Form Justified Emotions to Justified Evaluative Judgements

Are there justified emotions? Can they justify evaluative judgements? We first explain the need for an account of justified emotions by emphasizing that emotions are states for which we have or lack reasons. We then observe that emotions are explained by their cognitive and motivational bases. Considering cognitive bases first, we argue that an emotion is justified if and only if the properties the subject is aware of constitute an instance of the relevant evaluative property. We then investigate the roles of motivational bases. Finally, we argue that justified emotions are sufficient for justified evaluative judgements.

The experimental combination of rTMS and fMRI reveals the functional relevance of parietal cortex for visuospatial functions

We combined repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the functional relevance of parietal cortex activation during the performance of visuospatial tasks. fMRI provides information about local transient changes in neuronal activation during behavioural or cognitive tasks. Information on the functional relevance of this activation was obtained by using rTMS to induce temporary regional deactivations. We thereby turned the physiological parameter of brain activity into an independent variable controlled and manipulated by the experimenter and investigated its effect on the performance of the cognitive tasks within a controlled experimental design. We investigated cognitive tasks that were performed on the same visual material but differed in the demand on visuospatial functions. For the visuospatial tasks we found a selective enhancement of fMRI signal in the superior parietal lobule (SPL) and a selective impairment of performance after rTMS to this region in comparison to a control group. We could thus show that the parietal cortex is functionally important for the execution of spatial judgements on visually presented material and that TMS as an experimental tool has the potential to interfere with higher cognitive functions such as visuospatial information processing.

Children's and adolescents' moral emotion attributions and judgments about exclusion of peers with hearing impairments

Children and adolescents with hearing impairments are at risk of being excluded from activities with hearing peers. Moral emotion attributions may represent important indicators for children’s identification with the moral norm not to exclude peers based on disability. Against this background, we investigated how 10-, 12- and 15-year-olds (N = 215) feel and judge about social exclusion of peers with hearing impairments. Emotion attributions and moral judgements were assessed using four different hypothetical scenarios about the exclusion of peers with hearing impairments (school vs. leisure time, group vs. dyad). Moreover, children’s and adolescents’ inclusive behaviour was assessed by a peer nomination procedure. Results revealed that moral emotion attributions differed as a function of exclusion context and grade. Moreover, participants with inclusive behaviour attributed moral emotions more often than participants with less inclusive behaviour. Implications of the results for moral education are discussed.

Ein Autor von ›hypertropher Virilität‹. Geschlecht in der Musil-Rezeption der 1920er und 1930er Jahre

Adopting "The Man Without Qualities" as a decisively masculine novel, contemporary literary criticism passed on a trope with which reviewers such as Alfred Döblin, Robert Müller and Franz Blei had already characterised Musil’s earlier texts. The reviews of the novel are therefore typical of how evaluations in terms of originality in the literary-critical and poetological debates of the 20s and 30s were regularly translated into the established gender hierarchy. The need to make such judgements can be seen as much as the symptom of a modern consciousness of crisis in masculinity as the hyper-athletics of the novel’s hero himself and the pitiful figure cut by the other men in "The Man Without Qualities".

Understanding the Sharing Economy: The Role of Response to Negative Reviews in the Peer-To-Peer Accommodation Sharing Network?

Recognizing the potentially ruinous effect of negative reviews on the reputation of the hosts as well as a subjective nature of the travel experience judgements, peer-to-peer accommodation sharing plat-forms, like Airbnb, have readily embraced the “response” option, empowering hosts with the voice to challenge, deny or at least apologize for the subject of critique. However, the effects of different re-sponse strategies on trusting beliefs towards the host remain unclear. To fill this gap, this study focus-es on understanding the impact of different response strategies and review negativity on trusting be-liefs towards the host in peer-to-peer accommodation sharing setting utilizing experimental methods. Examination of two different contexts, varying in the controllability of the subject of complaint, re-veals that when the subject of complaint is controllable by a host, such strategies as confession / apol-ogy and denial can improve trusting beliefs towards the host. However, when the subject of criticism is beyond the control of the host, denial of the issue does not yield guest’s confidence in the host, where-as confession and excuse have positive influence on trusting beliefs.

“Proximising” climate change reconsidered: A construal level theory perspective

Reducing the psychological distance of climate change has repeatedly been proposed as one strategy to increase individuals' motivation to respond to climate change. From the perspective of construal level theory, decreasing psychological distance should not itself influence people's willingness to act but change the processes that underlie individual decision-making. We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated the psychological distance of climate change. We found that participants with a distant focus relied more on scepticism to represent risks and make decisions about supporting climate change, whereas participants with a proximal perspective relied more on fear when making such judgements. However, the predicted Fear × Distance interaction was only found when self-reported fear rather than experimentally manipulated fear was used as a moderator. Our results suggest that simply proximising won't increase engagement and call for a more differentiated perspective on the effects of psychological distance in the context of climate change.