Gender: Genetics,Genitality, Generosity (Grace), Gentility

After acknowledging that gender is defined at many levels and that definitions may not be concordant across all of these layers of human development, this essay illuminates how these threads intertwine with one another to produce a final product that we call a person. Gene expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, and anatomic structures are not always coterminus. Arbitrarily assigning an infant child with maldefined genitalia to a socially defined gender role on the basis of surgical convenience may (should) be perceived as an act of violence, and an untruth. A further intent of this article is to help in pastoral settings to respond to events which raise points of anxiety and concern, among persons of faith, which are sometimes associated with instances of discrepancy.     

Positive psychology: Past,present, and (possible) future

A survey study and two experiments were done to test the hypothesis that social flow is more enjoyable than solitary flow. In the survey study it was found that recalled social flow experiences were rated more enjoyable than solitary flow experiences. In the first experiment when challenge and skill were the same across social and solitary conditions, social flow was reported to be more enjoyable than solitary flow. In the second experiment when the level of social interdependence was manipulated it was found that participants in highly interdependent teams reported more joy in flow than individuals performing less interdependently. In both experiments, people playing simple paddleball games reported and expressed more joy performing with others than alone. Taken together, the three investigations support the conclusion that doing it together is better than doing it alone. Solitary flow, while quite enjoyable, is not as enjoyable as social flow.     

Mikel Burley (ed.): Wittgenstein,religion, and ethics

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states: retrieval,behavior, and experience

The tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT) is the feeling that accompanies temporary inaccessibility of an item that a person is trying to retrieve. TOTs have been studied experimentally since the seminal work of Brown and McNeill (1966). TOTs are experiences that accompany some failed or slow retrievals, and they can result in changes in retrieval behavior itself, allowing us to study the interplay among experience, retrieval, and behavior. We often attribute the experience of the TOT to the unretrieved target, but TOTs are based on a variety of cues, heuristics, or sources of evidence, such as partial information, related information, and cue familiarity, that predict the likelihood of overcoming retrieval failure. We present a synthesis of the direct-access view, which accounts for retrieval failure, and the heuristic–metacognitive view, which accounts for the experience of the TOT. We offer several avenues for future research and applications of TOT theory and data.     

Context,goal, utility,and relevance: A reply to Evans (2002) considering Oaksford (2002)

Yama (2001) argued that the matching bias effect was an amalgam of a genuine matching effect and a set size effect. However, Evans (2002) pointed out some problems with Yama's argument. One was on the matching index used in Yama (2001). The others concerned a gap between Yama's (2001) interpretation of matching bias and Evans' (1998) recent discussions that had placed emphasis on the problem of implicit negation. I reply to these claims taking Oaksford (2002) into consideration. Further, I propose a framework connecting context, goal, utility, and relevance, and including a hierarchical structure of goals. I argue that theories of reasoning can be developed and extended with the framework.     

'Geraniums (red) and Delphiniums (blue)': Trauma,Ethics, and Medical Communications

More official complaints about medical treatment in the UK relate to poor communications than to wrong diagnoses. This article, in considering the importance of communications training for clinicians, is structured into three sections. From use of a story that introduces the idea of miscommunication and trauma in the first section, the article moves, in the second, to a theorisation of trauma as a concept, addressing issues of intersubjectivity, the relationship between embodied and psychological being, and ethics. From this, the third section engages directly with medical communications training, exemplifying a particular literary-studies approach to matters of communication.     

The (In)flexible self: Psychopathology,mindfulness, and neuroscience

Clinical and neuroscientific evidence indicates that transdiagnostic processes contribute to the generation and maintenance of psychopathological symptoms and disorders. Rigidity (inflexibility) appears a core feature of most transdiagnostic pathological processes. Decreasing rigidity may prove important to restore and maintain mental health. One of the primary domains in which rigidity and flexibility plays a role concerns the self. We adopt the pattern theory of self (PTS) for a working definition of self. This incorporates the pluralist view on self as constituted by multiple aspects or processes, understood to constitute a self-pattern, i.e. processes organized in non-linear dynamical relations across a number of time scales. The use of mindfulness meditation in the format of Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBIs) has been developed over four decades in Clinical Psychology. MBIs are promising as evidence-based treatments, shown to be equivalent to gold-standard treatments and superior to specific active controls in several randomized controlled trials. Notably, MBIs have been shown to target transdiagnostic symptoms. Given the hypothesized central role of rigid, habitual self-patterns in psychopathology, PTS offers a useful frame to understand how mindfulness may be beneficial in decreasing inflexibility. We discuss the evidence that mindfulness can alter the psychological and behavioral expression of individual aspects of the self-pattern, as well as favour change in the self-pattern as a whole gestalt.We discuss neuroscientific research on how the phenomenology of the self (pattern) is reflected in associated cortical networks and meditation-related alterations in cortical networks. Creating a synergy between these two aspects can increase understanding of psychopathological processes and improve diagnostic and therapeutic options.     

Fortid,Nutid, Fremtid (Past,Present, Future): Professional Counseling in Denmark

In this article, the authors offer a comprehensive overview of the counseling profession in Denmark. The history and development of counseling is considered, followed by a review of the current state of Danish professional counseling. Finally, impressions of the future of professional counseling in Denmark are presented based on the past and current trends.     

Anna Doyle Wheeler (17854848): Philosopher,Socialist, Feminist*

This essay examines the life and work of early socialist thinker Anna Doyle Wheeler, who, with the Owenite theorist William Thompson, was author of The Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretentions of the Other Half, Men … (1825). In analyzing her thought, I employ a typological model for the development of a feminist consciousness proposed by Michèle Riot-Sarcey and Eleni Varikas (1986). These authors posit three types of a feminist “pariah” consciousness: 1) exceptional woman feminism 2) subversive feminism, and 3) collective feminism. Within this framework Anna Wheeler falls between positions one and two; she was an exceptional or token woman who nevertheless advocated subversive feminist doctrines of radical change, including calls for collective female action (in which she nonetheless did not participate). The essay ends with a discussion of Wheeler's relationship to William Thompson as example of woman's traditional access to philosophy, that is, through a male mentor.     

Reproduction,Ethics, and the Law: Feminist Perspectives (Book)

It is often claimed that if technology becomes too intrusive it can be reigned in by better technologies and laws that restrict access. This article argues through a series of propositions and observations why these standard solutions will invariably fall short, and why civility--and the placed communities out of which civility arises--is our best hope against technological assaults on privacy. The article ends with a brief discussion of what sorts of personal and professional commitments a civil culture entails.