The role of social cognition in decision making

Successful decision making in a social setting depends on our ability to understand the intentions, emotions and beliefs of others. The mirror system allows us to understand other people's motor actions and action intentions. ‘Empathy’ allows us to understand and share emotions and sensations with others. ‘Theory of mind’ allows us to understand more abstract concepts such as beliefs or wishes in others. In all these cases, evidence has accumulated that we use the specific neural networks engaged in processing mental states in ourselves to understand the same mental states in others. However, the magnitude of the brain activity in these shared networks is modulated by contextual appraisal of the situation or the other person. An important feature of decision making in a social setting concerns the interaction of reason and emotion. We consider four domains where such interactions occur: our sense of fairness, altruistic punishment, trust and framing effects. In these cases, social motivations and emotions compete with each other, while higher-level control processes modulate the interactions of these low-level biases

Affecting qualitative health psychology

The ‘affective turn’ is a contemporary movement within the humanities, social science and psychology to investigate affect, emotion and feeling as hybrid phenomena jointly constituted from both biological and social influences. Health and illness are themselves jointly constituted in this way, and many of the topics, concerns and methods of health psychology are strongly permeated by affective phenomena. Qualitative research in health psychology might therefore benefit by engaging with this work. This paper describes some features of the affective turn, and suggests theories, terminology and methods that might be useful

Cultural constructions of happiness: theory and emprical evidence

In a review of recent cross-cultural evidence on happiness and well-being, the authors identified substantial cultural variations in (1) cultural meanings of happiness, (2) motivations underlying happiness, and (3) predictors of happiness. Specifically, in North American cultural contexts, happiness tends to be defined in terms of personal achievement. Individuals engaging in these cultures are motivated to maximize the experience of positive affect. Moreover, happiness is best predicted by self-esteem. In contrast, in East Asian cultural contexts, happiness tends to be defined in terms of interpersonal connectedness. Individuals engaging in these cultures are motivated to maintain a balance between positive and negative affects. Moreover, happiness is best predicted by perceived embeddedness of the self in a social relationship. Directions for future research are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43061/1/10902_2004_Article_5278785.pd

Culture in Conversation: A Commentary on Pontecorvo and Fasulo’s ‘Planning a Typical Italian Meal’

This commentary identifies respects in which the theories of culture adopted in the culture and self and sociocultural traditions of cultural psychology are each constrained, in part, by their psychologically grounded research agendas. While tapping non-rational and thematic aspects of culture, research on culture and the self provides only limited insight into its dynamic and heterogeneous nature and into processes of enculturation. In turn, while capturing the fluid and complex nature of cultural systems, sociocultural work neglects its non-rational and thematic aspects. In both traditions, relatively little attention is given to power. The discourse analysis of family interaction undertaken by Pontecorvo and Fasulo (1999) is shown to overcome many of these limitations. Treating culture as an integrated, complex system which is integral to human interaction, their approach captures processes of cultural creation and change as well as power relations. In conclusion, it is argued that there is a need for greater cross-fertilization of ideas across the diverse traditions of research in culture and psychology, while respecting their distinctive insights and agendas.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67530/2/10.1177_1354067X9954005.pd

‘Use Your Words:’ Reconsidering the Language of Conflict in the Early Years

This article explores the nature of classroom conflict as language practice. The authors describe the enactment of conflict events in one kindergarten classroom and analyze the events in order to identify the language practices teachers use, considering teachers\u27 desires for language use in relation to conflict and exploring the nature of the interplay between what is said to be desired and the implicit messages of the lived experience of conflict. The authors describe the nature of conflict events as apology ritual and suggest that this practice is reflective of a way of framing conflict as destructive, illustrating the way in which the notion of ‘using words\u27 situates the language of conflict as a conflict resolution convention. They argue that there are complex and contradictory underlying assumptions at play in conflict events and position them within larger school discipline and developmentally appropriate practice discourses. Finally, they close the article with a consideration of alternative perspectives on classroom conflict events