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More than a century ago Leo Tolstoy noted that happy families tend to be more similar to each other than unhappy families. Was this just a cognitive illusion, driven by his mind’s predisposition to see positive entities as more similar to each other, or did he make a profound observation about the world? If it is true, is the phenomenon limited to happiness, or is it a characteristic of positive traits more generally? This question has received attention in multiple fields, but not in psychology. We ran five studies, testing the more general hypothesis that people who share some positive individual-difference trait are more alike than those who do not (The Convergence of Positivity Hypothesis), and we consistently found empirical support for it. Happier, healthier, and richer people were more alike in their personality, values, and in various other domains. The research approach we followed here departs from traditional behavioral science methods and proposes a different level of analysis, where valence and directionality play a central role. We speculate about why this pattern might exist and about the boundary conditions, including whether it extends beyond individual differences to a broader set of complex systems where positivity can be defined.

Many of the choices we make affect other people. While the social component of decision making is well-studied, a social dimension has not yet been incorporated into existing quantitative models of choice under uncertainty. In this paper we review previous proposals for how best to include a social component into existing models and then introduce a new approach: the Social Expected Utility model. Our approach combines social discounting and expected utility models, and accounts not only for previous findings, but also leads to novel, testable predictions, including a surprising preference reversal effect. We present the results from four empirical studies that compare our model with alternative theories and we conclude that social discounting should be included in our efforts towards more comprehensive choice models.

More than a century ago Leo Tolstoy noted that happy families tend to be more similar to each other than unhappy families. Was this just a cognitive illusion, driven by his mind’s predisposition to see positive entities as more similar to each other, or did he make a profound observation about the world? If it is true, is the phenomenon limited to happiness, or is it a characteristic of positive traits more generally? This question has received attention in multiple fields, but not in psychology. We ran five studies, testing the more general hypothesis that people who share some positive individual-difference trait are more alike than those who do not (The Convergence of Positivity Hypothesis), and we consistently found empirical support for it. Happier, healthier and richer people were more alike in their personality, values, and in various other domains. The research approach we followed here departs from traditional behavioral science methods and proposes a different level of analysis, where valence and directionality play a central role. We speculate about why this pattern might exist and about the boundary conditions, including whether it extends beyond individual differences to a broader set of complex systems where positivity can be defined.

Yarkoni's paper makes an important contribution to psychological research by its insightful analysis of generalizability. We suggest, however, that broadening research practices to include field research and the correlated use of both converging and complementary observations gives reason for optimism.

We introduce a novel measure of abstractness based on the amount of information of a concept computed from its position in a semantic taxonomy. We refer to this measure as precision. We propose two alternative ways to measure precision, one based on the path length from a concept to the root of the taxonomic tree, and another one based on the number of direct and indirect descendants. Since more information implies greater processing load, we hypothesize that nouns higher in precision will have a processing disadvantage in a lexical decision task. We contrast precision to concreteness, a common measure of abstractness based on the proportion of sensory-based information associated with a concept. Since concreteness facilitates cognitive processing, we predict that while both concreteness and precision are measures of abstractness, they will have opposite effects on performance. In two studies we found empirical support for our hypothesis. Precision and concreteness had opposite effects on latency and accuracy in a lexical decision task, and these opposite effects were observable while controlling for word length, word frequency, affective content and semantic diversity. Our results support the view that concepts organization includes amodal semantic structures which are independent of sensory information. They also suggest that we should distinguish between sensory-based and amount-of-information-based abstractness.

Language is a powerful marker for social discrimination, often associated with stereotypes and prejudices against various social groups. However, less is known about the psychological role of language during ethnolinguistic conflicts. In such conflicts, the political rivalry is closely intertwined with language ideology. We consider two independent paths through which language might trigger social discrimination. The first one is related to linguistic identity, where a person could favor those who speak like her. The second one is related to political identity, where a person could favor those who use the language associated with the person’s political views. In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, we find empirical support only for the political identity explanation and no support for the linguistic identity one.

The vast majority of the work on culture and cognition has focused on cross-cultural comparisons, largely ignoring the dynamic aspects of culture. In this article, we provide a diachronic analysis of causal cognition over time. We hypothesized that the increased role of education, science, and technology in Western societies should be accompanied by greater attention to causal connections. To test this hypothesis, we compared word frequencies in English texts from different time periods and found an increase in the use of causal language of about 40% over the past two centuries. The observed increase was not attributable to general language effects or to changing semantics of causal words. We also found that there was a consistent difference between the 19th and the 20th centuries, and that the increase happened mainly in the 20th century.

Three studies test the link between word order in binomials and psychological and demographic characteristics of a speaker. While linguists have already suggested that psychological, cultural and societal factors are important in choosing word order in binomials, the vast majority of relevant research was focused on general factors and on broadly shared cultural conventions. In contrast, in this work we are interested in what word order can tell us about the particular speaker. More specifically, we test the degree to which word order is affected by factors such as gender, race, geographic location, religion, political orientation, and consumer preferences. Using a variety of methodologies and different data sources, we find converging evidence that word order is linked to a broad set of features associated with the speaker. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings and the potential to use word order as a tool for analyzing large text corpora and data on the web.

Recent years have seen rapid developments in automated text analysis methods focused on measuring psychological and demographic properties. While this development has mainly been driven by computer scientists and computational linguists, such methods can be of great value for social scientists in general, and for psychologists in particular. In this paper, we review some of the most popular approaches to automated text analysis from the perspective of social scientists, and give examples of their applications in different theoretical domains. After describing some of the pros and cons of these methods, we speculate about future methodological developments, and how they might change social sciences. We conclude that, despite the fact that current methods have many disadvantages and pitfalls compared to more traditional methods of data collection, the constant increase of computational power and the wide availability of textual data will inevitably make automated text analysis a common tool for psychologists.

Nations are accumulating cyber resources in the form of stockpiles of zero-day exploits as well as other novel methods of engaging in future cyber conflict against selected targets. This paper analyzes the optimal timing for the use of such cyber resources. A simple mathematical model is offered to clarify how the timing of such a choice can depend on the stakes involved in the present situation, as well as the characteristics of the resource for exploitation. The model deals with the question of when the resource should be used given that its use today may well prevent it from being available for use later. The analysis provides concepts, theory, applications, and distinctions to promote the understanding strategy aspects of cyber conflict. Case studies include the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear program, the Iranian cyber attack on the energy firm Saudi Aramco, the persistent cyber espionage carried out by the Chinese military, and an analogous case of economic coercion by China in a dispute with Japan. The effects of the rapidly expanding market for zero-day exploits are also analyzed. The goal of the paper is to promote the understanding of this domain of cyber conflict to mitigate the harm it can do, and harness the capabilities it can provide.

This study reports ethnographic and experimental analyses of inter-generational changes in native Itza’ Maya and immigrant Ladino populations of Guatemala’s Peten rainforest concerning understanding of ecological relationships between plants, animals, and humans, and the perceived role of forest spirits in sustaining these relationships. We find dramatic changes in understanding ecological relationships and the perceived role of forest spirits. Itza’ Maya conceptions of forest spirits (arux) are now more often confounded with Ladino spirits (duendes), with Itza’ spirits no longer reliably serving as forest guardians. These changes correlate with a shift in personal values regarding the forest, away from concern with ecologically central trees and towards monetary incentives. More generally, we describe how economic, demographic, and social changes relate to the loss of a system of beliefs and behaviours that once promoted sustainable agro-forestry practices. These changes coincide with open access to common pool resources. In this study we describe an ongoing research project on how different groups of agro-foresters in the lowland rainforest of Guatemala deal with a resource dilemma involving the forest itself. Using ethnographic and experimental methods we describe inter-generational changes in Itza’ Maya and Ladino understandings of ecological relationships between plants, animals, and humans, and the perceived role of forest spirits in sustaining these relationships. While dealing with the conception of environment, this study also contributes to the perennial debate of nature versus culture. The subfield of ecological anthropology or French anthropologie de la nature is mainly interested in understanding the concept of nature as well as people’s relation to nature. In recent years, ecological anthropology has been especially concerned theoretically and practically with environment policies, bs_bs_banner

People use more positive words than negative words. Referred to as “linguistic positivity bias” (LPB), this effect has been found across cultures and languages, prompting the conclusion that it is a panhuman tendency. However, although multiple competing explanations of LPB have been proposed, there is still no consensus on what mechanism(s) generate LPB or even on whether it is driven primarily by universal cognitive features or by environmental factors. In this work we propose that LPB has remained unresolved because previous research has neglected an essential dimension of language: time. In four studies conducted with two independent, time-stamped text corpora (Google books Ngrams and the New York Times), we found that LPB in American English has decreased during the last two centuries. We also observed dynamic fluctuations in LPB that were predicted by changes in objective environment, i.e., war and economic hardships, and by changes in national subjective happiness. In addition to providing evidence that LPB is a dynamic phenomenon, these results suggest that cognitive mechanisms alone cannot account for the observed dynamic fluctuations in LPB. At the least, LPB likely arises from multiple interacting mechanisms involving subjective, objective, and societal factors. In addition to having theoretical significance, our results demonstrate the value of newly available data sources in addressing long-standing scientific questions.

Recent work on the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals has paid much attention to the role of causal independencies. One influential idea from the theory of Causal Bayesian Networks is that counterfactual assumptions are made by intervention on variables, leaving all of their causal non-descendants unaffected. But intervention is not applicable across the board. For instance, backtracking counterfactuals, which involve reasoning from effects to causes, cannot proceed by intervention in the strict sense, for otherwise they would be equivalent to their consequents. We discuss these and similar cases, focusing on two factors which play a role in determining whether and which causal parents of the manipulated variable are affected: Speakers' need for an explanation of the hypothesized state of affairs, and differences in the 'resilience' of beliefs that are independent of degrees of certainty. We describe the relevant theoretical notions in some detail and provide experimental evidence that these factors do indeed affect speakers' interpretation of counterfactuals. Counterfactual reasoning plays an important role in causal inference, diagnosis, prediction, planning and decision making, as well as in emotions like regret and relief, moral and legal judgments, and more. Consequently, it has been a focal point of attention for decades in a variety of disciplines including philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, and linguistics. The fundamental problem facing all attempts to model people's intuitive judgments about what would or might have been if some counterfactual premise A had been true, is to understand people's implicit assumptions as to which actual facts to 'hold on to' in exploring the range of ways in which A might manifest itself (Goodman, 1955). The problem has been approached from various directions, employing disparate theoretical frameworks and methodologies. Amidst this variety, some common themes can be discerned which in recent years have facilitated communication across disciplines and ushered in a confluence of theoretical and methodological views. Especially important in this connection is the role of causal relations, which became amenable to new ways of mathematical modeling and empirical verification thanks

The question of why people are motivated to act altruistically has been an important one for centuries, and across various disciplines. Drawing on previous research on moral regulation, we propose a framework suggesting that moral (or immoral) behavior can result from an internal balancing of moral self-worth and the cost inherent in altruistic behavior. In Experiment 1 , participants were asked to write a self-relevant story containing words referring to either positive or negative traits. Participants who wrote a story referring to the positive traits donated one fifth as much as those who wrote a story referring to the negative traits. In Experiment 2 , we showed that this effect was due specifically to a change in the self-concept. In Experiment 3 , we replicated these findings and extended them to cooperative behavior in environmental decision making. We suggest that affirming a moral identity leads people to feel licensed to act immorally. However, when moral identity is threatened, moral behavior is a means to regain some lost self-worth.

A long tradition in decision making assumes that people usually take a consequentialist perspective, which implies a focus on the outcomes only when making decisions. Such a view largely neglects the existence of a deontological perspective, which implies that people are sensitive to moral duties that require or prohibit certain behaviors, irrespective of the consequences. Similarly, recent research has also suggested that people holding “protected values” (PVs) show increased attention to acts versus omissions and less attention to outcomes. The present research investigates the role of deontological versus consequentialist modes of thought and of PVs on framing effects and act versus omission choices. In a modification of Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) risky choice framing paradigm, we manipulated the framing of the outcomes (positive, negative), as well as whether the certain outcome was associated with an act or inaction. The main results suggest that act versus omission tendencies are linked to deontological focus and PVs. Framing effects, on the other hand, are driven by a consequentialist focus. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does sharing moral values encourage people to connect and form communities? The importance of moral homophily (love of same) has been recognized by social scientists, but the types of moral similarities that drive this phenomenon are still unknown. Using both large-scale, observational social-media analyses and behavioral lab experiments, the authors investigated which types of moral similarities influence tie formations. Analysis of a corpus of over 700,000 tweets revealed that the distance between 2 people in a social-network can be predicted based on differences in the moral purity content-but not other moral content-of their messages. The authors replicated this finding by experimentally manipulating perceived moral difference (Study 2) and similarity (Study 3) in the lab and demonstrating that purity differences play a significant role in social distancing. These results indicate that social network processes reflect moral selection, and both online and offline differences in moral purity concerns are particularly predictive of social distance. This research is an attempt to study morality indirectly using an observational big-data study complemented with 2 confirmatory behavioral experiments carried out using traditional social-psychology methodology.

A growing body of evidence shows that cognitive processes in general, and causal cognition in particular, are variable across cultures (Choi et al., 1999; Norenzayan and Heine, 2005; Henrich et al., 2010). The majority of these findings are based on cross-cultural comparisons contrasting well-defined groups, with little explicit consideration of temporal change within those groups. While this strategy has undoubtedly proven successful, an important limitation is that it can implicitly lead to a view of cultures as stable entities and associated cognitive processes as essentialized. A prosaic illustration serves to introduce this idea. Suppose we hypothesize that smoking cigarettes and culture are closely related. We measure the number of cigarettes per capita and find that Chinese smoke more than Americans (Ng et al., 2014). If we collect time-series data, however, we might notice that had our measurements been taken in 2000, we would have found no cultural difference. Further, if our time-series had gone even further back to measurements taken in the 1980s, we would have found just the opposite pattern, such that Americans smoked more than the Chinese. Clearly, findings for cultural differences are of limited utility when they do not account for within-culture historical trends. Furthermore, theoretical explanations for cultural difference risk reifying an incomplete perspective if they take such results as indicative of some atemporal notion of “culture” itself. In this paper we argue for the need to develop methods of within-culture diachronic analysis as a necessary step for understanding the complex links between culture and cognition. We specifically focus on the link between culture and causal cognition, yet the argument is applicable to the field as a whole.

Much of the work on deontological and consequentialist moral choices assumes that these modes of decision making are rooted in individual differences or cognitive capacities. We examine the idea that whether a person focuses on actions or outcomes while making moral choices depends on the psychological distance from the moral situation. When the situation is perceived as far off, whether in time or space, consequentialist considerations loom larger. In the first four studies in this paper, we establish that psychological distance from an event decreases deontological judgments and increases consequentialist choices. This effect holds across two distinct paradigms. Finally, in Experiment 5 we use Construal Level Theory to suggest that deontology and consequentialist reasoning may be linked to how information is represented at near and far distances. This work implies that decision makers have several distinct strategies when making moral choices but the selection of those strategies is far from fixed, and may depend on factors such as psychological distance.

Harmful events often have a strong physical component—for instance, car accidents, plane crashes, fist fights, and military interventions. Yet there has been very little systematic work on the degree to which physical factors influence our moral judgments about harm. Since physical factors are related to our perception of causality, they should also influence our subsequent moral judgments. In three experiments, we tested this prediction, focusing in particular on the roles of motion and contact. In Experiment 1, we used abstract video stimuli and found that intervening on a harmful object was judged as being less bad than intervening directly on the victim, and that setting an object in motion was judged as being worse than redirecting an already moving object. Experiment 2 showed that participants were sensitive not only to the presence or absence of motion and contact, but also to the magnitudes and frequencies associated with these dimensions. Experiment 3 extended the findings from Experiment 1 to verbally presented moral dilemmas. These results suggest that domain-general processes play a larger role in moral cognition than is currently assumed.

There has been an upsurge of interest in moral decision making, which appears to have some distinctive properties. For example, some moral decisions are so strongly influenced by ideas about how sacred entities are to be treated, that they seem to be relatively insensitive to the costs and benefits entailed (e.g., “do not allow companies to pollute the earth for a fee, even if pollution credits reduce pollution”). One interpretation of such decisions is that sacred values motivate rigid decision processes that ignore outcomes. This, however, seems paradoxical in that those who are most offended by acts of pollution, for example, likely care more about pollution than others do. Our analysis of the literature on moral decision making (including our own studies) suggests a framework based on a “flexible view,” where both actions and outcomes are important, and where attentional processes are intimately involved in how the decision maker conceptualizes the problem, how actions and outcomes are weighted, and how protected values are translated into judgments. We argue that understanding the cognitive processes underlying morally motivated decision making offers one method for solving the puzzle of why such deeply entrenched commitments (the rigid view) vary widely in their expression across contexts (the flexible view).

Centuries' worth of cultural stories suggest that self-sacrifice may be a cornerstone of our moral concepts, yet this notion is largely absent from recent theories in moral psychology. For instance, in the footbridge version of the well-known trolley car problem the only way to save five people from a runaway trolley is to push a single man on the tracks. It is explicitly specified that the bystander cannot sacrifice himself because his weight is insufficient to stop the trolley. But imagine if this were not the case. Would people rather sacrifice themselves than push another? In Study 1, we find that people approve of self-sacrifice more than directly harming another person to achieve the same outcome. In Studies 2 and 3, we demonstrate that the effect is not broadly about sensitivity to self-cost, instead there is something unique about sacrificing the self. Important theoretical implications about agent-relativity and the role of causality in moral judgments are discussed.

Although mutually advantageous cooperative strategies might be an apt account of some societies, other moral systems might be needed among certain groups and contexts. In particular, in a duty-based moral system, people do not behave morally with an expectation for proportional reward, but rather, as a fulfillment of debt owed to others. In such systems, mutualistic motivations are not necessarily a key component of morality.

Some cardio-vascular diseases are still a therapeutic challenge. They cannot be treated only by surgeons or only by interventional cardiologists. These difficult cases need a combined team and combined procedure - so called "Hybrid procedure".

Целта на дисертационния труд е детайлно да бъдат изследвани и анализирани обективните и субективните признаци на съставите на чл. 123 и 134 НК, както и същността на т. нар. „професионална непредпазливост“, разкриваща поначало по-висока степен на вина в сравнение с обикновената. Дисертацията се състои от увод, три глави и заключение. В първа глава „Обективни признаци на съставите на чл. 123 и 134 НК“ се разглежда последователно дейността като източник на повишена опасност, нейната характеристика като правно регламентирана дейност, занятието по смисъла на чл. 123 и 134 НК, незнанието и немарливото изпълнение, изпълнителното деяние и престъпния резултат. В глава втора „Субективни признаци на съставите на чл. 123 и 134 НК“ се разглежда историческото развитие на термина „професионална непредпазливост“, същността на самия термин, а така също и приложимостта му към днешна дата. В глава трета „Теоретични проблеми на професионалната непредпазливост“ фокусът е поставен върху проблема за обективния критерий „длъжен да предвиди“ настъпването на общественоопасните последици и извеждането му от понятието за непредпазливостта. The dissertation aims to examine and analyze in detail the objective and subjective signs of the constituting elements of the crimes under Art. 123 and 134 of the Criminal Code (CC), as well as the nature of the so-called 'professional negligence', that reveals a higher degree of guilt compared to the basic negligence. The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion. In the first chapter "Objective signs of the constituting elements of the crimes under Art. 123 and 134 of the CC" the activity as a source of increased danger, its characteristic as a legally regulated activity, the occupation within the meaning of Art. 123 and 134 of the CC, ignorance and sloppy execution, executive act, and criminal outcome are successively studied. Chapter Two "Subjective signs of the constituting elements of the crimes under Art. 123 and 134 of the CC" examines the historical development of the term 'professional negligence', the nature of the term itself, and its applicability to date. In Chapter 3 'Theoretical problems of professional negligence', the focus is on the problem of the objective criterion 'obliged to foresee' the occurrence of societal dangerous effects and its removal from the concept of negligence.

Актуалността на дисертационното изследване се определя от съвременното състояние на изследвания в дисертацията въпрос – престъпленията против подчинеността и военната чест като част от наказателното право на Република България. Предметът на изследването включва като свои елементи съставите на отделните престъпления – неизпълнение и отказ да се изпълни заповед на началник, неизпълнение и отказ да се изпълни законно искане на военнодлъжностно лице, изразяване на явно недоволство против разпореждане или заповед на началник, заплашване на началник или военнодлъжностно лице, изпълняващо задължения по военна служба, съпротива или принуда по отношение на началник или военнодлъжностно лице, изпълняващо задължение по военната служба, насилствено действие по отношение на началник или военнодлъжностно лице, при или по повод изпълняване на задължение по военна служба, обида и клевета между военнослужещи и държавни служители от МВР, причиняване на леки телесни повреди на такива лица и нарушаване на уставните правила за взаимоотношенията между военнослужещите (военно хулиганство)., The actuality of the dissertation study is determined by the contemporary state of research in the dissertation question - crimes against subordination and military honor as part of the criminal law of the Republic of Bulgaria. The subject of the study includes as constituents of the individual crimes - failure to fulfill and refusal to execute a command of a chief, failure to fulfill and refusal to fulfill a legitimate request of a military official, expressing obvious discontent against ordering or ordering a boss, threatening a boss or a military official person serving military service, resistance or coercion in respect of a Chief of Staff or a military official performing a military service obligation, a Force Majeure (s) of a Chief of Staff or a military official in the event of, or in connection with, the performance of a military service obligation, insult and defamation between military and civil servants of the Ministry of Interior, causing minor bodily harm to such persons and violation of statutory rules on the relationship between military personnel (military hooliganism) .