“That Really Hurt,Charlie!” Investigating the Role of Sympathy and Moral Respect in Children's Aggressive Behavior

The authors examined the role of sympathy and moral respect in children's overt aggression, and the subtypes of proactive and reactive aggression, in an ethnically diverse sample of 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds (N = 110). Aggressive behaviors were measured through teacher reports and peer nominations. Sympathy was assessed through teacher reports. Children reported on their moral respect within an interview procedure where they were asked for their feelings of respect toward hypothetical peers who displayed morally relevant behaviors. Results revealed that sympathy and moral respect were both negatively related to overt aggression and to the proactive aggression subtype, but unrelated to the reactive aggression subtype. The authors discuss the implications of the findings in relation to developmental research on the affective antecedents of children's aggressive behavior.     

“I’m Not Really Afraid of Osama Bin Laden!” Fear of Terrorism in Dutch Children

We examined to what extent children in The Netherlands are affected by the threat of terrorism. For this purpose, a sample of school children living in Rotterdam or adjacent satellites (N = 216) completed a fear survey that included a number of terrorism-related items, and were confronted with ambiguous vignettes to measure threat-related interpretation bias. The results demonstrated that although a number of terrorism-related items (i.e., bombing attacks, explosions in a bus or subway) listed high in a ranking of most intense childhood fears, very few children made terrorist-related interpretations of ambiguous situations.     

Ethical Issues in Neuromarketing: “I Consume,Therefore I am!”

Neuromarketing is a recent interdisciplinary field which crosses traditional boundaries between neuroscience, neuroeconomics and marketing research. Since this nascent field is primarily concerned with improving marketing strategies and promoting sales, there has been an increasing public aversion and protest against it. These protests can be exemplified by the reactions observed lately in Baylor School of Medicine and Emory University in the United States. The most recent attempt to stop ongoing neuromarketing research in France is also remarkable. The pertaining ethical issues have been continuously attracting much attention, especially since the number of neuromarketing companies has exceeded 300 world-wide. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the field of neurotechnology by presenting its current capabilities and limitations. Then, it will focus on the ethical issues and debates most related with the recent applications of this technology. The French Parliament’s revision of rules on bioethics in 2004 has an exemplary role in our discussion. The proposal by Murphy et al. (2008) has attracted attention to the necessity of ethical codes structuring this field. A code has recently been declared by the Neuromarketing Science and Business Association. In this paper, it is argued that these technologies should be sufficiently discussed in public spheres and its use on humans should be fully carried out according to the ethical principles and legal regulations designed in line with human rights and human dignity. There is an urgent need in the interdisciplinary scientific bodies like ethics committees monitoring the research regarding the scientific and ethical values of nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, confidentiality, right to privacy and protection of vulnerable groups.     

“I was and still am”: Narratives of Bisexual Marking in the #StillBisexual Campaign

This research investigated narratives of bi-erasure and bisexual marking by considering 53 video confessionals associated with the #StillBisexual campaign. #StillBisexual is a web-based campaign that targets myths about bisexuality and promotes bisexual identity visibility. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify emergent themes regarding the ways that individuals mark and make known their bisexuality. Three major themes of bisexual demarcation emerged including the enduring nature of bisexuality, defining bisexuality, and defining the self as a bisexual being. Discussion focuses on describing bisexual marking approaches by #StillBisexual participants and by analyzing the way bisexual demarcation challenges assumptions of monosexism and cisgenderism inherent to cultural conceptualizations of sexuality.     

“I Survived”: The Content and Forms of Survival Narratives

Individuals impacted by violent crime are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder and other comorbid conditions. Screening and early intervention are key to the detection and treatment of these consequences of victimization. A growing literature points to the diagnostic power of narratives; however, little is known about the narratives produced by survivors. This study assessed the content and forms of narratives told by survivors of violent crime. In our sample, narratives of growth and optimism, grief and loss, providence, self-reliance, and justice were common. These narratives also featured common lexical properties. The discussion articulates possible explanations for these findings.     

The Use of Cognitive, Emotive and Behavioral Interventions in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy When Clients Lack “Emotional” Insight

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy practitioners from around the world reported their use of cognitive, emotive, behavioral, or other interventions, both in sessions and as homework when responding to clients who reported intellectual insight but were not moved by it. Practitioners were exceptionally prone to using cognitive interventions during sessions and not particularly inclined toward emotive interventions either during sessions or as homework.     

“I was mad about it all,about the ban”: Emotional spaces of solidarity in the Poznan March of Equality

In this paper, I focus on the spatial and emotional constitution of protest in the context of gay and lesbian public activism in Poland, on the basis of a case study of the Poznan March of Equality. The event took place on 19 November 2005, despite an earlier ban issued by the mayor of the city, following the recent rise of right-wing parties in power. The brutal break-up of the peaceful demonstration by the police sparked a discussion on broader issues of freedom of assembly and the state of Polish democracy. Through the narratives of March organizers, I look at the ways in which the activists engaged in the practices of collective memory work and emotion work, focusing specifically on anger, fear and euphoria. I call for discussion of emotions of public protest in the context of sexual citizenship as well as argue that it is necessary to examine the space-time scale of these emotions. In particular, I look at the ways in which the spatial and emotional context of collective memory work enabled the activists to inscribe the event into the narrative of Polish 1980s Solidarity activism and sustain activism despite an unfavourable political context.     

“When I Was Young” The Idealization of the Interchangeability of Phases of Life

This paper presents the concept of the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as an enhancement, or rather as a further development of Alfred Schutz’s general thesis of the reciprocity of perspectives. It claims that the according figure of thought is a constitutive part of acts of understanding in everyday life where, in order to understand each other, individuals of different age-groups have to overcome the difference of perspectives that are attached to their particular ages. This is accomplished by a specific assumption that is also applied in the case of intrasubjective, autobiographical understanding. By discussing its sociological significance as well as its philosophical background, this paper introduces the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as a fundamental and universal figure of understanding.     

“It Makes Me a Man from the Beating I Took”: Gender and Aggression in Children’s Narratives About Conflict

Personal conflict narratives were written by 364 4th–6th graders from two urban schools in the U.S. mid-south that contrasted in levels of poverty and crime. Narratives were coded for severity of violence, type of aggression, explanations, characters’ mental and emotional states, and authors’ moral evaluations. Boys described more severe physical violence than girls, but provided fewer explanations, less moral evaluation, and showed less psychological mindedness in the moderate-stress neighborhood, but only when they wrote stories about boy aggressors and physical or psychological aggression. Boys describing girl or relational aggression were as psychologically and morally astute as girls were. Girls also neglected to explain and evaluate boys’ aggression. Findings supported a social constructivist model of how narrative discourse may gender aggression.     

Making “Use” of Aggression in Child Psychotherapy

In this article, informed by Winnicott's seminal 1969 article, “The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identifications,” I aim to illuminate the transformational possibilities that emerge when adults view particular forms of aggression as expressions of hope. I examine the processes associated with taking a child from what Winnicott referred to as object relating to object usage, with particular focus placed on the links between theory and practice. I highlight the importance of one mobilizing the social environment toward the attention of the child through limit setting while concurrently tolerating the child's aggressive acts by not retaliating or retreating. This shared relational journey involves helping a child move from the omnipotent but very lonely, anxiety-filled, encapsulated world of their own projections to a coconstituted reality and involves the child engaging in destructive activity (aggression) and the significant adult surviving. It is hope that underpins this destructive enterprise. When the child finally comes to realize that the other is not under their omnipotent control, that is, when the child has tried to destroy, and the other has survived, the child can then, and only then, forge a mutual partnership with the other. Conceptual points are illuminated through the presentation of case material.     

“I Hope I Will Be Able to Go Back to My Home City”: Narratives of Suffering and Survival of Children in Palestine

Psychological Studies - In light of critical psychology and socio-constructionist theories, the present work aims at analyzing attitudes of political agency, psychological adjustment to trauma, and...     

The Use of Sulfanilamide in the Treatment of “Sniffles” in Rats

A nonprojective measure of achievement motivation, the Lynn Questionnaire (7), was administered to 67 Western Samoans, 34 Cook Islanders, 84 Maoris, and 103 European New Zealanders in an urban work environment in New Zealand. Results indicated that Western Samoans had lower achievement motivation levels than the other three groups, Cook Islanders were lower than European New Zealanders and equivalent to Maoris, and Maoris did not vary from European New Zealanders. Findings were interpreted as supportive of previous New Zealand research and in accordance with cultural assimilation theory.     

“They Danced Around in My Head and I Learned Them”: Children's Developing Conceptions of Learning

Two studies examined how 3–6-year-olds understand the process of learning. In study 1 examined how children spontaneously talk about learning via a CHILDES language analysis. Talk about the learning process increased between the ages of 3–5. Talk specifically about learning in terms of desire decreased during this period. This suggests the possibility that desire is important to children's initial understanding of learning, and children develop an understanding that various mental states including desire, attention, and intention, play a role in the learning process. In Study 2, we presented 4- and 6-year-olds with a set of stories designed to test their understanding of the role of these mental states. In both their judgments about whether someone learns and their justifications of their responses, younger children relied more on the character's desires whereas older children were more likely to integrate desire, attention, and intention together. These data suggest that children's understanding of the process of learning is developing during the early elementary school years.     

“If it's in your mind,it's in your knowledge”: Children's developing anatomy of identity

Recent work has investigated children's developing understanding of the anatomical locus of identity. In two studies, we extend this work by exploring the role of the mind as opposed to the brain in children's conceptualization of identity. In Experiment 1, an analysis of natural language indicated that adults use the term mind more frequently than the term brain with reference to identity-related mental processes. Children's output displayed a similar bias. In Experiment 2, we compared the judgments of 5- and 7-year-old children to those displayed by adults. Participants heard stories in which a magical transformation resulted in either a creature with a mismatch between brain and body or a creature with a mismatch between mind and body. Children were more accurate in recognizing the enduring identity of this transformed creature when the transformation resulted in a mismatch between mind and body as compared to brain and body.     

The Ethics of “Smart Drugs”: Moral Judgments About Healthy People's Use of Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs

What moral concerns are relevant when judging the use of cognitive-enhancing (CE) drugs by healthy people? University students evaluated competitive fairness, distributive fairness, peer pressure, naturalness, and dosage form. Participants condemned CE drug use when there were long-term negative effects on health and when CE drug use was seen to provide an unfair advantage in an exam situation to someone while others were not taking the drugs. Further, participants judged CE drug use more harshly if the drugs were artificial rather than natural and if they were in the form of an injection rather than a pill, suggesting that moral intuitions relating to purity also influence opinions on CE drugs.     

“I Don't Think Anorexia Is the Way Out”: Reconstruction of Meaning in Women's Narratives of Anorexia Nervosa over 10 Years

This article explores how a group of nine Australian women who identified their past or present experiences as anorexia nervosa ascribed meaning to their experiences and negotiated their identities longitudinally over 10 years. A critical discursive analysis of their narratives found anorexia to be a troubled, socially constructed category. Within the discursive context of talk not confined to the dominant vocabulary of illness, the women negotiated and, over time, renegotiated alternative ways of speaking to depict their experiences, including through use of metaphor and a lexicon of values. The findings challenge health professionals to take greater accountability for the problematic effects of speaking only in the dominant medical paradigm and to recognize the transformative potential of privileging the voices of people who experience anorexia nervosa, including prioritizing their terms and engaging with their values.     

“I Don't Have Another Run Left With It”: Ontological Security in Illness Narratives of Recovering on Methadone Maintenance

ABSTRACT

This study examines the accounts of 45 opiate-addicted individuals in recovery with methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). In-depth interviews assess these individuals' meanings and practices of recovery. Results show that methadone patients, in forming their own recovery models, vacillate between competing definitions of recovery: from the strict program established by methadone clinicians and enforced through frequent urinalyses, to the ideal that Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous ascribe. The findings suggest that despite apparent vacillations between competing recovery-paragons, the unifying theme in their illness narratives on recovery is the need for ontological security. The results imply that opiate-addicted individuals might benefit most from programs modeled on a harm reduction approach.     

A Review of: “The Use of Dreams in Couple Counseling”

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Anne Heath is a free-lance writer and artist with a background in journalism, poetry, and radio drama. She is currently working on a book about travel as a rite-of-passage for women in mid-life.

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“To blame is to hold on to anger as though it could compensate for what we lost. Nothing can. Only griming can heal us…”

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“The rapid acceptance of lucid dreaming suggests that it will have a significant impact on the way that dreams are perceived for both the general public and the scientific community.”

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“He Cursed, and I Got Angry:” Beliefs About Anger Among Adolescent Male Offenders in India

Cultural influences in the experience and expression of emotions have been widely recognized, although systematic studies of emotion-related beliefs in culturally diverse families have been scarce. The purpose of the present exploratory study was to examine beliefs about anger among a group of adolescent male offenders in India temporarily residing in a pre-sentencing institution. In particular, adolescent offenders (n = 14) were individually interviewed about their beliefs concerning causes and concomitants of, and behavioral responses to, one’s own and others’ anger, as well as family patterns of anger expression that are crucial in understanding socialization processes. Although some of the themes reflected in their narratives parallel the beliefs of educated, middle-class, non-offender youth in India (e.g., social inappropriateness of anger), as well as those of offenders in other parts of the world (e.g., aggressive behavior as a common response to anger), beliefs about various aspects of anger specific to this subculture of offender youth also emerged. In particular, perceived violations of family honor were cited as the most common elicitors of anger, and although anger was considered ‘bad’ it was expressed through aggression. The findings of this study highlight the need to develop a culturally informed theory of emotions, and relatedly, to develop culturally sensitive interventions for anger management that can be incorporated as a part of rehabilitation efforts for offender youth in India.