The emotion of surprise entails a complex of immediate responses, such as cognitive interruption, attention allocation to, and more systematic processing of the surprising stimulus. All these processes serve the ultimate function to increase processing depth and thus cognitively master the surprising stimulus. The present account introduces phasic negative affect as the underlying mechanism responsible for this switch in operating mode. Surprising stimuli are schema-discrepant and thus entail cognitive disfluency, which elicits immediate negative affect. This affect in turn works like (...) a phasic cognitive tuning switching the current processing mode from more automatic and heuristic to more systematic and reflective processing. Directly testing the initial elicitation of negative affect by surprising events, the present experiment presented high and low surprising neutral trivia statements to N = 28 participants while assessing their spontaneous facial expressions via facial electromyography. High compared to low surprising trivia elicited higher corrugator activity, indicative of negative affect and mental effort, while leaving zygomaticus (positive affect) and frontalis (cultural surprise expression) activity unaffected. Future research shall investigate the mediating role of negative affect in eliciting surprise-related outcomes. (shrink)

In intuitions concerning semantic coherence participants are able to discriminate above chance whether a word triad has a common remote associate or not . These intuitions are driven by increased fluency in processing coherent triads compared to incoherent triads, which in turn triggers a brief and short positive affect. The present work investigates which of these internal cues, fluency or positive affect, is the actual cue underlying coherence intuitions. In Experiment 1, participants liked coherent word triads more than incoherent triads, (...) but did not rate them as being more fluent in processing. In Experiment 2, participants could intuitively detect coherence when they misattributed fluency to an external source, but lost this intuitive ability when they misattributed affect. It is concluded that the coherence-induced fluency by itself is not consciously experienced and not used in the coherence intuitions, but the fluency-triggered affective consequences. (shrink)

The results of three experiments suggest that pre-existing mood increases the intensity of affectively congruent emotions while dampening the intensity of incongruent emotions independent of attributional knowledge. This result was obtained using a new method for inducing mood states unobtrusively and with minimal or no cognitive concomitants. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that for participants who were exposed to positive feedback a pre-existing positive mood led to stronger feelings of pride in comparison to negative mood. The results of Experiments (...) 2 and 3 suggest that pre-existing mood directly influences the experience of subsequently elicited emotions independent of what one knows about the causes of this feeling. When participants were required to differentiate between the funniness of a cartoon and their subjective humour response, mood influenced only the latter judgement (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, reminding participants of the mood induction resulted in a contrast effect in judging the funniness of a cartoon. However, the pre-existing mood continued to exert an assimilation effect on the overt mirth response. In conclusion, these results suggest that the feeling and knowledge component are partly independent bases of emotional responses. (shrink)

Ainslie's account of willpower addresses many important mechanisms. We argue that a model of willpower should be grounded in general psychological principles and with a primary focus on their interplay. We discuss the reflective-impulsive model that covers willpower and impulsiveness as special constellations of processes that govern various forms of cognition and behavior.

Lee and Schwarz suggest grounded procedures of separation as a mechanism for embodied cleansing. We compare this process to other mechanisms in grounded cognition and suggest a broader conceptualization that allows integration into general cognitive models of social behavior. Specifically, separation will be understood as a mindset of completed avoidance resulting in high abstraction and openness to new experiences.

This paper presents a challenge to conciliationist views of disagreement. I argue that conciliationists cannot satisfactorily explain why we need not revise our beliefs in response to certain moral disagreements. Conciliationists can attempt to meet this challenge in one of two ways. First, they can individuate disputes narrowly. This allows them to argue that we have dispute-independent reason to distrust our opponents’ moral judgment. This approach threatens to license objectionable dogmatism. It also inappropriately gives deep epistemic significance to superficial questions (...) about how to think about the subject matter of a dispute. Second, conciliationists can individuate disputes widely. This allows them to argue that we lack dispute-independent reason to trust our opponents’ moral judgment. But such arguments fail; our background of generally shared moral beliefs gives us good reason to trust the moral judgment of our opponents, even after we set quite a bit of our reasoning aside. On either approach, then, conciliationists should acknowledge that we have dispute-independent reason to trust the judgment of those who reject our moral beliefs. Given a conciliationist view of disagreement’s epistemic role, this has the unattractive result that we are epistemically required to revise some of our most intuitively secure moral beliefs. (shrink)

We are currently seeing a revival of interest in Aquinas's moral thought among Christian ethicists, both Protestant and Catholic. Although recent studies of his moral thought have touched on a number of topics, the majority of these have focused on his account of the virtues and their place in the Christian life. Probing the questions of the relation of virtue and law, the role of reason and will, and the place of the passions in Aquinas's moral theology, I will examine (...) recent studies by Diana Cates, Pamela Hall, Simon Harak, James Keenan, Daniel Nelson, Daniel Westberg, and Paul Waddell. In different ways these studies return us repeatedly to the vexed and unresolved question of the scope of human freedom. (shrink)

Whilst previous studies indicate perceived company ethicality as a driver of job seekers’ job-pursuit intentions, it is poorly understood how and why ethical market signals actually affect their application decisions. Perceptions of company ethicality result from market signals that are either within the control of the company and from market signals that are beyond the company’s control. Building on communication and information processing theories, this study therefore considers both types of ethical market signals, and examines the psychological mechanisms through which (...) they affect job seekers’ intention to apply for a job. The results from a controlled online experiment show that both types of ethical market signals increase job seekers’ job-pursuit intentions. These relationships are mediated by applicants’ attitude towards the job advertisement, their perceptions of corporate employment image and self-referencing. Consequently, the present study alerts practitioners to consider the effects of company-controlled and non-company-controlled ethical market signals, particularly when aiming to recruit highly-qualified millennial candidates. (shrink)

The world provides us with an ocean of opportunities for fitting emotion. But we are beings with limited emotional resources, so missed opportunities are common. This chapter argues that these failures to take up fitting emotions are very frequently unfitting in their own right—so frequently, in fact, that most of us lead lives replete with unfitting absences of emotion. It begins by showing that, whenever an emotion can be unfitting in virtue of being too weak, the absence of that emotion (...) can also be unfitting, and for just the same reason. But emotional responses to a host of everyday objects—a funny joke, a nasty insult, and so on—can be unfittingly weak. This means that failures to respond emotionally to an enormous host of everyday objects are similarly unfitting. (shrink)

Malebranche affirmed the existence of the material world on the grounds of faith rather than reason. Religious dogma demanded the existence of the material world and Malebranche, the priest, acquiesced. Reason found the existence of the material world doubtful and, indeed, unnecessary. The existence of a material world different from and apart from minds conflicts with the proof of the economy of God's nature which Malebranche offered. Further, in inquiring into the probable nature of the material world Malebranche never successfully (...) avoided the conclusion that apart from a mind the material world is nothing. Malebranche thus came close to proving that the assumption of a material world is unnecessary even for theology, but the explicit statement of such a conclusion would have been too open a break with the church for a faithful member. Surely, however, the weight of Malebranche's reasoning and its implications for immaterialism would not be lost on one already interested in arguments against materialism. Berkeley's interest was such and Luce has shown that Berkeley read Malebranche carefully. Malebranche was the only thinker clearly inclining toward immaterialism whom Berkeley read. Is Malebranche, then, not the source of Berkeley's immaterialism? (shrink)

Two-dimensional semantics is a theory in the philosophy of language that provides an account of meaning which is sensitive to the distinction between necessity and apriority. Usually, this theory is presented in an informal manner. In this thesis, I take first steps in formalizing it, and use the formalization to present some considerations in favor of two-dimensional semantics. To do so, I define a semantics for a propositional modal logic with operators for the modalities of necessity, actuality, and apriority that (...) captures the relevant ideas of two-dimensional semantics. I use this to show that some criticisms of two-dimensional semantics that claim that the theory is incoherent are not justified. I also axiomatize the logic, and compare it to the most important proposals in the literature that define similar logics. To indicate that two-dimensional semantics is a plausible semantic theory, I give an argument that shows that all theorems of the logic can be philosophically justified independently of two-dimensional semantics. (shrink)

Avantgarde in Halle: The Invention of Aesthetics and the Aestheticization of Christianity. The foundation of scholarly aesthetics by the Halle philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier in the middle of the 18th century took place within a milieu that was shaped by both pietism and the Enlightenment. Martin Fritz demonstrates that aesthetics in Halle itself can be considered a synthesis of pietism and Enlightenment ideas. The sensualization of basic Christian concepts is of eminent relevance for these aesthetics, (...) in order to reinvent the pietistic striving for intensive religious experiences through such „aestheticization.“ The romantic idea of „Kunstreligion“, which continues to be significant in cultural life today, is also based on this programmatic notion of aestheticization. Building on this historical background, this article’s concluding systematic considerations argue for a theological revaluation of pertinent contemporary cultural phenomena. (shrink)

Places is a Features column presenting descriptions of and reports on major research institutes in biology. Previous articles have dealt with, amongst other institutions, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, the John Innes Institute, and the Department of Embryology of the Carnegie Institute. In the following article, Irving B. Fritz reviews the history and present program of one of Canada's outstanding institutions, the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research of the University of (...) Toronto. (shrink)