How schoolchildren’s acceptance of self and others relate to their attitudes to victims of bullying

Previous research has indicated that harm to the mental health of children who are repeatedly victimised by their peers at school can be ameliorated through social or emotional support provided by other students. In this study we examined whether student provictim attitudes are related to more basic attitudes to self and attitudes to others. Measures of these attitudes were developed for use with children, and shown to be internally consistent and possess concurrent validity. Relations between these variables were then examined with a sample of Australian school children ( $N = 212$ ) aged between 9 and 14 years. Provictim attitudes correlated significantly ( $r = .55$ ) with acceptance of others, but not with acceptance of self ( $r = -.04$ ). Controlling for age and gender, multiple regression analyses confirmed these findings. Attitudes to victims were less positive for older students ( $r = -.22$ ). Gender differences, however, were not significant. These findings suggest that among schoolchildren self-acceptance is unrelated to positive attitudes towards victims, whereas acceptance of others has a moderately strong relation with provictim attitude. Implications for improving attitudes to victims among school children were examined.     

Right to Die or Duty to Live? The Problem of Euthanasia

Argument about euthanasia in Australia intensified following the world's first legal euthanasia death of Bob Dent under the Northern Territory's short-lived Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995. This paper takes stock of the implacably opposed positions on euthanasia following Bob Dent's death, which provides a focus for the controversy, and identifies the key doctrines which separate adversaries in the euthanasia debate and their associated incommensurable intuitions.     

How Do Elements of a Reduced Capacity to Withstand Uncertainty Relate to the Severity of Health Anxiety?

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU)—a multidimensional cognitive vulnerability factor—is associated with a variety of anxiety disorders and health anxiety (HA). To date, few studies have assessed whether IU dimensions (prospective and inhibitory IU) are differentially associated with HA and whether their contributions are independent of anxiety sensitivity (AS). This study addressed these issues using independent community (n = 155; 81% women) and undergraduate (n = 560; 86% women) samples. Results indicated that prospective IU, but not inhibitory IU, had significant positive associations with HA in community dwellers and undergraduate students. AS somatic and cognitive concerns were also significant predictors among both samples. In addition, severity of IU dimensions among individuals reporting elevated HA were compared against individuals diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive–compulsive disorder. Results indicated minimal differences between those with elevated HA and each of the anxiety disorder diagnoses. Findings lend support to the unique transdiagnostic nature of IU and support commonalities between HA and anxiety disorders.     

Response to Commentators of “A Critique of Positive Responsibility”

It has been claimed that (1) computer professionals should be held responsible for an undisclosed list of “undesirable events” associated with their work and (2) most if not all computer disasters can be avoided by truly understanding responsibility. Commentators of “A Critique of Positive Responsibility in Computing” argue that this is not Donald Gotterbarn’s view (Gotterbarn, JSEE 14(2):235–239, 2008) but that a critique of the view nevertheless raises significant moral issues within computing such as the ethical goals of a computing profession, the appropriate ethical stance toward bugs, and the public good with respect to computing (Miller, JSEE 14(2):245–249, 2008). Commentators also argue that “A Critique”’s “profitable misreading” demonstrates the “moral ecology” of organizations “dedicated narrowly to financial success” and that other “moral ecologies” that are customer or quality driven can be shown to be more important or preeminent (Huff, JSEE 14(2):241–244, 2008). It is argued here that (1) the hyper-inflated reading of Gotterbarn’s and Ladd’s views on positive responsibility persists despite Gotterbarn’s explicit rejection of it, and that (2) such a reading of positive responsibility cannot be placed within a single moral ecology, nor can a single moral ecology be shown to be any more important or preeminent than others. Stieb, J. A. (2008). A critique of positive responsibility in computing. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14(2), 219–233.     

Does Barbie make girls want to be thin? The effect of experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of 5- to 8-year-old girls

The ubiquitous Barbie doll was examined in the present study as a possible cause for young girls' body dissatisfaction. A total of 162 girls, from age 5 to age 8, were exposed to images of either Barbie dolls, Emme dolls (U.S. size 16), or no dolls (baseline control) and then completed assessments of body image. Girls exposed to Barbie reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than girls in the other exposure conditions. However, this immediate negative impact of Barbie doll was no longer evident in the oldest girls. These findings imply that, even if dolls cease to function as aspirational role models for older girls, early exposure to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling.     

Is speed of information processing related to fluid or to crystallized intelligence?

Speed of information processing was examined in relation to the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Sixty sixth grade children completed the Standard Progressive Matrices test and the Mill Hill Vocabulary scale, both untimed, as measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence, and three RT tasks: Memory Scanning, Picture Identification, and Sentence-Picture Comparison. As predicted, RT parameters, with the exception of slope on two tasks, were negatively correlated with scores on both tests. There were no consistent differences between the two tests in the size of correlations with RT, and partial correlations, eliminating the effects of fluid and crystallized intelligence respectively, failed to support any causal relationship between fluid and crystallized intelligence in either direction. Some limitations of the research, specifically in the possible effect of error rates on the speed-intelligence relationship, and in the application to individuals of task parameters derived from group performance, are noted.     

How to relax and how not to relax: A re-evaluation of the work of Edmund Jacobson—I

Jacobson's method of progressive relaxation is contrasted with modified techniques that emphasize suggestion, brevity and the feeling of large contrasts between tension and relaxation. The experimental literature is reviewed, and suggests that the modifications may have been premature. The psychophysiological effects of suggestion are weaker than those of progressive relaxation. Tape-recorded instruction appears to be completely ineffective as a method for teaching relaxation as a skill that can be used across situations. Live training contributes more than simple feedback to Ss. Its effectiveness may lie in individualized adaptation of training technique. EMG biofeedback makes taped training more-effective, but contributes nothing to intensive live training. Despite its greater length, Jacobson's original technique is preferred to the modified techniques, particularly for cases where psychophysiological effects are important. Length of training does not, by itself, appear to be a critical factor.     

Survey of Confucius’s Approach to Expediency

Confucius held that expediency means adjusting to changing circumstances, not necessarily going along with or against anything, having a sense of propriety about times and measures, and doing things in their proper time and manner. However, expediency does not mean doing whatever one likes without any principle; instead, it means taking benevolence and righteousness as criteria and acting accordingly. In Confucius’s opinion, one should cultivate benevolence internally and act with righteousness externally, weigh importance and unimportance, measure advantages and disadvantages, and not “set the mind either for anything, or against anything,” pursuing “what the heart desires, without transgressing what is right.” In this way, he would keep to benevolence without deviating from it, act expediently without despising any principles, and attain a dialectical unification of expediency and principles.     

Back to the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale: Time to Reconsider?

Abstract

The Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Scale is a measure of the extent to which individuals consider and are influenced by the distant outcomes of current behavior. In this study, the authors conducted factor analysis to investigate the factor structure of the 12-item CFC Scale. The authors found evidence for a multiple factor solution including one completely present-oriented factor consisting of all 7 present-oriented items, and one or two future-oriented factors consisting of the remaining future-oriented items. Further evidence indicated that the present-oriented factor and the 12-item CFC Scale perform similarly in terms of internal consistency and convergent validity. The structure and content of the future-oriented factor(s) is unclear. From the findings, the authors raise questions regarding the construct validity of the CFC Scale, the interpretation of its results, and the usefulness of the CFC scale in its current form in applied research.     

Comments to ‘logics of public communications’

Take your average publication on the dynamics of knowledge. In one of its first paragraphs you will probably encounter a phrase like “a logic of public announcements was first proposed by Plaza in 1989 (Plaza 1989).” Tracking down this publication seems easy, because googling its title ‘Logics of Public Communications’ takes you straight to Jan Plaza’s website where it is online available in the author’s own version, including, on that page, very helpful and full bibliographic references to the proceedings in which it originally appeared. Those proceedings are then somewhat harder to find. In fact, I have never seen them. Unfortunately, for the research community, Plaza’s work has never been followed up by a journal version. I am very grateful to the editor Wiebe van der Hoek of the journal ‘Knowledge, Rationality, and Action’ to correct this omission. Plaza’s work is reprinted as such, without an update encompassing more than fifteen additional years of research in this area. This commentary aims to provide some background to bridge that gap. This is a commentary on Jan Plaza’s ‘Logics of Public Communications’, reprinted in this same issue.     

The Reduction(?) of Thermodynamics to Statistical Mechanics

Philosophical Studies -     

Evidence of a metacognitive benefit to memory?

Studies of the memory-control framework have contrasted free-report and forced-report recall, with little regard to the order of these two tests. The present experiment sought to demonstrate that test order is crucial, and that this suggests a potential role for metacognitive monitoring on memory retrieval. Participants undertook tests of episodic and semantic memory in both free- and forced-report format, in one of the two potential response orders. This showed that free-report performance was more accurate if conducted prior to forced-report, rather than after it, with no cost to memory quantity. Additionally, there was a trend towards higher forced-report performance if it was preceded by an initial free-report test, a pattern revealed by a meta-analysis to be consistent with previous studies in the literature. These findings suggest a reciprocal relationship between metacognitive monitoring and early retrieval processes in memory that results in higher memory performance when monitoring is encouraged.     

Use of an analogue method to examine children’s appraisals of threat and emotion in response to stressful events

An analogue methodology was used to present a set of realistic, salient stressors to children in grades 3, 5, and 7. Children (N = 146) viewed eight videotaped vignettes depicting interpersonal and non-interpersonal stressors; these were expected to differentially threaten psychological needs for relatedness, competence and autonomy and provoke different emotional reactions. Analyses showed that scenarios portrayed stressors that were commonly experienced by children and evoked a differentiated profile of appraisals and emotions. When tenets of the motivational theory of stress and coping were tested, scenarios more threatening to needs were more distressing, sadness was linked to relatedness and competence threat appraisals, and fear was a more common reaction to parent stressors that involved dyadic conflict. After accounting for threat appraisals and previous experience of stressors, younger children and girls appraised events as more distressing than older children and boys. Future research could use the analogue procedure to focus on children’s development of regulation and coping with stress.     

Reconfiguration of task-set: Is it easier to switch to the weaker task?

Switching between two tasks afforded by the same stimuli results in slower reactions and more errors on the first stimulus after the task changes. This “switch cost” is reduced, but not usually eliminated, by the opportunity to prepare for a task switch. While there is agreement that this preparation effect indexes a control process performed before the stimulus, the “residual” cost has been attributed to several sources: to a control process essential for task-set reconfiguration that can be carried out only after the stimulus onset, to probabilistic failure to engage in preparation prior to the stimulus, and to two kinds of priming from previous trials: positive priming of the now-irrelevant task set and inhibition of the now-relevant task-set. The main evidence for the carry-over of inhibition is the observation that it is easier to switch from the stronger to the weaker of a pair of tasks afforded by the stimulus than vice versa. We survey available data on interactions between task switching and three manipulations of relative task strength: pre-experimental experience, stimulus-response compatibility, and intra-experimental practice. We conclude that it is far from universally true that it is easier to switch to the weaker task. Either inhibition of the stronger task-set is a strategy used only in the special case of extreme inequality in strength, or its consequences for later performance may be masked by slower post-stimulus control operations for more complex tasks. Inhibitory priming may also be stimulus specific. Received: 31 March 1999 / Accepted: 23 July 1999     

Pharmacotherapy to Blunt Memories of Sexual Violence: What's a Feminist to Think?

It has recently been discovered that propranolol—a beta‐blocker traditionally used to treat cardiac arrhythmias and hypertension—might disrupt the formation of the emotionally disturbing memories that typically occur in the wake of traumatic events and consequently prevent the onset of trauma‐induced psychological injuries such as Post‐traumatic Stress Disorder. One context in which the use of propranolol is generating interest in both the popular and scientific press is sexual violence. Nevertheless, feminists have so far not weighed in on propranolol. I suggest that the time is ripe for a careful feminist analysis of the moral and political implications of propranolol use in the context of sexual violence. In this paper, I map the feminist issues potentially raised by providing propranolol to victims of sexual assault, focusing in particular on the compatibility of propranolol use and availability with an understanding of the social and systematic dimensions of rape's harms. I do not deliver a final verdict on propranolol; in fact, I show that we do not yet have enough information about propranolol's effects to do so. Rather, I provide a feminist framework for evaluating the possibilities and perils opened up by therapeutic memory manipulation in the context of sexual violence against women.     

How long to get to the “gist” of real-world natural scenes?

This study aimed at assessing the processing time of a natural scene in a fast categorization task of its context or “gist”. In Experiment 1, human subjects performed 4 go/no-go categorization tasks in succession with colour pictures of real-world scenes belonging to 2 natural categories: “Sea” and “mountain”, and 2 artificial categories: “Indoor” and “urban”. Experiment 2 used colour and grey-level scenes in the same tasks to assess the role of colour cues on performance. Pictures were flashed for 26 ms. Both experiments showed that the gist of real-world scenes can be extracted with high accuracy (>90%), short median RT (400-460 ms) and early responses triggered with latencies as short as 260-300 ms. Natural scenes were processed faster than artificial scenes. Categories for which colour could have a diagnostic value were processed faster in colour than in grey. Finally, processing speed is compared for scene and object categorization tasks.