CONTEXTUALISM AND SCEPTICISM: EVEN-HANDEDNESS, FACTIVITY AND SURREPTITIOUSLY RAISING STANDARDS

The central contentions of this paper are two: first, that contextualism about knowledge cannot fulfil the eirenic promise which, for those who are drawn to it, constitutes, I believe, its main attraction; secondly, that the basic diagnosis of epistemological scepticism as somehow entrapping us, by diverting attention from a surreptitious shift to a special rarefied intellectual context, rests on inattention to the details of the principal sceptical paradoxes. These contentions are consistent with knowledge-contextualism, of some stripe or other, being true. What follows will not bear directly on that.     

RAISING DARWIN'S CONSCIOUSNESS: FEMALES AND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Abstract Early studies of primate social behavior were distorted by observational, methodological, and ideological biases that caused researchers to overlook active roles played by females in the social lives of monkeys. Primatology provides a particularly well documented case illustrating why research programs in the social and natural sciences need multiple studies that enlist researchers from diverse backgrounds     

RAISING MALE PRIVILEGE AWARENESS AND REDUCING SEXISM: AN EVALUATION OF DIVERSITY COURSES

Research examining the impact of women's studies courses provides evidence of student changes such as greater agreement with feminist and egalitarian attitudes, lower prejudice against women, and increased activism. Using a pre- and posttest design, the current studies assess students' awareness of male privilege, prejudice against women, support for affirmative action, and identification as feminist following courses with and without gender content. In Study 1, students taking a course entitled Psychology of Race and Gender completed identical surveys during the first and last weeks of the semester. Study 2 included students in Psychology of Women, Introduction to Women's Studies, and courses not addressing gender. Participants in diversity and women's studies courses in both studies exhibited more male privilege awareness and support for affirmative action at the end of the semester compared to pretest. However, the change in women's studies students' support for affirmative action and sexism levels was not significantly different from students in comparison courses. Women's studies students completed their courses with greater self-identification with feminism in contrast to non–women's studies students.     

CONDUCTING NONSEXIST RESEARCH, PREVENTION, AND TREATMENT WITH FATHERS AND MOTHERS:

In published research and in unpublished doctoral dissertation research, fathers are underrepresented in the investigation of child and family functioning. A number of possible explanations for this underrepresentation are discussed, including researchers'use of sexist theories that either directly or indirectly result in mother blaming, family demographics that suggest fathers are less present in the lives of their children when compared with mothers, and researchers'perceptions of fathers'unwillingness to participate in research. In order to encourage nonsexist family research that includes both mothers and fathers, recommendations are provided to increase the inclusion of fathers in child and family research. Specifically, researchers are encouraged to always provide parallel investigations of paternal factors when maternal factors are investigated. Researchers are also encouraged to investigate similarities as well as differences between mothers and fathers in relation to their children's functioning. Implications for the involvement of fathers in prevention and clinical interventions are discussed. In order to move beyond non-sexist research, feminist research issues are also raised.     

LOVE,RESPECT, AND INTERFERING WITH OTHERS

The fact that Kantian beneficence is constrained by Kantian respect appears to seriously restrict the Kantian's moral response to agents who have embraced self‐destructive ends. In this paper I defend the Kantian duties of love and respect by arguing that Kantians can recognize attempts to get an agent to change her ends as a legitimate form of beneficence. My argument depends on two key premises. First, that rational nature is not identical to the capacity to set ends, and second, that an agent's conception of her happiness is not identical to the satisfaction of her ends.     

STIMULUS SELECTION AND TRACKING DURING URINATION: AUTOSHAPING DIRECTED BEHAVIOR WITH TOILET TARGETS1

A simple procedure is described for investigating stimuli selected as targets during urination in the commode. Ten normal males preferred a floating target that could be tracked to a series of stationary targets. This technique was used to bring misdirected urinations in a severely retarded male under rapid stimulus control of a floating target in the commode. The float stimulus was also evaluated with nine institutionalized, moderately retarded males and results indicated rapid autoshaping of directed urination without the use of verbal instructions or conventional toilet training. The technique can be applied in training children to control misdirected urinations in institutions for the retarded, in psychiatric wards with regressed populations, and in certain male school dormitories.     

ACQUISITION AND GENERALIZATION OF COMPLIANCE WITH COMPLEX FIVE-COMPONENT INSTRUCTIONS1

A 7-yr-old bilingual boy of normal intelligence, judged by his school to be deficient in carrying out complex requests, was trained to comply with five-component instructions, e.g., “Give me/the chip/behind/the block/on blue”. Three interchangeable words or phrases were used for each component. Training proceeded in stages. First, the child was trained to identify all individual objects and actions; then to carry out requests involving only the first component, then the first two, then three, etc. On every trial, the visual setting permitted every possible response in the set. A test for generalization to nonreinforced instructions was given at each stage by giving no feedback for all instructions that included one preselected phrase. The phrase selected at each stage was one of the three that was introduced at that stage. As a further test for generalization, nonreinforced instructions were also given that included one additional component: the next to be trained (Probes Ahead). As a test for generalization across settings and instructions, several five-component instructions were presented each session in an unused classroom. These instructions used phrases, most of which were different from those being trained, and which referred to familiar classroom objects. Results showed: acquisition occurred for each stage of training, including the full five-component instruction; almost complete generalization of responding occurred to the subset of nonreinforced instructions; little or no generalization occurred to the Probes Ahead, where an additional untrained component was included; and little or no generalization was seen to the five-component classroom instructions, until training began on the five-component instructions in the training sessions. Performance was also examined for each component. Results showed that when a new component was introduced, correct performance to previously trained components declined, and was little if any superior to performance on the new component. In summary, transfer was found to untrained sentences of the same form as those being trained, even in another setting, where most of the components were different; but poor transfer was found to more complex sentences, and performance declined for previously trained components during training of a more complex sentence. Some features of the training procedure that may have affected the degree and form of transfer were discussed: the necessity for prior training in an appropriate response to the component phrases, the importance of intermixing of reinforced and nonreinforced trials, and the effects of the abruptness with which more complex sentence forms were introduced.     

IRRATIONAL BELIEFS AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM: CORRELATIONS WITH ATTITUDES ABOUT REALITY,BELIEFS ABOUT PEOPLE,AND COLLECTIVE SELF-ESTEEM

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is theoretically consistent with the postmodern social constructionist assumption of a reciprocal causality between the individual and society. In a test of this claim, REBT irrationalities as measured by the Irrational Belief Scale and by the Survey of Personal Beliefs were correlated with Attitudes toward Reality, Cynicism, Beliefs in the Conventional Goodness of People, and Collective Self-Esteem. All measures of irrationality identified the postmodern social constructionism recorded by the Attitudes toward Reality Scale as rational. Especially the Irrational Belief Scale identified Cynicism and Beliefs in the Conventional Goodness of People as irrational and Collective Self-Esteem as rational. The Survey of Personal Beliefs described Collective Self-Esteem as irrational and therefore suggested that the conceptual framework of REBT can promote negative assessments of collectivistic forms of adjustment. Most importantly, however, these data confirmed that REBT includes potentials that are compatible with postmodern social constructionism. Address correspondence to P. J. Watson, Psychology/Department # 2803, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 350 Holt Hall-615 McCallie Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37403, USA; e-mail: paul-watson@utc.edu     

MAKING SENSE OF EMERGENCE: A CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH LEIDENHAG,LEIDENHAG, AND YONG

A number of theologians engaged in the theology and science dialogue—particularly Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong—employ emergence as a framework to discuss special divine action as well as causation initiated by other spiritual realities, such as angels and demons. Mikael and Joanna Leidenhag, however, have issued concerns about its application. They argue that Yong employs supernaturalistic themes with implications that render the concept of emergence obsolete. Further, they claim that Yong's use of emergence theory is inconsistent because he highlights the ontological independence of various spirits in the world concurrently with his advocation of supervenience theory. In view of these concerns, Leidenhag and Leidenhag urge Yong to depart from his application of emergence theory. In what follows, we plan to address each of these criticisms and demonstrate that they are tenuous, if not unwarranted, especially in light of a kenotic‐relational pneumatology.     

SUPERVISORY MENTORING BY ADVISERS: RELATIONSHIPS WITH DOCTORAL STUDENT POTENTIAL, PRODUCTIVITY, AND COMMITMENT

A 2-year, three-panel (T1-T3) longitudinal study of 233 entering Ph.D. students examined the relationships between student potential for mentoring, (i.e., attitudes and objective abilities at entry (T1), mentoring functions used by the faculty adviser (T2,T3), and student research productivity and commitment (T3). Student potential was found to predict the amount of psychosocial mentoring, career mentoring, and research collaboration provided by the adviser. Psychosocial mentoring and collaboration were not related to student productivity or commitment after controlling for the students' entering abilities and attitudes. Career mentoring at T2 was negatively related to the students' affective commitment to their program at T3. Implications for our understanding of mentoring and future research are discussed.     

LOWERING FLOORS AND RAISING CEILINGS: A LONGITUDINAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF AN EARNINGS-AT-RISK PLAN ON PAY SATISFACTION

The attitudes of 101 bank employees were measured before and after the implementation of an earnings-at-risk (EAR) incentive pay plan which reduced base pay and increased employee risk and uncertainty with respect to total pay. Pay outcome satisfaction and pay process satisfaction both declined significantly over time, but the decrease in pay outcome satisfaction was the greater of the two. An examination of pay satisfaction antecedents at both points in time revealed relatively stable across-time relationships and provided information about some of the reasons for the changes. Perceived reward-to-effort ratio, which declined significantly over time, influenced both dimensions of pay satisfaction at both points in time. Perceived understanding of the pay system, which also declined over time, had a somewhat greater influence on pay process satisfaction than on pay outcome satisfaction, particularly at Time 2. In contrast to actual pay levels, changes in incentive and base pay amounts added more explained variance to the pay outcome satisfaction regression model. The study points out the potential for negative employee reactions to EAR incentive plans, and indicates that managers must ensure that employees understand these systems and feel that EAR plans will reward them equitably for their efforts.     

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL: MEASUREMENT AND RELATIONSHIP WITH PERFORMANCE AND SATISFACTION

Two studies were conducted to analyze how hope, resilience, optimism, and efficacy individually and as a composite higher-order factor predicted work performance and satisfaction. Results from Study 1 provided psychometric support for a new survey measure designed to assess each of these 4 facets, as well as a composite factor. Study 2 results indicated a significant positive relationship regarding the composite of these 4 facets with performance and satisfaction. Results from Study 2 also indicated that the composite factor may be a better predictor of performance and satisfaction than the 4 individual facets. Limitations and practical implications conclude the article.     

HAUERWAS'S WITH THE GRAIN OF THE UNIVERSE1 AND THE BARTHIAN OUTLOOK: A Few Observations

This article has two main divisions, the first consisting in parts 1–3, the second in parts 4–8. The purpose of the first division is to assess Hauerwas's contentions regarding what he takes to be serious debilities in modern theological culture. The objects of Hauerwas's criticism are: (1) natural theology; (2) reason as it is represented in the structure of the modern university and in the “Enlightenment Project”; and (3) liberal Protestantism—the latter particularly as it turns up, by his account, in Reinhold Niebuhr's theology. The article will offer a defense of natural theology and an alternative approach to Niebuhr's theology while showing how Hauerwas's contentions concerning these two matters are mistaken. Parts 4–8 are theological studies. These studies concentrate on selected though main aspects of Hauerwas's outlook. Part 4 concerns a problematic implication of the notion, mainly from Barth, of divinity's humanity; Part 5 a note of difficulty from William James about the idea of the theistic God and its pertinence to the Barthian or Hauerwasian God; Part 6 the relation between belief and witness; Part 7 theology's discourse and analogy; Part 8 the Barthian‐Hauerwasian theology as a metaphysics. Part 1, concerning natural theology, stands over both divisions. These observations are not in the main intended as textual studies, though in certain passages the analysis is closely attentive to Hauerwas's text. Also, the paper does not offer the sort of account that would come from a historian, intellectual biographer, or social or cultural analyst or critic. Its focus is philosophical‐theological criticism.     

COMPARING TREATMENT TACTICS WITH A HYPERACTIVE PRESCHOOL CHILD: STIMULANT MEDICATION AND PROGRAMMED TEACHER INTERVENTION1

Two treatment tactics, food and praise contingent on appropriate play and varying doses of methylphenidate (Ritalin), were evaluated for their effects on a preschool child's activity changes. In addition, other social, verbal, and academic behaviors were monitored to examine possible side effects of the two treatment tactics. Fewer free-play activity changes occurred during contingent reinforcement phases while medication had variable effects: increasing attention to tasks but, at higher doses, decreasing intelligibility of speech and responsiveness to mands. The study outlines a replicable model for comparing medication with alternative behavioral strategies to control hyperactivity and enhance skill development.     

GOD, DISEASE, AND SPIRITUAL DILEMMAS: READING THE LIVES OF WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER

To write about the disease of breast cancer from both scientific and spiritual perspectives is to reflect upon our genetic and spiritual ancestry. We examine the issues involved in breast cancer at the intersections of spirituality, technology, and science, using the fundamental thing we know about being human: our bodies. Our goal in this essay is to offer close readings of women's spiritual and bodily journeys through the disease of breast cancer. We have discovered that both illness and health come within the stories of particular people and particular disciplines. And to learn more about breast cancer, both scientific and spiritual aspects, one must be attentive to such particularities. Medicine and religion are bodily experiences, and being a body-self is what it means to be human.