Why don't they just let it go?

Discrepancies between what children expect about physical causality (indexed by looking time) and how they act on that knowledge have led to criticisms of claims about what infants "know." Baillargeon [Baillargeon, R. (1999). Young infants' expectations about hidden objects: A reply to three challenges. Developmental Science, 2, 115-163] advocates examining more tasks before revising views of early cognitive development. We report another discrepancy which suggests an additional indicator of what is salient for preverbal infants. While examining the Uzgiris-Hunt test performances of 40 children (26 females), 7.6-26.9-months-old, infants appeared captivated by the bouncing of a small rubber ball. However, most infants reproduced the motion of the bounce event itself, repeatedly hitting the ball against the table, rather than the experimenter's action (dropping). Comparing performances of those who did and did not imitate the drop, two possibly interrelated interpretations remained consistent with the data: infants perform goal-directed imitation of interesting phenomena, perhaps because they believe they must apply force to make them happen.     

Why teach ethics in science and engineering?

The following views were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Seminar “Teaching Ethics in Science and Engineering”, 10–11 February 1993 organized by Stephanie J. Bird (M.I.T.), Penny J. Gilmer (Florida State University) and Terrell W. Bynum (Southern Connecticut State University). Opragen Publications thanks the AAAS, seminar organizers and authors for permission to publish extracts from the conference. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of AAAS or its Board of Directors.     

Listening or telling? Thoughts on responsiblity in clinical ethics consultation

This article reviews the historical and current controversies about the nature of clinical ethics consultation, as a way to focus on the place and responsibility of ethics consultants within the context of clinical conversation — interpreted as a form of dialogue. These matters are approached through a particularly compelling instance of the controversy that involves several major figures in the field. The analysis serves to highlight very significant questions of the nature and constraints of clinical situations, and the moral responsibility and legal accountability that are especially important for clinical ethics consultants.     

Why don't health professionals check patient understanding? A questionnaire-based study

Checking patient understanding, by asking questions about information presented in a medical consultation, is a core communication skill but its use is not frequently assessed. The newborn hearing screening commenced in England with a pilot of its implementation in January 2002. Because it is a new screening test, it provided an opportunity for studying the effective communication of novel information. A randomized controlled trial of training newborn hearing screeners to present information about the screening test and to ask questions to check understanding was commenced but had to be prematurely ended as the majority of the screeners did not ask the questions. The aim of this study was to understand why the screeners did not ask questions to check understanding of the information provided. Questionnaires were sent to screeners who participated in the study to elicit their responses to the use of the questions to check understanding. A response rate of 87% (26/30) was achieved. Screeners who reported not asking the questions were more likely to express a lack of confidence in their ability to ask questions, and to perceive asking questions as an ineffective way of increasing patient understanding. The study suggests that the ability and willingness of healthcare professionals to use simple communication skills may have been overestimated and training needs to target skills as well as beliefs about the effectiveness of using them.     

Development ethics – Why? What? How? A formulation of the field

The paper assesses the rationale, contributions, structure, and challenges of the field of development ethics. Processes of social and economic transformation involve great risks and costs and great opportunities for gain, but the benefits, costs, and risks are typically hugely unevenly and inequitably distributed, as is participation in specifying what they are and their relative importance. The ethics of development examines the benefits, costs, risks, formulations, participation, and options. The paper outlines a series of ways of characterizing such work, arguments for and against its importance, and some of its major sources and contributions, especially from the interdisciplinary stream of work represented over several decades by Denis Goulet. Definitions are diverse since the work covers many different intersections of practice and theorizing, at multiple levels. The paper considers and replies to arguments against discussing development ethics: the claim that it involves only endless proliferation of different opinions, is an expensive luxury that undermines long-run development, is superfluous if one already works with the capability approach or the human rights tradition, or never has influence. Finally, it presents suggestions for how development ethics thinking can have increased impact, with reference to incorporation in policy analysis and planning methods, professional codes and training, and to its intellectual location and communication strategies. The field should articulate the methodological pragmatism which much of it has adopted, consistent with its required role as a practice-oriented interdisciplinary meeting ground.     

Why don't our institutes teach the methodology of clinical psychoanalytic evidence?

One of the most pressing theoretical, therapeutic, and educational problems confronting the advance of psychoanalysis is our confusion about the nature of clinical evidence. There is considerable disagreement among psychoanalysts about how to define evidence. Recently, there has also been a growing tendency toward evidential nihilism, justified by some of the more radical constructivist-narrative views of postmodern epistemology. Two surveys, conducted ten years apart, of all the psychoanalytic institutes recognized by the American Psychoanalytic Association, indicate a continuing and disturbing neglect of this topic in the curricula of our institutes. This paper reports the views of a number of psychoanalytic educators who participated in these surveys and is intended to stimulate discussion about the causes of this critical problem.     

Why don't they stay at home? Prejudices against ethnic minorities in Italy

This study was conducted in Bologna, Italy, to analyse attitudes concerning ethnic minorities and emotions experienced in intergroup relations. Stereotypes of North African immigrants were investigated as a function of 'geographical' proximity with black people (living in the neighbourhood of black immigrants versus living in districts without immigrants) and origin (natives of Bologna versus residents who moved from Southern Italy to Bologna). It was predicted that the most positive stereotypes would be found among natives of Bologna living in the same neighbourhoods as North Africans, while the most negative prejudices would occur among the South Italians who do not live in the same districts as black people. Results indicate that neighbourhood has a central importance but effects of respondents' origins are more mixed.     

Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility

Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.