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Dissociative experiences are thought to occur acutely (e.g., during or immediately following trauma) or chronically and are considered to reduce the subjective distress accompanying stressful events. Growing evidence is consistent with a model that distinguishes between two qualitatively different types of phenomena—“compartmentalization” and “detachment.” Compartmentalization involves a deficit in the ability to deliberately control processes or actions that would normally be amendable to such control (e.g., amnesia and dissociative identities). Detachment refers to an experienced state of disconnection from the self or the environment (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, and numbing). In the present contribution, we discuss both detachment and compartmentalization phenomena. In addition, we discuss both dissociation as an acute response to trauma and persistent dissociation in the form of the most severe and chronic of the dissociative disorders, dissociative identity disorder (DID). We attend to the burgeoning empirical literature on memory processing and dissociation given the central role of these cognitive operations in the development and maintenance of the dissociative disorders, and more broadly, posttraumatic symptomatology. We end with a more general appeal for more transdiagnostic studies of dissociative phenomena, both in the areas of detachment and compartmentalization, emphasizing that dissociative disorders are not a category of mysterious diagnoses that need to be understood outside of well-known cognitive operations. Keywords: dissociation; dissociative identity disorder (DID); trauma; detachment; compartmentalization; dissociative amnesia

In this essay, we discuss an emergent developmental science. It provides an approach to development that redefines its theoretical and methodological basis in the general theory of complex dynamic systems. Its methodological research choices are in line with a focus on actual developmental processes, as they occur in individual cases, such as individual children, families, or relationships. Intraindividual variability based on frequent short-term as well as long-term measurements provides an important source of information. Theoretically, we advocate a model of a network of dynamically interacting components, generating a wide variety of developmental trajectories, in line with the idiosyncratic nature of developmental systems.

Political behavior is behavior aimed at regulating access to resources: Who is recognized to get what, when, and how? Evidence across a number of disciplines shows that humans over evolutionary history have evolved sophisticated abilities to engage in political behavior through status seeking and coalition formation in order to attract resources to themselves, their kin, and their allies. As demonstrated by recent research, this evolutionary history of politics continues to shape how modern individuals behave in modern mass politics and prompt people to derive their political attitudes from ancestrally relevant factors such as upper body strength and short-term fluctuations in hunger. Important areas for research lies ahead in (i) understanding how evolution has given rise to individual variation in political behavior, (ii) investigating the extent to which the evolved psychology of humans biases modern political behavior, and (iii) strengthening the ties between this emerging application of evolutionary theory and more traditional research on political behavior. Keywords: evolutionary theory; evolution; political behavior; resources; modern individuals; political attitudes; research; individual variation; human biases

Over the past decade, a growing interest in the possibility that biological factors, including genes, might contribute to individual differences in political and social behaviors has emerged. Behavioral genetic techniques have provided a variety of approaches to quantify the effects of genetic and nongenetic inheritance. However, until quite recently, these methods were largely unknown to political scientists. In this essay, we review the general approaches to modeling genetic and social influences on differences in complex human social traits. In so doing, we focus on the “genetics of politics,” including attitudes, ideologies, voting, and partisanship. The emergence of this research reflects a paradigm shift in the study of social traits necessitating the inclusion of biological influences, and recognizing the interdependence of genetic, social, and environmental factors in the development of political behaviors over the life course. Keywords: genetics; ideology; heritability; attitudes; behavior