Those Were the Best of Times,and Then…

ABSTRACT

Rachel T. Hare-Mustin describes a career of feminist activism in academic life, the professions, and clinical practice in the 1970s and 1980s. She has been an advocate for changes in professional ethics and improving conditions for women. Her primary areas of influence have involved applying feminist theory to the study of gender and pointing out that the sex role model of gender differences has an inherent bias that overlooks the gender hierarchy. Women’s voices are silenced, not only in the process of therapy, but in the wider society as well.     

Who Is the Sufferer and What Is Being Suffered? Subjectivity in Times of Social Malaise

This paper encourages clinicians to consider how patients’ conflicts and symptoms reveal not only familial etiology but the internalization of hegemonic structures and ideology. It explores how the subject evolves within the cultural matrix of neoliberalism, the contemporary hegemonic system that shapes unconscious fantasy, conflicts and defenses. Several clinical case vignettes illustrate the benefits to both analyst and patient of exploring within the transference and countertransference how neoliberal hierarchical arrangements of class, race and gender affect subjective and intersubjective experience.     

Visions of the Millennium: Hopi and Mayan Prophesies of the “End Times”

This article looks at Hopi prophesies (and to a lesser extent Mayan and Tibetan Buddhist prophesies) about major changes occurring in the world within the next few years. In examining such prophesies, we need to remember, as the Hopi do, that these prophesies tell us less about literal changes in the world around us than about symbolic changes occurring in consciousness. Prophetic literature of all cultures speaks in symbols whose primary purpose is to capture inner, not outer, change.

In a time of major transition, a time like today, we need to approach such prophetic literature as providing potential “containers” for our own new vision of reality. When something eternal in the human psyche speaks to us, the vehicle is not important. Something deep inside us can still experience symbols directly, without the need for intellectual interpretation. And, if prophetic material is psychologically true, questions of literal truth or falsity are immaterial. These prophesies offer not only an end, but also a new beginning.     

Which Time for Eschatology? Relativity Theory,Local and Cosmic Times,and the End of the Universe

The aim of this article is to formulate the theological notions of the end and fulfilment of the universe before the background of relativity theory and cosmology, in particular the lack of a global passage of time. It argues that the “arrow” of time is a local phenomenon, linked essentially to recording objects. On this basis, it makes the case that the notions of a common end of all local times and of a final, timeless state of the universe are viable independently of a global direction of time.     

A Material and Practical Account of Education in Digital Times: Neil Postman’s Views on Literacy and the Screen Revisited

In this article I deal with the impact of digitization on education by revisiting the ideas Neil Postman developed in regard with the omnipresence of screens in the American society of the 1980s and their impact on what it means to grow up and to become an educated person. Arguing, on the one hand, that traditionally education is profoundly related to the initiation into literacy, and on the other hand, that the screen may come to replace the book as the prevailing educational medium, Postman’s theses are worth reconsidering. Moreover I propose to develop further one strain of thought in Postman’s work, viz. the interconnectedness of technological inventions, material practices and ideas regarding what education is all about. As such I analyse in great detail the differences between traditional and digital literacy by looking from a material and practical perspective at how we relate to books and screens. This is not a normative analysis, but one that aims at fleshing out differences in spaces of experience. As such I wind up with suggestions regarding the affordances that a new form of literacy, no longer based on the model of the book, might bring about.     

Discussion of the Articles by Goodman,Schwartz and Aronson Panel Entitled “Are the Times Changing”

The authors ask what analysis would be like if Freud had started as a child analyst. They examine each of the presentations and suggest that each illustrates child techniques that can usefully be applied to work with adults with the goal of a unified “life cycle analysis.”     

Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United States

The current research investigated the hypothesis that, depending on an individual’s cultural background, facial cues in different parts of the face are weighted differently when interpreting emotions. Given that the eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth when people express emotions, we predicted that individuals in cultures where emotional subduction is the norm (such as Japan) would focus more strongly on the eyes than the mouth when interpreting others’ emotions. By contrast, we predicted that people in cultures where overt emotional expression is the norm (such as the US) would tend to interpret emotions based on the position of the mouth, because it is the most expressive part of the face. This hypothesis was confirmed in two studies, one using illustrated faces, and one using edited facial expressions from real people, in which emotional expressions in the eyes and mouth were independently manipulated. Implications for our understanding of cross-cultural psychology, as well of the psychology of emotional interpretation, are discussed.     

Fitts’ Theorem in Oculomotor Control: Dissociable Movement Times for Amplitude and Width Manipulations

The authors examined whether movement times (MT) for discrete saccades are constant given equivalent index of difficulty (ID) values (i.e., unitary nature of Fitts’ theorem). To that end, we contrasted ID/MT relations for saccades equated for ID but differing with respect to their target amplitudes and widths. Results showed that MT increased with increasing ID within amplitude and width conditions; however, the ID/MT slope was markedly steeper in the former condition. Thus, the amplitude condition imposed greater information processing demands than the width condition—a result indicating that the constituent elements of Fitts’ theorem are dissociable (i.e., nonunitary). Further, examination of saccade kinematics demonstrated that the optimal MT for a given target amplitude was largely independent of target width.     

Assessment of Li 利 in the Mencius and the Mozi

The attitude toward li 利 is often identified as a key difference between the Mencius 孟子 and the Mozi 墨子. A common view is that for the Mencius, rightness (yi 義) and li are incompatible; but for the Mozi they are not necessarily so. In this paper I argue that the Mencius and the Mozi are in broad agreement on the issue of li, and their attitudes toward li are not as different as may seem at first glance. If we take a finer-grained understanding of li in two ways, namely the self-regarding li and the other-regarding li, then both the Mencius and the Mozi would criticize the former but encourage the latter. The term li in the Mencius has a range of meanings, and it is not clear whether the Mencius actually opposes all li-pursuing activities. Mencius would agree with Mozi that, at least in some cases, one is obligated to seek li for others. Furthermore, despite their criticism of self-regarding li, both Mencius and Mozi allow that in some cases it is morally permissible to act from the motive of self-regarding li, as long as this motive coexists with the motive of rightness. That is, self-regarding li and rightness are not always mutually exclusive, even for Mencius, who seems to be more critical of li.     

The Amazing Life and Times of Oliva Espín

ABSTRACT

Oliva Espín is a prolific feminist and multicultural writer and psychologist who has significantly contributed to feminist therapy throughout her career. This biographical article highlights her many contributions to feminism, feminist psychology, and humankind.     

Motivated reasoning in the prediction of sports outcomes and the belief in the “hot hand”

The present paper explores the role of motivation to observe a certain outcome in people’s predictions, causal attributions, and beliefs about a streak of binary outcomes (basketball scoring shots). In two studies we found that positive streaks (points scored by the participants’ favourite team) lead participants to predict the streak’s continuation (belief in the hot hand), but negative streaks lead to predictions of its end (gambler’s fallacy). More importantly, these wishful predictions are supported by strategic attributions and beliefs about how and why a streak might unfold. Results suggest that the effect of motivation on predictions is mediated by a serial path via causal attributions to the teams at play and belief in the hot hand.     

Do Students with Different Characteristics Take Part in Psychology Experiments at Different Times of the Semester?

ABSTRACT In this study we examined 15 personality and demographic differences between psychology students who took part in experiments at different times of the semester and different times of the day. In general, few significant relations were found and those that did emerge were small in magnitude. Females and freshmen signed up for experiments earlier in the semester. Females took part in their first experiment earlier in the semester, as did students who were Protestant and who came from smaller home towns. Students low in self-consciousness also tended to begin participating earlier. Extraverts participated earlier in the day than introverts. Results generally were consistent with previous findings of differences between research volunteers and non-volunteers. However, it was concluded that because of their small magnitude and inconsistency from site to site, with a few precautions experimenters probably need not be concerned that timing effects threaten the external validity of psychological research outcomes.     

Trauma and Aggression in the DSM–5

Psychological trauma, stress, childhood abuse, neglect, and loss are mentioned as important features or risk factors for mental disorders in 15 out of 19 sections of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-5]). This means that, according to the DSM–5, trauma and stress are relevant themes throughout the mental health field, not solely an area of subspecialty. Despite the recognition of the widespread role of trauma and stress in the DSM–5, there are inconsistencies in the discussion of trauma, including its relationship to anger and aggression, that should be corrected in future editions of the manual.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

Building on entries written for Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, this article explores Christian–Muslim relations in China and Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The first half of the article considers Christian–Muslim relations amongst the Japanese in and outside Japan. Direct, indirect and potential interactions and contemporaneous commentaries are explored in order to build a picture of the sort of Christian–Muslim interactions that took place. However, due to the sparsity of sources, this section seeks more to develop and open potential avenues of enquiry than to provide definitive answers. The second section focuses on Christian–Muslim interactions in the work of Matteo Ricci and suggests that Christian–Muslim interactions in East Asia generally, and in China more specifically, were significant not only to the Jesuit mission itself, but also to the shaping of European knowledge of the East.     

Organization and work of missionaries in the Middle‐Volga in the second half of the nineteenth century

The missionary effort of the Orthodox Church in the Middle‐Volga—a region conquered by Russia in the sixteenth century and inhabited by an ethnically heterogeneous population practising Islam or a variety of indigenous religions—had led to the formation of important communities of converts. But until the nineteenth century, the church made essentially no effort to educate the converts in the meaning and content of the Orthodox faith and movements of apostasy were frequent. In the mid‐nineteenth century, an outstanding group of missionaries, concerned about the spread of Islam among the nominally Christian communities, began to deploy an important activity to enlighten converts in the Orthodox faith. Their methods—evangelization, education, and propaganda in native languages—were novel and radical. Concerned with the defence of nominally Christian populations against Muslim influences, anti‐Muslim activity was an important aspect of work of the missionaries. Missionaries developed a substantial anti‐Islamic literature and used their considerable influence to harm the Muslims culturally and politically. The legacy of the missionary experience contributed to the continuing distrust between Russians and indigenous peoples.     

“Pleasure and Joy in the Work”: Using Simone Weil in the Classroom

Richard Rorty once wrote that inspired teaching “is the result of an encounter with an author, character, plot, stanza, line or archaic torso which has made a difference to the [teacher’s] conception of who she is, what she is good for, what she wants to do with herself: an encounter which has rearranged her priorities and purposes.” In a teaching career more than three decades long, no author has influenced me more profoundly as a teacher and as a human being than Simone Weil. She has changed how I think about myself, my relationships, the world around me and ultimately about what transcends me. And this could not help but change how I am in the classroom. This essay is a reflection on how Simone Weil has changed my life, both in and out of the classroom.     

Mental powers and the soul in Kant’s Subjective Deduction and the Second Paralogism

Kant’s claim in the Subjective Deduction that we have multiple fundamental mental powers appears to be susceptible to some a priori metaphysical arguments made against multiple fundamental mental powers by Christian Wolff who held that these powers would violate the unity of thought and entail that the soul is an extended composite. I argue, however, that in the Second Paralogism and his lectures on metaphysics, Kant provides arguments that overcome these objections by showing that it is possible that a composite could ground the unity of thought, that properties are powers and therefore the soul could possess multiple powers, and the soul is a thing in itself so it cannot be an extended composite. These arguments lend additional support to the attribution of multiple mental powers to us in the Subjective Deduction.     

A Review of: “Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond. By Patricia J. Bauer.”

Patricia Bauer's impressive book, Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond, traces the development of autobiographical memory from infancy to adulthood. Drawing on a variety of different lines of evidence, ranging from brain development to cognitive development, this book reviews the fundamental questions (e.g., why do we remember so little about early childhood?) and proposes some provocative answers. Both experts and novices will have much to gain from this volume.