It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Gender Stereotype!: Longitudinal Associations Between Superhero Viewing and Gender Stereotyped Play

Although content analyses have found that superhero programs in the media portray strong gender stereotypes of masculinity, little research has examined the effects of viewing such programs. In the current study, 134 mothers of preschool children (from the Western and Northwestern United States) reported their child’s superhero exposure in the media, male-stereotyped play, weapon play, and parental active mediation of the media at two time points (1 year apart). Results revealed that boys viewed superhero programs more frequently than girls, with nearly a quarter of boys viewing superhero programs at least weekly. Analyses revealed that superhero exposure was related to higher levels of male-stereotyped play for boys and higher levels of weapon play for both boys and girls from Time 1 to Time 2, even after controlling for initial levels. Parental active mediation did not negate these effects, and even served to strengthen one finding for girls. Specifically, among girls with high superhero exposure, weapon play was highest for girls who received frequent active mediation. Implications of the results are discussed with a focus on whether such programs are developmentally appropriate for preschool children.     

Hume on Miracles: Would It Take a Miracle to Believe in a Miracle?

Given Hume's theory of belief and belief production it is no small task to explain how it is possible for a belief in a miracle to be produced. I argue that belief in a miracle cannot be produced through Hume's standard causal mechanisms and that although education, passion, and testimony initially seem to be promising mechanisms for producing belief in a miracle, none of these is able to produce the belief in a miracle. I conclude by explaining how this poses a problem for Hume's theory of belief and I briefly investigate the alternatives available for solving this problem.     

Compassion with Justice: Harari’s Assault on Human Rights

Yuval Noah Harari contends that human rights are an outdated myth. He calls for replacing them with a new global ethic to meet crises as varied as environmental destruction, disruptive technologies, and extreme gaps between rich and poor. Toward that end, he outlines an ethics that exalts compassion and elides justice, an ethics that animates his trilogy: Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I draw together the key elements in his personal ethics, tracing them to a combination of scientism, postmodernism, and Buddhism. I then argue that he misunderstands human rights, inflates the role of science in moral matters, and fails to reconcile his moral passion with his moral skepticism.     

It’s in your nature: a pluralistic folk psychology

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and explain behavior through appeal to personality traits that the target wouldn’t endorse, and so could not serve as the target’s reasons. I conclude by suggesting that our folk psychology includes the notion that some behavior is explained by personality traits—who the person is—rather than by beliefs and desires—what the person thinks. Consequences of this view for the debate between simulation theory and theory theory, as well as the debate on chimpanzee theory of mind are discussed.     

In the Nutshell: Gestational Experience as Liminal Space: Commentary on Thomas Cohen’s Paper “Considering Gestational Life”

Cohen (this issue) raises intriguing questions about the impact of gestational experience but asks his readers to suspend disbelief, as he posits links between this liminal, mysterious, and on some level “unknowable” of times and later phenomenological and relational experience. Using the novel Nutshell, by Ian McEwan, narrated by a fetus who is privy to the portentous events happening outside, as well as inside, his mother’s womb as a frame, I explore questions including how much we can know about fetal subjectivity, how to differentiate the impact of prenatal from postnatal experience, and how that translates to later developmental and clinical realms.     

It is time for a general comment on children’s spiritual development

Reviewing the general comments by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the state reports to the CRC reveal a mixed picture. How could a general comment by CRC on the right to spiritual development assist states in their policies and programmes? First, current understandings of spiritual well-being – one’s relationship to oneself, others, nature and the transcendent – encompass all relevant dimensions of meaning-making, enhanced awareness and connectedness. Second, the CRC has elaborated on spiritual development in 16 of its 21 general comments, providing sources from which a comprehensive elaboration can be done. Third, the understanding of the term spiritual is diverse among states. Fourth, a general comment will clarify the term spiritual development and inspire and guide relevant policies and programmes.     

It’s Not You,It’s Me…No,Actually It’s You: Perceptions of What Makes a First Date Successful or Not

Early communication plays an important role in influencing the perceptions one has of an individual. The first form of in-person communication individuals often have with potential romantic partners is during the first date. This date tends to take on the form of a “dance” involving carefully orchestrated conversation and self-disclosures. What is said is certainly important, as are the behaviors exhibited by each member of the dyad. This study examined how individuals interpreted what potential romantic partners say and do during, or immediately following, the first date to get a sense of how they perceive these actions and words. Special attention was placed on the participants’ interpretations of whether or not their date was attracted to them. A survey was given to 390 participants, and many interesting differences were found between the genders. Certain behaviors, such as steering the conversation to the topic of sex signaled to men that their date was attracted to them. However, women looked for different behaviors to infer attraction on the part of their partner, such as mentioning future plans and kissing them goodbye. With a better understanding of how certain phrases and actions influence others, people can be more aware of the signals sent to others upon their pivotal initial encounters.     

It’s Child’s Play: Contemplative Anthropocosmic Creativity

The implicate or quantum connectivity of the coevolving phenomena of the cosmos, the ontohermeneutic complementarity relations between ourselves and the vast and minute systems we coconstitutingly participate, observe, prolong, and contextualize, and the eco-reciprocities among all forms of life afford us an understanding of ourselves as fractal or microcosmic embodiments and performances of what is irreducibly nondual anthropo-cosmogenesis. And if cosmogenesis is a self-referential process having nothing external to itself from which to obtain gain or satisfaction, we may analogously interpret our noninstrumentalizing contemplative experiences in complete attentiveness without regard to external payoffs as the fractal play of its creatively emergent self-delighting anthropocosmic self-awareness in the human dimensionality. Our attentive, noninstrumentalizing, and nonobjectifying contemplativity aconceptually presences connectivity and reciprocity in an aperspectivally transparent enactment of anthropocosmic ongoing-wholing whose meaning is the being of its own self-delighting. The sustainability of cocreative anthropocosmogenesis on Earth flourishes where our conduct and intrinsically rewarding contemplativity are consonant with and recreate the spontaneous coevolutionary play of intrinsically rewarding creatio continua unreduced, unobstructed, unfragmented, and uneclipsed by partial, excessively dualizing perspectives and related efforts for extrinsic gain.     

Soames on Russell’s logic: a reply

In “What is History For?,” Scott Soames responds to criticisms of his treatment of Russell’s logic in volume 1 of his Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. This note rebuts two of Soames’s replies, showing that a first-order presentation of Russell’s logic does not fit the argument of the Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, and that Soames’s contextual definition of classes does not match Russell’s contextual definition of classes. In consequence, Soames’s presentation of Russell’s logic misrepresents what Russell took to be its technical achievement and its philosophical significance.     

Life’s frailty – on fundamentalistic bonds in Haneke’s film Amour

My essay is centred upon Michael Haneke’s film Amour (2012), which revolves around the experiences of an 80-year-old musician couple, George and Anne. The relationship is severely tested as a result of Anne suffering a stroke. The director stakes out questions that explore the potential boundaries for our dignity and love. Using vignettes from the film, I will shed light on the manner in which life becomes restricted, as the object of our love vanishes. A central theme of the film is the collapsing of the mourning process that seeks a resolution in the choice between life and death. In the article, I will attempt to explain it in terms of an incorporation of the lost object of love that has as its purpose to preserve this bond, an incorporation that assumes a physical, concrete form characterised by disorientation, as a defence against catastrophic change. The article furthermore touches upon the concept of the third in the sense that Britton uses it, as something that may reconcile and provide meaning, but which in this case has ceased to function as a symbolic glue. An expression of failure in the process of mourning emerges in a form of a distorted neoreality, with confusion and disorientation as ingredients, to avoid the pain of reality.     

It’s up to you: The Influence of Sports Participation,Academic Performances and Demo-Behavioral Characteristics on University students’ Life Satisfaction

This paper investigates university students’ life satisfaction by measuring six life satisfaction components (family life satisfaction, social life satisfaction, satisfaction with the university experience, satisfaction with oneself, satisfaction with the place of residence, satisfaction with the overall life) among different students’ groups. Life satisfaction is measured using Brief Multi-Dimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS). A cross-sectional approach was taken to examine differences among identified students’ groups according to: academic performance (by GPA and status of funding), demographic and behavioral characteristics (by gender, body mass index, smoking and alcohol consumption) and features related to physical activity (by weekly time spent in physical activity in hours and group of sport engaged in). Research is conducted among 507 students at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Man Whitney and Kruskal Wallis test were performed for pairwise comparison using Bonferroni correction. The results show statistically significant differences in the following components: satisfaction with family life (within gender group), satisfaction with social life (within sex and smoking groups), satisfaction with the university experience (within sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, GPA and scholarship/funding status groups), satisfaction with oneself (within GPA, financial status, alcohol consumption and type of sport groups), satisfaction with the place of residence (within GPA, scholarship/funding status, time spent in physical activities and body mass index) and satisfaction with the overall life (within gender and alcohol consumption groups). This paper has both theoretical and practical influence on contemporary life satisfaction field of knowledge, particularly in university students’ population.     

‘It’s not a diet,it’s a lifestyle’: a longitudinal,data-prompted interview study of weight loss maintenance

Objective: To advance understanding of the individual and environmental factors underpinning weight loss maintenance. Design: Semi-structured, data-prompted interviews were conducted with twelve overweight adult participants (three men, nine women) who had lost over 5% of their body weight in the year before baseline. Participants gathered daily data through wireless scales, activity monitors (Fitbit?), ecological momentary assessment and experience sampling (taking photographs, writing notes). They were interviewed at 3- and 6-months post baseline. Interview stimuli included personal data of weight and activity graphs, correlations of psychological factors, and self-generated notes and photographs. Interview data were analysed using the Framework Method, applying pre-specified maintenance-relevant theoretical themes. Results: The theoretical Framework provided a good fit for the narratives, with five main themes underpinning successful weight loss maintenance: sustained motivation, effective self-regulation, plentiful resources, habit formation and a supportive environment. Additionally, participants reported an identity shift from being a dieter to accepting a new healthy lifestyle. Goal prioritising and allowing for occasional controlled lapses enhanced weight loss maintenance. Conclusions: This study successfully used the novel method of data-prompted interviews to explore weight loss maintenance experiences with new explanations emerging from the data. Future research should further develop behaviour change maintenance theory and data-prompted interview method.     

It’s Not You,It’s Your (Old) Vagina: Osphena’s Articulation of Sexual Dysfunction

Released to an American market in 2013 the pharmaceutical drug Osphena was heralded as an innovative, hormone-free therapeutic option to cure two dysfunctions associated with menopausal women’s bodies: vaginal atrophy and dyspareunia. Yet a critical examination of the drug, its advertising, and associated discourses presents an opportunity to explore not only the medicalization of aging but also direct-to-consumer advertising’s role in perpetuating ideologies concerned with normalcy, normal bodies, normal sex, and normal gender performance. This project undertakes a critical feminist analysis of Osphena’s advertising campaign and the public’s response, incorporating Foucaultian theory and a bioethical perspective, and ultimately re-contextualizing them within medical discourses that highlight the pharmaceutical benefits associated with widespread adoption of the “deficiency” perspective that the drug perpetuates. I claim that the Osphena campaign is a clear contemporary illustration that the age-old rhetoric of women’s bodies as requiring medical intervention to resist aging is far from passé, and suggest that images and rhetoric of empowerment would be more readily accepted without relying upon dated and clichéd depictions of female sexuality.     

Is Life’s Meaning Ultimately Unthinkable?: Guy Bennett-Hunter on the Ineffable

In this critical notice of Guy Bennett-Hunter’s Ineffability and Religious Experience, I focus on claims he makes about what makes a life meaningful. According to Bennett-Hunter, for human life to be meaningful it must obtain its meaning from what is beyond the human and is ineffable, which constitutes an ultimate kind of meaning. I spell out Bennett-Hunter’s rationale for making this claim, raise some objections to it, and in their wake articulate an alternative conception of ultimate meaning.     

Kane’s Libertarian Theory and Luck: A Reply to Griffith

In a recent article, Meghan Griffith (American Philosophical Quarterly 47:43–56, 2010) argues that agent-causal libertarian theories are immune to the problem of luck but that event-causal theories succumb to this problem. In making her case against the event-causal theories, she focuses on Robert Kane’s event-causal theory. I provide a brief account of the central elements of Kane’s theory and I explain Griffith’s critique of it. I argue that Griffith’s criticisms fail. In doing so, I note some important respects in which Kane’s view is unclear and I suggest a plausible way of reading Kane that makes his theory immune to Griffith’s objections.     

Some Reflections on Erikson’s Ninth Stage of Life: Introduction to the Panel on Aging

In my introduction to these three papers on the experience of aging, I begin with my observations on aging in the 9th Stage of Life (a stage added by Erik Erickson in 1984, when he himself was nearing death) by talking about my own aging, 87-year-old husband whose end of life included changes in himself that no one who knew him, including himself, would have predicted. Following these thoughts I review the excellent essays that follow, which take the perspectives of aging from both personal and professional perspectives.