Theologies from Africa,Asia and Latin America,including Black Theology: a Bibliography

During the last few years the library of the Ecumenical Centre, in line with its worldwide acquisition policy, has added to its collection many works by theologians from Africa, Asia and Latin America. A consultation of several such theologians took place recently in Geneva. Prominent at the Vancouver Assembly were theologians speaking out of their own context. This is therefore an appropriate moment for rendering a service to theological professors and students in the realm of contextual theology. All the titles indicated in the bibliography are available in the library and can be borrowed.     

Kant on Social Justice: Poverty,Dependence, and Depersonification

The main purpose of this article is to bring into relief the difficulties faced by generous interpretations of the Kantian problem of poverty and to propose an alternative interpretation which (a) agrees with some generous interpretations that Kant's juridical treatment of poverty is to be understood by analogy with his juridical treatment of slavery, but which (b) departs from generous interpretations in general by arguing that this analogy is not to be understood in terms of “dependence” as such, but in terms of “depersonification.” More specifically, it argues that what makes slavery and poverty unjust for Kant is not that they entail a human being finding herself (completely) dependent on the choice of another human being, but that they entail a human being being deprived of her juridical personality. The Kantian problem of poverty is ultimately a problem of juridical depersonification, and this problem of juridical depersonification does not arise in all (complete) dependence relations.     

Predicting Substance Use from Religiosity/Spirituality in Individuals with Cystic Fibrosis

Journal of Religion and Health - Religiosity and spirituality predict lower alcohol and other substance use in community samples of adolescents and adults. However, the roles of religiosity and...     

Psychometric Properties and Factor Structure of the French Version of the Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS) in Non-Clinical Adults

Behavioral activation (BA) is a well-established empirical treatment for depression that aims to improve depressive mood by increasing activation and reducing avoidance. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate activation and avoidance when a BA treatment is applied. The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS) was developed to measure the changes in activation and avoidance over the course of BA treatment of depression. This study aims to validate the French version of this scale. In a first study, 131 bilingual adults were recruited to explored internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity of the final French version. In a second study, 409 non-clinical adults completed an online survey assessing concurrent measures. Results of the first study suggested good internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity. The second study revealed a confirmatory factor analysis supporting the original four-factor structure, with Activation, Avoidance/Rumination, Work/School Impairment, and Social Impairment subscales. Results also revealed that a 5-factor model distinguishing Behavioral Avoidance and Rumination had a better fit than the original four-factor structure. All subscales showed adequate internal consistency and good construct validity with evidence of convergent validity with depressive symptoms, brooding, psychological flexibility, negative automatic thought, behavioral inhibition and activation system. Furthermore, the French BADS total scale and subscales showed a good ability to predict depressive symptoms. The French version of the BADS appears to be a reliable tool for clinician and researchers to assess mechanisms of change in BA interventions.     

Emotional face recognition in autism and in cerebral visual impairments: In search for specificity

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in the social domain, but also by hyper- and hypo-reactivity. Atypical visual behaviours and processing have often been observed. Nevertheless, several similar signs are also identified in other clinical conditions including cerebral visual impairments (CVI). In the present study, we investigated emotional face categorization in groups of children with ASD and CVI by comparing each group to typically developing individuals (TD) in two tasks. Stimuli were either non-filtered or filtered by low- and high-spatial frequencies (LSF and HSF). All participants completed the autism spectrum quotient score (AQ) and a complete neurovisual evaluation. The results show that while both clinical groups presented difficulties in the emotional face recognition tasks and atypical processing of filtered stimuli, they did not differ from one another. Additionally, autistic traits were observed in the CVI group and symmetrically, some visual disturbances were present in the ASD group as measured via the AQ score and a neurovisual evaluation, respectively. The present study suggests the relevance of comparing ASD to CVI by showing that emotional face categorization difficulties should not be solely considered as autism-specific but merit investigation for potential dysfunction of the visual processing neural network. These results are of interest in both clinical and research perspectives, indicating that systematic visual examination is warranted for individuals with ASD.     

Is there an effect of handedness on the position of the egocentric reference?

Forty normal subjects (20 left-handed; 20 right-handed) were submitted to a proprioceptive straight ahead pointing task while blindfolded to study the effect of the hand used and of the hand preference on the estimation of the subjective sagittal middle. Results showed that left-handed and right-handed subjects both deviated to the left of the objective sagittal middle and presented an effect of the hand used and of the starting point affecting their straight ahead performance in a similar way. In all subjects whatever their manual preference, using the left hand and starting 30 degrees to left induced a tendency to deviate to the same side, whereas using the right hand and starting 30 degrees to right induced a tendency to place the subjective middle to the right of the objective middle. These results are interpreted with regard to the hypothesis of a cortical control of the position of the egocentric reference.     

Choosing or Being Chosen by Aggressive–Disruptive Peers: Do They Contribute to Children's Externalizing and Internalizing Problems?

The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which aggressive-disruptive peers contribute to the development of externalizing and internalizing problems in children, while controlling for children's own behavior. We examined 2 sets of peers: (1) those that the child nominated as friends, and (2) those that nominated the child as a friend. The participants were 236 boys and girls attending 3rd to 5th grade at the beginning of the study, who were followed over a period of 2 years. Results showed that choosing more aggressive peers on the nomination procedure was associated with more externalizing problems and self-reported depressive symptomatology over time. On the other hand, being liked by more aggressive children generally was not associated with elevated externalizing or internalizing problems.     

Time and number discrimination in a bisection task with a sequence of stimuli: a developmental approach

Children, aged 5 and 8 years, and adults were tested in a bisection task with a sequence of stimuli in which time and number co-varied. In a counting and a non-counting condition, they were instructed either to process the duration of this sequence while ignoring the number of stimuli (temporal bisection), or to process the number of stimuli while ignoring the duration (numerical bisection). In the temporal bisection task, number interfered with the 5-year-olds' temporal performance, indicating that young children did not process time and number independently in a sequence of stimuli when they had to attend to duration. However, number interference decreased both with age and counting strategy. In contrast, in the numerical bisection task, duration did not interfere with numerical discrimination for any age group.     

Is the optimal viewing position in reading influenced by familiarity of the letter string?

An optimal viewing position (OVP) for word recognition has been proposed by several authors. The location of this position would be located at the center of the word or just left of it. Several hypotheses ranging from perceptual to hemispheric factors have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. In the experiment presented here, the effect of the nature of the stimulus was tested: word, pseudo-word, or nonword on the existence and location of this position. Little research has investigated this issue. Five-letter words, pseudo-words, and non-words were presented, with the subject fixating initially on one of the five possible letter positions. The number of letters correctly identified and reading performance were recorded for each stimulus. Results show that an initial fixation on the third letter entails better letter identification for all kinds of stimuli. However, in terms of reading, only word reading benefit from a fixation on the third letter. These results are discussed in relation to the different hypotheses of OVP in reading. These are (1) hemispheric specialization, (2) reading habits, and (3) lexical constraints.