"They Are Such an Asshole": Describing the Targets of a Common Insult Among English-Speakers in the United States

Insults convey information about the speaker’s perception of the target’s personality. Previous research has found that several commonly used insults (“asshole,” “dick,” “bitch”) are uniformly associated with self- and other-reported antagonism (or low Agreeableness). We aimed to replicate and extend these findings by focusing on the insult “asshole,” a common insult used to refer to both men and women. In the present study, participants (n = 397) described the “biggest assholes” in their lives using a measure of the Five-Factor Model of personality. “Assholes” described by participants were typically middle-aged, predominantly male, and included romantic partners, coworkers, bosses, family members, and friends. Results showed that “assholes” were perceived to be characterized by interpersonally relevant traits (i.e., low Agreeableness, high Anger). The consensus Five Factor Model profile for target “assholes” was similar to expert profiles of psychopathic, antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders. Exploratory analyses conducted on open-ended descriptions of nominated bothersome “asshole-related” behaviors revealed common themes including manipulation, aggression, irresponsibility, and entitlement.

Refining the maturity principle of personality development by examining facets, close others, and co-maturation

Across adulthood, people tend to experience psychologically adaptive personality trait change, a robust finding known as the maturity principle of personality development. We identify three open areas of inquiry regarding personality maturation and address them in a pre-registered study, using a sample of US adults ages 30-70 who completed a battery of personality questionnaires and were rated by two close others twice over an 11-to-16 year period (Nwave1 = 1,785, Nwave2 = 401). First, it is unclear whether the maturity principle applies to narrower facet-level traits, as there has been little research into facet development across adulthood. We examined 47 facet scales and found that most developed adaptively across ages 30-70, but some did not mature, and three healthy facets (Activity, Openness to Feelings, and Social Potency) declined significantly across adulthood, counter to the maturity principle. Second, no longitudinal research has tested whether personality maturation is perceived similarly by close others. We compared self- and other- rated development and found that close others perceived greater maturation than the self in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and five facets. Finally, few studies have examined whether traits co-mature in adulthood. We found that correlated change between healthy facets was small in magnitude. Additionally, we found tighter co-maturation in other-reported development than self-reported development. We use these results and past research to expand and refine our understanding of personality maturation across adulthood.

Heroes and villains: multimodal identity construction in children’s wartime visual narratives

The article investigates the Self and Other binaries in wartime visual literature published in Bengali-language children’s periodicals in West Bengal, India during the Bangladesh Liberation Struggle 1971. The study applies a critical multimodal framework using the Social Actors Approach and Social Semiotics within the Discourse-Historical Approach. The binaries are defined by the representation and subsequent differentiation of physical, linguistic, and cultural features of the Bengali and non-Bengali social actors and through their actions in the plots. The representation of social actors in the texts conforms to as well as deviates from typical wartime propaganda.

Emerging Self-Representation Presents a Challenge for Perspective Tracking in Infancy

The capacity to track another’s perspective is present from early in life, with young infants ostensibly able to predict others’ behaviour even when the self and other perspective are at odds. Yet, infants’ abilities are difficult to reconcile with the well-documented challenge that older children face when they need to ignore their own perspective. Here we provide evidence that it is the emergence of self-representation, from around 18 months, that likely creates a perspective conflict between self and other. Using mirror self-recognition as a measure of self-awareness and pupil dilation to index conflict processing, our results show that mirror recognisers perceive greater conflict than non-recognisers when viewing a scenario in which the self and other have divergent perspectives, specifically when the conflict between self and other is salient. These results suggest that infants’ perspective tracking abilities may benefit from an initial absence of self-representation.

A Review on the Cultural Characteristics of Mentalization and Relations with Psychological Symptoms

Mentalization is the ability to surmise the mental states such as thoughts, wishes, intentions, needs and feelings behind one’s own and others’ behaviors. Mentalization has been an important concept in understanding personality development and psychopathology in recent years. However, the cultural factors that affect mentalization is an understudied area, which has also not been investigated in Turkey. In this review, the development of the concept of mentalization will be explored comparing individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The specific mentalization characteristics that may emerge in Turkey are discussed. With this aim, the concept of mentalization, its development and the kinds of mentalization impairments that emerge in psychopathology are discussed. Afterwards, the effects of culture on mentalization are discussed with reference to recent empirical literature. Specifically, the effects of cultural context on the development of theory mind, affective and cognitive mentalization, self and other-focused mentalization, explicit and implicit mentalization are explored. The reviewed studies suggest that in collectivistic cultures, individuals tend to others’ mental states and socially accepted objective norms more than their own internal states and refrain from strong emotions such as anger that may disrupt the social harmony. Moreover implicit mentalization is less affected by culture. Based on the reviewed studies, culturally sensitive suggestions are provided regarding how to conduct mentalization assessments and practices. Keywords: Mentalization, culture, individualism, collectivism, psychotherapy

'My Name to me a Sadness Wears': Self and Other According to 'Diary by E. B. B.'

This paper dwells on the issue of selfhood in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Diary (1831 – 1832). It explores individuation against three major presences in the poetess’s life: her father (and family), Hugh Stuart Boyd, and literature. The employed strategy of research includes a phenomenological (interspersed with feminist touches) focus on select excerpts from the Diary which reveal the writer’s concern for Self as the recognition of the priority of a precursory Other. Observations are made on the limits of human perception, time and space as human variables, the ontological essence of interpretation, and memory as a premise for cognizing life as care. A rare example of prose-fiction in the poetess’s oeuvre, her diary could be read as an instance of simultaneous self-nullification and self-affirmation, which offers possibilities for a dialectical definition of female genius as dialogue through narrative.

Polish adaptation The State Self-Forgiveeness Scale

The aim of the presented study was to Polish version of The State Self-Forgiveness Scale (Wohl i in., 2008) – Skala Epizodycznego Przebaczenia Sobie. The scale is used to assess self-forgiveness after wrongdoing towards self and other persons. The scale consists of 17 items and two subscales describing feelings and actions as well as beliefs towards oneself, which are to lead to self-forgiveness. Four hundred forty four (Mage =27.8, SD=9.9) participated in the study. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory analysis were performed to determine the psychometric properties (RMSEA 0,048, GFI 0,924, PCLOSE 0,556). In order to determine the internal consistency was calculated by Cronbach’s alpha (0,80-0,86). The internal validity was assessed by Heartland Forgiveness Scale. The obtained results showed that the Polish version of The State Self-forgiveness Scale as tool with good psychometric properties and to recommend it for the assessment of self-forgiveness both in research.

Misrepresentation of the Other: A Postcolonial Study in Selected Arab and American Novels

The paper sheds light on one of the important concepts in contemporary literature which tackles the representation of the Other in selected Arabic and American literary products. The representation of the other holds many misrepresentations and stereotypes, both varying and fixed; as such, the study of the literary representations of the other which comes as a remedy many fixed and prevalent frameworks between the self and the other which deals with the construction of an individual on cultural, political and social levels. The study tackles a topic of great importance for contemporary literary studies and critiques, especially at the level of national literature. The research aims to discuss how Arab writers envision the concept of the Other, on one hand; and it argues how American writers projects the concept in their novels, on the other hand. It also gives an insight about Arabs and Americans viewing the term the self and other or utilize the term Imagology which is very significant because it differentiates between the Oriental and Western points of view. The paper is restricted to argue the representation of the other in these four novels. Finally, the research ends up with conclusion and recommendations for further researches.

Vicarious Ratings of Self vs. Other-directed Social Touch in Women with and Recovered from Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating pathology characterized by restricted eating, body image distortions and impaired socio-cognitive abilities. Altered responses to affective touch − a pleasant interoceptive stimulus hypothesised to involve activation of the C-Tactile (CT) system, may contribute to the aetiology and maintenance of this disorder. Here, we investigated whether third-party social touch vicarious ratings of different body sites at CT-optimal vs. non-CT optimal velocities differed in women with and recovered from AN (RAN) and healthy controls (HCs). Thirty-five HCs, 27 AN and 29 RAN provided pleasantness ratings for two different tasks designed to probe expectations of how touch is perceived by self (self-directed touch) vs. others (other-directed touch). Findings revealed that both clinical groups, compared to HCs, did not differ in their pleasantness ratings to touch for another but when evaluating touch for self, both clinical groups rated CT-optimal touch as less pleasant than HCs. These findings suggest that AN and RAN women demonstrate an atypical vicarious pleasantness response to affective touch involving self, but not others. Therefore, as atypical responses persist even after recovery, treatment interventions should focus on overcoming an impairment in differentiating between self and other affective touch experience, which could help prevent post-recovery relapsing.