's facial muscles, it is logical to assume that our visual system solves this inverse problem. Here, using an innovative machine learning method and neuroimaging data, we identify for the first time a brain region responsible for the recognition of actions associated with specific facial muscles. Furthermore, this representation is preserved across subjects. Our machine learning analysis does not require mapping the data to a standard brain and may serve as an alternative to hyperalignment.

There has been significant growth in critical approaches to social psychology in recent years. Phenomenological, discursive and psychoanalytically informed perspectives, amongst others, have become increasingly popular alternatives to ‘mainstream’ cognitive social psychology. This paper describes the fundamental philosophy and methodology underpinning phenomenological psychology along with discussion of a number of key issues in qualitative research in social psychology. In particular, I discuss the role of interpretation, the turn to language and need for political engagement within critical social psychology. More recently, there has been a growth in phenomenologically informed narrative theories and methodologies and in this paper I introduce my own development of a critical narrative analysis. In the process I discuss some of the most pressing debates about research within the phenomenological tradition and provide rebuttals, solutions and possible future directions for phenomenological theory and research that may lead to yet greater recognition for this social psychological perspective.

We find that contextual sensitivity correlates with the reproducibility of 100 psychology studies from the Reproducibility Project (1). This relationship remains after adjusting for several methodological factors believed to account for reproducibility (e.g., sample size, effect size) and does not differ across subdisciplines (social vs. cognitive psychology). We also report a strong relationship between subdiscipline and context (1): social psychology studies are more likely to examine contextually sensitive topics than cognitive psychology studies. We conclude that context might play a role in reproducibility across (rather than within) subdisciplines. Inbar (2) notes that the reproducibility rate of social psychology (28%) is lower than cognitive psychology (53%). He also … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jay.vanbavel{at}nyu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Theopsych: A Psychological Science Primer for Theologians

Does the language you speak affect the way you think? According to the Principle of Linguistic Relativity, it does. Whether, however, the principle holds, has for several decades been one of the most controversial issues in cognitive science (for overviews, see Lucy, 1997; Wolff & Holmes, 2011). At the risk of oversimplifying its history, ideas linked to linguistic relativity can be traced back to philosophical writings in the German Romanticism of the 19th century (such as by Wilhelm von Humboldt) and became more widely known when ethno-linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf elaborated on them in their scientific work in the first half of the 20th century. While popular in the humanities, the proposition that speakers of different languages might perceive the world differently was untenable in early cognitive science. It was regarded as incommensurate with the assumption of a unified mind operating on a universal language of thought and hence simply inconceivable. When linguistic relativity eventually was put on the agenda in the 1990s (Gumperz & Levinson, 1991; Lucy, 1992), it was still met with substantial dissent (e.g., Pinker, 1994; overview in Gleitman & Papafragou, 2005); and although the antagonism of the early days has since given way to a more constructive exchange in which both opponents and supporters are increasingly seeking the middle ground and are even beginning to collaborate (e.g., Malt & Majid, 2013; Regier & Kay, 2009), the topic remains hotly debated. The current issue of Topics in Cognitive Science aims to make a productive contribution to this debate, both in format and content. In terms of format, this topic is one of only two that the journal has published featuring a target article, followed by a range of commentaries and a response to those commentaries by the author of the target article. This setup, known from Current Anthropology and Behavioral and Brain Sciences, is ideal for assembling multiple perspectives on controversial topics of broad interest across disciplines. The target article around which the current issue is structured (Kemmerer, 2023), is authored by linguist David Kemmerer (Purdue University, US). He develops a theoretical argument in support of linguistic relativity as deriving from the Grounded Cognition Model, a theory on conceptual knowledge that is highly influential within cognitive science. The argument entails a novel prediction that has the potential to inspire new experimental work across a range of academic communities that work on topics as diverse as perception, action, memory, emotion, language, culture, development, and evolution. For bringing together responses across such a wide field, Topics in Cognitive Science is the optimal forum. And, indeed, the eight commentaries accompanying this target article do reflect a wide variety of perspectives, authored by scholars who represent research communities on four continents and from across the social sciences, information sciences, and cognitive sciences, including linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Credit for this topic goes to Asifa Majid (Oxford University, UK), a member of the Senior Editorial Board of Topics in Cognitive Science, who herself is a pioneer and leading figure in this subfield of cognitive science. She has been a strong voice for taking (linguistic) diversity and its consequences for cognition seriously (Majid, Bowerman, Kita, Haun, & Levinson, 2004), and yet she is also respected across camps for placing empirical evidence higher than theoretical ideology and for remaining open to a middle ground (e.g., Majid, 2021; Malt, Gennari, Imai, Ameel, Tsuda, & Majid, 2008). It was she who recruited the target article from David Kemmerer for Topics in Cognitive Science, suggested the format, handled the reviewing process, invited the commentaries with a clear objective for diversity, and monitored the compilation of the entire topic. topiCS encourages letters and commentaries on all topics, as well as proposals for new topics. Letters are not longer than two published pages (ca. 400–1000 words). Commentaries (between 1000 and 2000 words) are often solicited by Topic Editors prior to the publication of their topic, but they may also be considered after publication. Letters and commentaries typically come without abstract and with few references, if any. The Executive Editor and the Senior Editorial Board (SEB) are constantly searching for new and exciting topics for topiCS. Feel free to open communications with a short note to the Executive Editor ([email protected]) or a member of the SEB (for a list, see the publisher's homepage for topiCS: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1756-8765/homepage/EditorialBoard.html).

In 1983 the US committee on National Statistics with support from the National Science Foundation, organized a meeting between a number of cognitive scientists, survey specialists, and statistical methodologists to discuss cognitive aspects of survey methodology (see Jabine, Straf, Tanur & Tourangeau, 1984, and Loftus, Fienberg & Tanur, 1985). The purpose of this meeting was to promote mutually beneficial collaboration between scientists from these complimentary disciplines. Survey specialists, for example, could improve their techniques of questionnaire design and structure through awareness of findings by cognitive psychologists. On the other hand, cognitive psychology could profit from sociological findings based on representative sample surveys. Loftus et.al (1985) state: “to further improve the quality of information obtained from respondents, we believe that the designer of surveys would benefit from detailed knowledge of basic findings in cognitive and social psychology” (Loftus et.al. 1985, p. 176). The authors also state that: “Conversely, the knowledge derived from National Surveys can provide new sources of data for learning about human cognition (Loftus et.al, 1985, p. 176).

Chapter 3 moves from the theme of making value claims to motivating positive action. It gives an account of why Lordean rage is motivational and asks how it can fuel positive action. Through a brief engagement with cognitive science and social psychology, the text suggests that the fuel of Lordean rage’s motivation includes eagerness, self-belief, and optimism. Historical examples of freedom fighters Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and even Martin Luther King Jr. are provided as people whose angry antiracist actions were ignited by this fuel. Given the nature of Lordean rage, the chapter also explains why Lordean rage is more likely to motivate the outraged to engage in positive action than the other anger varieties discussed in Chapter 1. This chapter ends by responding to counterarguments against anger’s productivity and argues that Lordean rage is compatible and complementary with positive emotions like love and need not be replaced by them.

For much of human evolution, the natural world was one of the most important contexts of children's maturation. Indeed, the experience of nature was, and still may be, a critical component of human physical, emotional, intellectual, and even moral development. Yet scientific knowledge of the significance of nature during the different stages of childhood is sparse. This book provides scientific investigations and thought-provoking essays on children and nature. Children and Nature incorporates research from cognitive science, developmental psychology, ecology, education, environmental studies, evolutionary psychology, political science, primatology, psychiatry, and social psychology. The authors examine the evolutionary significance of nature during childhood; the formation of children's conceptions, values, and sympathies toward the natural world; how contact with nature affects children's physical and mental development; and the educational and political consequences of the weakened childhood experience of nature in modern society.

In contemporary political science, many believe that normative restrictions on armed conflict are an outgrowth of Western culture and the just war tradition. Drawing on historical evidence, which shows that political actors in Ancient China and the early Islamic empire endorsed civilian protection rules, I claim that such norms are more common than most International Relations (IR) theorists suppose. For IR theory, this raises an important puzzle: How can we explain why similar normative ideas emerged in human societies that are otherwise very different? Building on research in cognitive science, social psychology, and social neuroscience, I argue that most people have natural cognitive and emotional predispositions that bias the emergence and transmission of cultural norms that protect non-combatants. More specifically, capacities for perspective-taking and empathy shape how people interpret the limits of their moral commitments, and when these capacities are engaged, intuitional heuristics affect how they judge the morality of killing in war. What is more, I claim that three key contextual variables moderate the connection between innate moral intuitions and the development of civilian protection norms: (i) societal interdependence, (ii) the social empowerment of marginal actors, and (iii) the creation of norms in argumentative contexts that require impartial moral reasoning. I argue that rationalist and constructivist theories of norm emergence will be able to better explain the emergence, the durability, and the institutional design of the norms of war by incorporating this naturalistic theory of moral cognition.

The article is devoted to the 95th birthday of Galina M. Andreeva, an outstanding scientist, a wonderful, bright personality. Memories about the scientific supervisor brings back to the 90s of the last century, when students were lucky enough to listen to lectures of G.M. Andreeva on social psychology, history of western social psychology (shared with N.N. Bogomolova and L.A. Petrovskaya) and psychology of social cognition. Readers can easily imagine the founder of the Social Psychology Department at the Faculty of Psychology of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. A person with an outstanding life, that could hardly have been imagined otherwise: a voluntary participation in the WW2, studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, the rebirth of sociology in Russia, the foundation of the Department of Social Psychology, and many generations of social psychologists.

Cognitive Psychology (CP) in the last 50 years has shown impressive development, producing a large body of data mainly concerned with specific elements of the complex cognitive architecture of the mind. The focus on single processes, in large part necessarily narrow and detailed, has not prevented the development of general concepts, paradigms, and models that can be useful to all areas of psychology. In fact, since the mind’s operations typically studied by CP, such as memory, attention, language, reasoning, and so on, are the basis for every psychological activity and behaviour, their scientific analysis can be used by other associated areas of study, for example Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Applied Psychology, Educational Psychology, Developmental Psychology, etc. Indeed, we are observing in these areas an increasing interest in concepts emerging from CP. The potential contribution of CP to the study of human intelligence is particularly representative and interesting. In fact, the consideration of individual differences in cognitive abilities and, in particular, in intelligence is one of the main topics that should be covered by CP. But this has not been the case for many years. Despite its obvious importance, the concept of intelligence has been suspiciously considered by many researchers and in particular by researchers working in the cognitive area. An implicit consideration has been that the concept ‘‘intelligence’’ is ill-defined and lacks an association with a well-supported research tradition. The misleading and circular definition of ‘‘intelligence’’, as the dimension measured by intelligence tests, was considered representative of the theoretical poverty of the field. For this reason the study of intelligence was mainly left to psychologists working in the psychometric tradition and to a certain extent the field of developmental psychology. However there are now signs that the time has come for CP to make a more substantial contribution to the study of individual differences in intelligence and other related cognitive abilities.

Originally published in 1981, this volume presents the domain of personality as a fuzzy set that includes features previously identified with cognitive and social psychology. Few of the individual contributions are centrally concerned with individual differences and cross-situational stability, but these traditional themes certainly appear in several of the chapters. The remaining chapters deal with the general processes mediating the interaction between the person and the social environment, filling out the fuzzy set of personality psychology. Part 1 seeks to locate contemporary trends in the cognitive psychology of personality against a backdrop of historical events. The chapters in Part 2 discuss some of the cognitive processes mediating social behaviour. Part 3 contains contributions concerned with the rules by which people make judgments about objects in the social world. The self, a dominant topic in personality theory and research, is treated extensively in Part 4. Although many of the chapters are explicitly concerned with the relations between cognition and action – after all, most human interaction takes the form of judgments and communication – the contributions in Part 5 make the links to overt behaviour. Finally, Part 6 offers two discussions of the previous contributions from the perspective of cognitive psychology.

This chapter intends to approach religious conversion from the perspective of cognitive and social psychology, describing those mechanisms and mental processes at the basis of a socially and culturally complex behavior such as that of religious conversion. As a model of conversion the chapter mainly refer to some pericopes and sayings drawn from the Gospels. The chosen textual reference has, therefore, a paradigmatic relevance from a historical-cultural point of view. A first interpretation model of the conversion process as narrated by the Gospels is that according to which there would be a mechanism that involves, as its first step, the acknowledgment of a supreme being at the origin of all that exists. The fact that in Gospel stories conversion implies a social competence has as a consequence that the believer's faith is not measured on doctrinal and magisterial knowledge, but on the empathic ability of recognizing other people's needs.Keywords: cognitive psychology; Gospels; religious conversion

An inside view of the experimental practices of cognitive psychology—and their influence on the addictive nature of social media Experimental cognitive psychology research is a hidden force in our online lives. We engage with it, often unknowingly, whenever we download a health app, complete a Facebook quiz, or rate our latest purchase. How did experimental psychology come to play an outsized role in these developments? Experiments of the Mind considers the question through an in-depth look at cognitive psychology laboratories. Interacting with scientists and study participants, Emily Martin traces how psychological research methods have evolved, escaped the boundaries of the discipline, and infiltrated the foundations of social media and our digital universe. Taking readers behind the scenes, Martin recounts her participation in psychology labs over multiple years, and she conveys their activities through the voices of principal investigators, graduate students, and subjects. Despite popular claims of experimental psychology’s focus on isolated individuals, Martin finds that the history of the field—from early German labs and British experiments in the Pacific Islands to Gestalt psychology—has led to modern research methods that are, in fact, highly social. She then shows how these methods are deployed online: amplified by troves of data and powerful machine learning, an unprecedented model of human psychology now abounds, one in which statistical measures pair with algorithms to predict, manipulate, and influence users’ behavior. Revealing the real-world consequences of investigations into trust, learning, and memory, Experiments of the Mind examines how psychology research has shaped us to be perfectly suited for our networked age.