Assuming the best حسن الظن

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱجۡتَنِبُواْ كَثِيرࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعۡضَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِثۡمࣱۖ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُواْ وَلَا يَغۡتَب بَّعۡضُكُم بَعۡضًاۚ أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمۡ أَن يَأۡكُلَ لَحۡمَ أَخِيهِ مَيۡتࣰ ا فَكَرِهۡتُمُوهُۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ‏

Believers, avoid making too many assumptions- some assumptions are sinful- and do not spy on one another or speak ill of people behind their backs: would any of you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother? No, you would hate it. So be mindful of God: God is ever relenting, most merciful

وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ أَكۡثَرُهُمۡ إِلَّا ظَنًّاۚ إِنَّ ٱلظَّنَّ لَا يُغۡنِي مِنَ ٱلۡحَقِّ شَيۡـًٔاۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمُۢ بِمَا يَفۡعَلُونَ

Most of them follow nothing but assumptions, but assumptions can be of no value at all against the Truth: God is well aware of what they do

أَلَآ إِنَّ لِلَّهِ مَن فِي ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَمَن فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِۗ وَمَا يَتَّبِعُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَدۡعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ شُرَكَآءَۚ إِن يَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا ٱلظَّنَّ وَإِنۡ هُمۡ إِلَّا يَخۡرُصُونَ

indeed, all who are in the heavens and on the earth belong to Him. Those who call upon others beside God are not really following partner-gods; they are only following assumptions and telling lies

وَقَوۡلِهِمۡ إِنَّا قَتَلۡنَا ٱلۡمَسِيحَ عِيسَى ٱبۡنَ مَرۡيَمَ رَسُولَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمۡۚ وَإِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱخۡتَلَفُواْ فِيهِ لَفِي شَكࣲّ مِّنۡهُۚ مَا لَهُم بِهِۦ مِنۡ عِلۡمٍ إِلَّا ٱتِّبَاعَ ٱلظَّنِّۚ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِينَۢا

and said, ‘We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of God.’ (They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: they certainly did not kill him)

وَإِن تُطِعۡ أَكۡثَرَ مَن فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ يُضِلُّوكَ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِۚ إِن يَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا ٱلظَّنَّ وَإِنۡ هُمۡ إِلَّا يَخۡرُصُونَ

If you obeyed most of those on earth, they would lead you away from the path of God. They follow nothing but speculation; they are merely guessing

سَيَقُولُ ٱلَّذِينَ أَشۡرَكُواْ لَوۡ شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ مَآ أَشۡرَكۡنَا وَلَآ ءَابَآؤُنَا وَلَا حَرَّمۡنَا مِن شَيۡءࣲۚ كَذَٰلِكَ كَذَّبَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِهِمۡ حَتَّىٰ ذَاقُواْ بَأۡسَنَاۗ قُلۡ هَلۡ عِندَكُم مِّنۡ عِلۡمࣲ فَتُخۡرِجُوهُ لَنَآۖ إِن تَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا ٱلظَّنَّ وَإِنۡ أَنتُمۡ إِلَّا تَخۡرُصُونَ

The idolaters will say, ‘If God had willed, we would not have ascribed partners to Him- nor would our fathers- or have declared anything forbidden.’ In the same way, those before them continually denied [the truth] until they tasted Our punishment. Say, ‘Have you any knowledge that you can show us? You follow only supposition and tell only lies.’

O you who believe shun much suspicion. Indeed some suspicions are sins that is to say it causes one to fall into sin. This suspicion may have many forms such as thinking ill of the good folk from among the believers — and such good folk are many — in contrast to the immoral individuals among them in whose case there is no sin so long as it the suspicion is in accordance with their outward behaviour. And do not spy tajassasū one of the two tā’ letters of tatajassasū has been omitted do not pursue the imperfections and faults of Muslims by searching them out; nor backbite one another do not speak of him by mentioning something which he is averse to having mentioned of himself even if it be true. Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his brother dead? read maytan or mayyitan. That is to say it would not be right for him to do so. You would abhor it. Thus to backbite him in life would be

O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion; indeed some suspicion is sin. And spy not, neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it. And have Taqwa of Allah. Verily, Allah is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful (12) The Prohibition of Unfounded Suspicion Allah the Exalted forbids His faithful servants from being suspicious, which includes having doubts and suspicions about the conduct of one's family, relatives and other people in general. Therefore, Muslims are to avoid suspicion without foundation. The Leader of the faithful 'Umar bin Al-Khattab said, "Never think ill of the word that comes out of your believing brother's mouth, as long as you can find a good excuse for it." Malik recorded that Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, said that Allah's Messenger ﷺ said, إِيَّاكُمْ وَالظَّنَّ فَإِ

Wert thou to obey most of those in the earth, they would misguide thee from the path of God. In terms of number, God's delegates are few, but they have weight and gravity. The folk of false- hood are many, but they have no weight or meaning. For a world of metaphor, one iota of reality is enough. For a world of foolishness and falsehood, one breath of the lords of finding is enough. One swat of the Lion for a world full of carrion-eaters, one blast of the Trumpet for a hundred thousand Pharaoh-natures! [DS 184] “O MuḤammad! If you see them in terms of number and manyness, they will throw you into trouble. If you seek to get along with them, they will hold you back from the Real. Obey Our command, and turn away from them. So shout out what thou art commanded, and turn away from the associaters” [15:94].

And for their saying boastfully ‘We slew the Messiah Jesus son of Mary the Messenger of God’ as they claim in other words for all of these reasons We have punished them. God exalted be He says in repudiating their claim to have killed him And yet they did not slay him nor did they crucify him but he the one slain and crucified who was an associate of theirs the Jews was given the resemblance of Jesus. In other words God cast his Jesus’s likeness to him and so they thought it was him Jesus. And those who disagree concerning him that is concerning Jesus are surely in doubt regarding the slaying of him for some of them said when they saw the slain man the face is that of Jesus but the body is not his and so it is not he; and others said no it is he. They do not have any knowledge of the slaying of him only the pursuit of conjecture illā ittibā‘a l-zann is a discontinuous exception in other

If you obey most of those on earth that is the disbelievers they will lead you astray from the way of God from His religion; they follow only supposition when they dispute with you concerning the status of carrion saying ‘What God has killed is more worthy of your consumption than what you kill yourselves!’; they are merely guessing speaking falsehood in this matter.

Because of their breaking the covenant, and their rejecting the Ayat of Allah, and their killing the Prophets unjustly, and their saying: "Our hearts are Ghulf," nay, Allah has set a seal upon their hearts because of their disbelief, so they believe not but a little (155)And because of their disbelief and uttering against Maryam a grave false charge (156)And because of their saying, "We killed Al-Masih 'Isa, son of Maryam, the Messenger of Allah," but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but it appeared as that to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no (certain) knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not (157)But Allah raised him up unto Himself. And Allah is Ever All-Powerful, All-Wise (158)And there is none of the People of the Scripture, but must believe in him, before his death. And on the Day of Resurrection, he wil

وَحَدَّثَنِي إِبْرَاهِيمُ بْنُ مُوسَى الرَّازِيُّ، حَدَّثَنَا عِيسَى، - يَعْنِي ابْنَ يُونُسَ - حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الْحَمِيدِ بْنُ جَعْفَرٍ، عَنْ عِمْرَانَ بْنِ أَبِي أَنَسٍ، عَنْ عُمَرَ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏"‏ لاَ يَفْرَكْ مُؤْمِنٌ مُؤْمِنَةً إِنْ كَرِهَ مِنْهَا خُلُقًا رَضِيَ مِنْهَا آخَرَ ‏"‏ ‏.‏ أَوْ قَالَ ‏"‏ غَيْرَهُ ‏"‏ ‏.‏

Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying:A believing man should not hate a believing woman; if he dislikes one of her characteristics, he will be pleased with another

حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو كُرَيْبٍ، حَدَّثَنَا وَكِيعٌ، عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ بُرْقَانَ، عَنْ يَزِيدَ بْنِ الأَصَمِّ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ "‏ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَقُولُ أَنَا عِنْدَ ظَنِّ عَبْدِي فِيَّ وَأَنَا مَعَهُ إِذَا دَعَانِي ‏"‏ ‏.‏ قَالَ أَبُو عِيسَى هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ ‏.‏

Abu Hurairah narrated that the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) said:"Indeed Allah Most High says: 'I am as My slave thinks of Me, and I am with him when He calls upon Me

حَدَّثَنَا بِشْرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ، أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ، أَخْبَرَنَا مَعْمَرٌ، عَنْ هَمَّامِ بْنِ مُنَبِّهٍ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ ‏ "‏ إِيَّاكُمْ وَالظَّنَّ، فَإِنَّ الظَّنَّ أَكْذَبُ الْحَدِيثِ، وَلاَ تَحَسَّسُوا، وَلاَ تَجَسَّسُوا، وَلاَ تَحَاسَدُوا، وَلاَ تَدَابَرُوا، وَلاَ تَبَاغَضُوا، وَكُونُوا عِبَادَ اللَّهِ إِخْوَانًا ‏"‏‏.‏

Narrated Abu Huraira:The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the others' faults and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert (cut your relation with) one another, and do not hate one another; and O Allah's worshipers! Be brothers (as Allah has ordered you)

حَدَّثَنَا حَفْصُ بْنُ عُمَرَ، حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ رَاشِدٍ، حَدَّثَنَا سُلَيْمَانُ بْنُ مُوسَى، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ شُعَيْبٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنْ جَدِّهِ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم رَدَّ شَهَادَةَ الْخَائِنِ وَالْخَائِنَةِ وَذِي الْغِمْرِ عَلَى أَخِيهِ وَرَدَّ شَهَادَةَ الْقَانِعِ لأَهْلِ الْبَيْتِ وَأَجَازَهَا لِغَيْرِهِمْ ‏.‏ قَالَ أَبُو دَاوُدَ الْغِمْرُ الْحِنَةُ وَالشَّحْنَاءُ وَالْقَانِعُ الأَجِيرُ التَّابِعُ مِثْلُ الأَجِيرِ الْخَاصِّ ‏.‏

Amr bin Shu'aib on his father's authority told that his grandfather said:The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) rejected the testimony of a deceitful man and woman, of one who harbours rancour against his brother, and he rejected the testimony of one who is dependent on a family, and he allowed his testimony for other. Abu Dawud said: Ghimr means malice and enimity ; qani (dependant), a subordinate servant like a special servant

حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ مَسْلَمَةَ، عَنْ مَالِكٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ أَنَسِ بْنِ مَالِكٍ، أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ ‏ "‏ لاَ تَبَاغَضُوا وَلاَ تَحَاسَدُوا وَلاَ تَدَابَرُوا وَكُونُوا عِبَادَ اللَّهِ إِخْوَانًا وَلاَ يَحِلُّ لِمُسْلِمٍ أَنْ يَهْجُرَ أَخَاهُ فَوْقَ ثَلاَثِ لَيَالٍ ‏"‏ ‏.‏

Anas b. Malik reported the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) as saying:Do not hate each other; do not envy each other; do not desert each other; and be the servants of Allah as brethren. It is not allowed for a Muslim to keep apart from his brother for more than three days

حَدَّثَنَا أَحْمَدُ بْنُ سِنَانٍ، حَدَّثَنَا كَثِيرُ بْنُ هِشَامٍ، حَدَّثَنَا جَعْفَرُ بْنُ بُرْقَانَ، حَدَّثَنَا يَزِيدُ بْنُ الأَصَمِّ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، رَفَعَهُ إِلَى النَّبِيِّ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ ‏ "‏ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لاَ يَنْظُرُ إِلَى صُوَرِكُمْ وَأَمْوَالِكُمْ وَلَكِنْ إِنَّمَا يَنْظُرُ إِلَى أَعْمَالِكُمْ وَقُلُوبِكُمْ ‏"‏ ‏.‏

It was narrated that Abu Hurairah, who attributed it to the Prophet (ﷺ), said:“Allah does not look at your forms or your wealth, rather He looks at your deeds and your hearts.”

وأما سوء الظن بالنفس فإنما احتاج إليه لأن حسن الظن بالنفس يمنع من كمال التفتيش ويلبس عليه فيرى المساوىء محاسن والعيوب كمالا فإن المحب يرى مساوىء محبوبه وعيوبه كذلك

وأنشدني عبد العزيز بن سليمان % تجود بالمال على وارث % ولا ترى أهلا له نفسكا % % قدم حسن الظن بالله من % جاد وسوء الظن من أمسكا % $

وفي ذلك أنشدني الأبرش % وحسن الظن يحسن في أمور % ويمكن في عواقبه ندامه % وسوء الظن يسمج في وجوه % وفيه من سماجته حزامه % $

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Trust, variability in relationship evaluations, and relationship processes.

Little is known about why some people experience greater temporal fluctuations of relationship perceptions over short periods of time, or how these fluctuations within individuals are associated with relational processes that can destabilize relationships. Two studies were conducted to address these questions. In Study 1, long-term dating partners completed a 14-day diary study that assessed each partner's daily partner and relationship perceptions. Following the diary phase, each couple was videotaped trying to resolve the most important unresolved problem from the diary period. As predicted, (a) individuals who trusted their partners less reported greater variability in perceptions of relationship quality across the diary period; (b) they also perceived daily relationship-based conflict as a relatively more negative experience; and (c) greater variability in relationship perceptions pr…

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Are worry, rumination, and post-event processing one and the same? Development of the repetitive thinking questionnaire.

Accumulating evidence suggests that repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a transdiagnostic phenomenon. However, various forms of RNT such as worry, rumination, and post-event processing have been assessed using separate measures and have almost exclusively been examined within the anxiety, depression, and social phobia literatures, respectively. A single transdiagnostic measure of RNT would facilitate the identification of transdiagnostic maintaining factors of RNT, and would be more efficient than administering separate measures for each disorder. Items from three existing measures of RNT were modified to remove diagnosis-specific content and administered to a sample of undergraduate students (N=284). Exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors labeled Repetitive Negative Thinking and Absence of Repetitive Thinking (ART). The RNT scale demonstrated high internal reliability and was…

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Influence of different positive emotions on persuasion processing: a functional evolutionary approach.

Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce emotions and assess processing, we showed that the positive emotions of anticipatory enthusiasm, amusement, and attachment love tended to facilitate greater acceptance of weak persuasive messages (consistent with previous research), whereas the positive emotions of awe and nurturant love reduced persuasion by weak messages. In addition, a series of mediation analyses suggested that the effects distinguishing different positive emotions from a neutr…

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When "don't worry" communicates fear: Children's perceptions of parental reassurance and distraction during a painful medical procedure.

Children's distress during painful medical procedures is strongly influenced by adult behavior. Adult reassurance (e.g., "it's okay") is associated with increased child distress whereas distraction is associated with increased child coping. It is unknown why reassurance shows this counterintuitive relationship with child distress. The present research investigated whether children perceive their parents as fearful when they reassure using complementary observational and experimental methodologies. One hundred children (40 boys, 60 girls) 5-10years old (M=8.02, SD=1.69) and their parents (86 mothers, 14 fathers) participated. First, spontaneous parent-child interactions during pediatric venipuncture were captured and used for a video-mediated recall task in which the children viewed instances of parental reassurance and distraction and rated their parents' fear and happiness. Second, the …

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Neural correlates of using distancing to regulate emotional responses to social situations.

Cognitive reappraisal is a commonly used and highly adaptive strategy for emotion regulation that has been studied in healthy volunteers. Most studies to date have focused on forms of reappraisal that involve reinterpreting the meaning of stimuli and have intermixed social and non-social emotional stimuli. Here we examined the neural correlates of the regulation of negative emotion elicited by social situations using a less studied form of reappraisal known as distancing. Whole brain fMRI data were obtained as participants viewed aversive and neutral social scenes with instructions to either simply look at and respond naturally to the images or to downregulate their emotional responses by distancing. Three key findings were obtained accompanied with the reduced aversive response behaviorally. First, across both instruction types, aversive social images activated the amygdala. Second, acr…

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The envious brain: the neural basis of social comparison.

Humans have a drive to evaluate themselves by examining their abilities and outcomes in comparison to others. The present study examined the emotional and neural correlates of upward social comparison (comparison with those who have more) and downward social comparison (comparison with those who have less). Two experiments were conducted with volunteers in an interactive game of chance, in which a putative player won or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that even when participants lost money, they expressed joy and schadenfreude (gloating) if the other player had lost more money. On the other hand when they actually won money, but the other player had won more they expressed envy. This pattern was also demonstrated in a differential BOLD response in the ventral striatum. Comparing the activations between an actual gain and a relative gain indicated that even when a…

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Neural circuitry of emotional face processing in autism spectrum disorders.

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with severe impairments in social functioning. Because faces provide nonverbal cues that support social interactions, many studies of ASD have examined neural structures that process faces, including the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex and superior and middle temporal gyri. However, increases or decreases in activation are often contingent on the cognitive task. Specifically, the cognitive domain of attention influences group differences in brain activation. We investigated brain function abnormalities in participants with ASD using a task that monitored attention bias to emotional faces. Methods: Twenty-four participants (12 with ASD, 12 controls) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study while performing an attention cuing task with emotional (happy, sad, angry) and neutral faces. Results: In response to …

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Perceiving others' personalities: examining the dimensionality, assumed similarity to the self, and stability of perceiver effects.

In interpersonal perception, "perceiver effects" are tendencies of perceivers to see other people in a particular way. Two studies of naturalistic interactions examined perceiver effects for personality traits: seeing a typical other as sympathetic or quarrelsome, responsible or careless, and so forth. Several basic questions were addressed. First, are perceiver effects organized as a global evaluative halo, or do perceptions of different traits vary in distinct ways? Second, does assumed similarity (as evidenced by self-perceiver correlations) reflect broad evaluative consistency or trait-specific content? Third, are perceiver effects a manifestation of stable beliefs about the generalized other, or do they form in specific contexts as group-specific stereotypes? Findings indicated that perceiver effects were better described by a differentiated, multidimensional structure with both tra…

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Counterfactual thinking and emotions: regret and envy learning.

Emotions like regret and envy share a common origin: they are motivated by the counterfactual thinking of what would have happened had we made a different choice. When we contemplate the outcome of a choice we made, we may use the information on the outcome of a choice we did not make. Regret is the purely private comparison between two choices that we could have taken, envy adds to this the information on outcome of choices of others. However, envy has a distinct social component, in that it adds the change in the social ranking that follows a difference in the outcomes. We study the theoretical foundation and the experimental test of this view.

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Amygdala damage affects event-related potentials for fearful faces at specific time windows.

The amygdala is known to influence processing of threat-related stimuli in distant brain regions, including visual cortex. The time-course of these distant influences is unknown, although this information is important for resolving debates over likely pathways mediating an apparent rapidity in emotional processing. To address this, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to seen fearful face expressions, in preoperative patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy who had varying degrees of amygdala pathology, plus healthy volunteers. We found that amygdala damage diminished ERPs for fearful versus neutral faces within the P1 time-range, approximately 100-150 ms, and for a later component at approximately 500-600 ms. Individual severity of amygdala damage determined the magnitude of both these effects, consistent with a causal amygdala role. By contrast, amygdala damage did not affect…

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"It's not just the judgements--It's that I don't know": intolerance of uncertainty as a predictor of social anxiety.

Interest in the role of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) - the tendency for a person to consider the possibility of a negative event occurring as unacceptable and threatening irrespective of the probability of its occurrence - in anxiety disorders has been increasing in recent research. IU has been implicated as an important construct associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); however, a growing body of research suggests that levels of IU are also high among individuals with other anxiety disorders. Despite the increasing interest, few studies have examined the relationship between IU and social anxiety (SA). The purpose of the present investigation was to further investigate the relationship between IU and SA. Participants included 286 community members (71% women) from Canada who completed measures of IU, SA, anxiety sensitivity, and fear of negative evaluation (FNE). Regressio…

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Perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy moderate the impact of maltreatment on aggression.

This study examined the moderating influence of positive neighborhood factors such as social cohesion and informal social control (collective efficacy), on the relationship between child maltreatment and aggressive behavior at age 12. Caregiver (N = 861) and youth (N = 823) dyads were interviewed when youth were aged 12 as part of a longitudinal study of child abuse and neglect (LONGSCAN). Caregivers and youth provided reports of youth externalizing behaviors while caregivers provided perceptions of collective efficacy. Child Protective Services records and youth's self-report of abuse experiences provided information on history of maltreatment. Multivariate analyses examined the moderating effect of collective efficacy on the influence of child abuse and neglect on youth externalizing behaviors. Neighborhood factors did moderate the association between earlier neglect and aggression at …

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A qualitative study of perceived social barriers to care for eating disorders: perspectives from ethnically diverse health care consumers.

Objective: The study aim was to identify and describe health consumer perspectives on social barriers to care for eating disorders in an ethnically diverse sample. Method: We conducted an exploratory secondary analysis of qualitative data comprising transcripts from semi-structured interviews with past and prospective consumers of eating disorder treatment (n = 32). Transcripts were inputted into NVivo 8 for coding, sorting, and quantifying thematic content of interest within strata defined by ethnic minority and non-minority participants. We then examined the influence of key social barriers-including stigma and social stereotypes-on perceived impact on care. Results: The majority of respondents (78%) endorsed at least one social barrier to care for an eating or weight concern. Perceived stigma (or shame) and social stereotyping-identified both within social networks and among clinician…

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Neural mechanisms underlying changes in stress-sensitivity across the menstrual cycle.

Hormonal fluctuations across the menstrual cycle are thought to play a central role in premenstrual mood symptoms. In agreement, fluctuations in gonadal hormone levels affect brain processes in regions involved in emotion regulation. Recent findings, however, implicate psychological stress as a potential mediating factor and thus, we investigated whether effects of moderate psychological stress on relevant brain regions interact with menstrual cycle phase. Twenty-eight healthy women were tested in a crossover design with menstrual cycle phase (late luteal versus late follicular) and stress (stress induction versus control) as within-subject factors. After stress induction (or control), we probed neural responses to facial expressions using fMRI. During the late luteal phase, negative affect was highest and the stress-induced increase in heart rate was mildly augmented. fMRI data of the c…

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Salivary testosterone and a trinucleotide (CAG) length polymorphism in the androgen receptor gene predict amygdala reactivity in men.

In studies employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), reactivity of the amygdala to threat-related sensory cues (viz., facial displays of negative emotion) has been found to correlate positively with interindividual variability in testosterone levels of women and young men and to increase on acute administration of exogenous testosterone. Many of the biological actions of testosterone are mediated by intracellular androgen receptors (ARs), which exert transcriptional control of androgen-dependent genes and are expressed in various regions of the brain, including the amygdala. Transactivation potential of the AR decreases (yielding relative androgen insensitivity) with expansion a polyglutamine stretch in the N-terminal domain of the AR protein, as encoded by a trinucleotide (CAG) repeat polymorphism in exon 1 of the X-chromosome AR gene. Here we examined whether amygdala rea…

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The neural bases of distraction and reappraisal.

Distraction and reappraisal are two commonly used forms of cognitive emotion regulation. Functional neuroimaging studies have shown that each one depends upon interactions between pFC, interpreted as implementing cognitive control, and limbic regions, interpreted as mediating emotional responses. However, no study has directly compared distraction with reappraisal, and it remains unclear whether they draw upon different neural mechanisms and have different emotional consequences. The present fMRI study compared distraction and reappraisal and found both similarities and differences between the two forms of emotion regulation. Both resulted in decreased negative affect, decreased activation in the amygdala, and increased activation in prefrontal and cingulate regions. Relative to distraction, reappraisal led to greater decreases in negative affect and to greater increases in a network of …

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Altruism as a courtship display: some effects of third-party generosity on audience perceptions.

Public generosity may be a means to convincingly advertise one's good character. This hypothesis suggests that altruistic individuals will be desirable as romantic partners. Few studies have tested this prediction, and these showed mixed results. Some studies have found that altruism is not particularly attractive; other studies showed that altruism is attractive by contrasting descriptions of 'nice guys' with 'jerks'. The present study sought to resolve this debate by having participants read a series of experimentally manipulated vignettes of persons with corresponding photographs, such that altruistic vignettes were compared with control descriptions that differed only in the presence or absence of small hints of altruistic tendencies. Altruists were more desirable for long-term relationships than neutral individuals. Women also preferred altruists for single dates whereas men had no …

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Investigating the role of attachment in social comparison theories of eating disorders within a non-clinical female population.

Objective: The present study aimed to integrate attachment theory and sociocultural theory as predictors of disordered eating, thereby combining two previously distinct literatures in order to provide a more comprehensive model of eating disorder development. It was specifically proposed that women's attachment style may influence their tendency to socially compare themselves to idealized others. Method: Participants (N = 213) were non-clinical female undergraduates. Sociocultural attitudes to appearance, social comparison, attachment and eating disorder symptomatology were assessed using self-report questionnaires. Results: Consistent with the hypothesis, social comparison was found to mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and disordered eating. In addition, attachment avoidance, was not significantly associated with either internalisation of cultural ideals or social comp…

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Should we manage terror--if we could?

Terror Management Theory (TMT) has been revitalizing the traditional study of death anxiety since its introduction in the 1980s. Melding the perspectives of existential philosophy and social science, TMT has stimulated a varied and often creative program of empirical studies. There are methodological limitations to be noted, however, along with a cultural bias, and the neglect of other significant encounters with death in which terror is not the dominant concern. The should or should-not of terror management is viewed from functionalistic and death system as well as TMT perspectives. Suggestions are offered for adaptive responses to primal terror.

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