Frozen with Fear? Attentional Mechanisms in Children with Selective Mutism

Background Children with selective mutism (SM) are consistently unable to speak in certain social situations. Due to an overlap between SM and social anxiety disorder (SAD) in children, similar mechanisms could apply to both disorders. Especially biased attentional processing of threat and fear-induced reduced visual exploration (referred to as attentive freezing) appear promising in SM. Methods A total of N = 84 children (8–12 years, SM: n = 28, SAD: n = 28, typical development (TD): n = 28) participated in an eye-tracking paradigm with videos of a social counterpart expressing a question, a social evaluation or a neutral statement. We investigated gaze behavior towards the social counterpart’s eye-region and the extent of visual exploration (length of scanpath), across conditions. Results There were no group differences regarding gaze behavior on the eye region. Neither gaze behavior with respect to the eye region nor visual exploration were dependent on the video condition. Compared to children with TD, children with SM generally showed less visual exploration, however children with SAD did not. Conclusion Reduced visual exploration might be due to the mechanism of attentive freezing, which could be part of an extensive fear response in SM that might also affect speech-production. Interventions that counteract the state of freezing could be promising for the therapy of SM.

Does Empathy Promote Helping by Activating Altruistic Motivation or Concern About Social Evaluation? A Direct Replication of Fultz et al. (1986)

Empathy motivates people to help needy others. Does it do so by activating genuine concern, or by activating more self-interested goals that helping needy others might enable them to fulfill? The empathy-altruism hypothesis claims that empathic concern reflects a non-instrumental desire to improve the welfare of a person in need. To rule out the alternative hypothesis that empathy motivates prosocial behavior by first generating fear of appearing selfish, Fultz et al. (1986) manipulated empathy for a needy target using perspective-taking instructions; they also manipulated whether the subject’s opportunity to help was subject to social evaluation. However, Fultz et al.’s (1986) experiments were underpowered. Here, we conducted a large-N pre-registered replication of Experiment 2 in Fultz et al. (1986). We also administered self-report measures of moral identity and endorsement of the principle of care to test whether these traits reflect altruistic desires or desires to avoid disapprobation. We found that volunteering did not differ between the high and low social evaluation conditions, and that volunteering was not significantly higher in the high-empathy condition. These results sit uneasily with Fultz et al. (1986)’s evidence in support of the empathy-altruism hypothesis. We also failed to find evidence that the principle of care or moral identity internalization reflect altruistic motivation. Consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis, however, we did find that self-reported empathic concern predicted helping.

Selected financial indicators as a tool for optimizing local government units management

Finances of each organization are the basic security of its existence and the main indicator of its profitability. In local government units public finances, despite many similarities, are governed by different rules than economic entities, if only because local governments have systemically guaranteed income in the form of state grants and subsidies. New and modern methods of financial management appear in self-government financial management. We can notice it both in the scope of sources of investment financing and the scope of information and data justifying or negating financial decisions and, consequently, local government management. Financial indicators as tools supporting the decision-making process of governing bodies are an important factor in decision-making, including the implementation of public tasks, satisfaction of social needs and expectations. Thanks to indicators local governments have analytical information, useful in the process of management taking into account social expectations comparable to other units. The indicators show where a given self-government unit is in relation to its competitors, allow for a comparable evaluation of the achievable results and for a social evaluation covering the expectations and needs of the community's inhabitants. It should be noted that the indicators are the effect of using data, which are very abundant on the local government and business market. We often deal with metadata covering the whole country and regions and their sources are more or less reliable. Reliability of sources is extremely important in public perception. It is guaranteed by institutions representing information collected on the basis of systematic reports, obtained in a uniform space for all local government units. Both data and indicators calculated on their basis, as well as reliable rankings presented, are tools used by mayors of communes, local communities, more and more often government institutions, funds, agencies and media presenting more and less reliable rankings.

Shame

Reliance on mutual aid is a distinctive characteristic of human biology. Consequently, a central adaptive problem for our ancestors was the potential or actual spread of reputationally damaging information about the self – information that would decrease the inclination of other group members to render assistance. The emotion of shame appears to be the solution engineered by natural selection to defend against this threat. The existing evidence suggests that shame is a neurocomputational program that orchestrates various elements of the cognitive architecture in the service of (i) deterring the individual from making choices wherein the personal benefits are exceeded by the prospective costs of being devalued by others, (ii) preventing negative information about the self from reaching others, and (iii) minimizing the adverse effects of social devaluation when it occurs. The flow of costs (e.g., punishment) and benefits (e.g., income, aid during times of hardship) in human societies is regulated to an important extent by this interlinked psychology of social evaluation and shame (as well as other social emotions). For example, the intensity of shame that laypeople express at the prospect of committing each of various offenses closely matches the intensity of the actual offense-specific punishments called for by criminal laws, including modern laws and ancient laws that are millennia old. Because shame, like pain, causes personal suffering and sometimes leads to hostile behavior, shame has been termed a “maladaptive” and “ugly” emotion. However, an evolutionary psychological analysis suggests that the shame system is elegantly designed to deter injurious choices and make the best of a bad situation.

Making Sense of Shame

In this paper, I argue that we face a challenge in understanding the relationship between the ‘value-oriented’ and ‘other-oriented’ dimensions of shame. On the one hand, an emphasis on shame's value-oriented dimension leads naturally to ‘The Self-Evaluation View’, an account which faces a challenge in explaining shame's other-oriented dimension. This is liable to push us towards ‘The Social Evaluation View’. However The Social Evaluation View faces the opposite challenge of convincingly accommodating shame's ‘value-oriented’ dimension. After rejecting one attempt to chart a middle course between these extremes, I argue that progress can be made if we reject the widespread assumption that the other-oriented dimension of shame is best understood primarily terms of our concern with the way we appear to others. Instead, I outline an account which treats shame as manifesting our desire primarily for interpersonal connection and which elucidates the property of shamefulness in terms of merited avoidance (or rejection).

Socio-Psychological Criteria of the Formation of Gender Stereotypes of Appearance

The article considers the socio-psychological criteria for the formation of gender stereotypes of appearance. The priority of the study is implementing a system of criteria for gender stereotypes of appearance, taking into account the system of socio-psychological factors and gender-oriented forms of prevention of overcoming sexism and discrimination on the grounds of personality attractiveness. It is substantiated that social evaluation through physical criteria creates several psychological problems because the "physical self" is an essential component of the "self-concept" and one of the criteria of self-esteem. It is proved that the properties of gender stereotypes coincide with the social ones. They are the bearer of emotional and evaluative characteristics, taking into account the group of values associated with the ambivalence of ideas about another. A methodical approach to the assessment of gender stereotypes of appearance and personality is proposed, which allows determining the criteria of human well-being, taking into account discrimination factors, intrapersonal parameters of affective-negative perception of one's appearance and self-concept, as well as the aesthetic perception of identity. An assessment of socio-psychological factors of gender stereotypes of appearance, which is based on the methodological provisions of psychoanalysis and humanism, cognitive paradigm, dispositional theory, cross-cultural approach, and some sociological studies, is carried out. As an experiment on empirical verification of the stereotypes of appearance, their gender differences, and socio-psychological factors, a set of methods of psychological diagnosis is used, which allow determining indicators of stereotypes of appearance, self-esteem, and attitude to beauty; socio-psychological criteria for the formation of gender stereotypes of appearance. A methodology for assessing the criteria for improving the attitude of respondents to their own appearance by determining the level of self-esteem, satisfaction with appearance, awareness of gender differences in appearance, and the desire to improve their own appearance in case of discrimination has been developed and implemented.

Face-Selective Responses Present in Multiple Regions of the Human Infant Brain

Faces are a rich source of social information. How does the infant brain develop the ability to recognize faces and identify potential social partners? We collected functional magnetic neuroimaging (fMRI) data from 49 awake human infants (aged 2.5-9.7 months) while they watched movies of faces, bodies, objects, and scenes. Face-selective responses were observed not only in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) but also in superior temporal sulcus (STS), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Face responses were also observed (but not fully selective) in the amygdala and thalamus. We find no evidence that face-selective responses develop in visual perception regions (VTC) prior to higher order social perception (STS) or social evaluation (MPFC) regions. We suggest that face-selective responses may develop in parallel across multiple cortical regions. Infants’ brains could thus simultaneously process faces both as a privileged category of visual images, and as potential social partners.

Perceptual mapping of linguistic variation in Saudi Arabic dialects

This article provides a perceptual dialectology account of linguistic diversity in Saudi Arabia. Using the map-drawing and labeling task, the study examined the perceptions and ideologies of 674 speakers of Saudi Arabic dialects about the perceived boundaries of regional dialect varieties, as well as their social evaluation of and beliefs about the dialects. The analysis of the results as displayed in composite maps using a Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping program revealed that respondents identified five major dialect areas as having the most distinct features: the Najdi, Hijazi, southern, eastern, and northern regions. Ten categories of respondents’ labels emerged out of the qualitative analysis: style, influence, Bedouin/urban, fast, open/closed, vowel lengthening, unique vocabulary, alternation of /k/ and /g/, attraction, and social media. The present findings show the salience of certain linguistic and social features that respondents associate with certain dialect areas. Such perceptions can ultimately guide and enhance future descriptions and analyses of actual linguistic variation in Saudi Arabia.