Directional bias in the mental representation of spatial events: nature or culture?

Previous research has shown a tendency for people to imagine simple sentences as evolving from left to right, with the sentence subject being located to the left of the object. In two cross-cultural studies comparing Italian and Arab participants, we investigated whether this bias is a function of hemispheric specialization or of directionality of written language (left to right in Italian, right to left in Arabic). Both studies found a reversal of directional bias in Arabs. Italians tended to position the subject to the left of the object, and Arabs tended to position the subject to the right of the object (Experiment 1); both groups were facilitated in a sentence-picture matching task when the subject was drawn in the position that it would usually occupy in the written language (left for Italians, right for Arabs; Experiment 2). In Experiment 2, an additional, language-independent facilitation was observed when action evolved from left to right, suggesting that both hemispheric specialization and scanning habit affect visual imaging.     

Hope in Africa? Social representations of world history and the future in six African countries

Data on social representations of world history have been collected everywhere in the world except sub-Saharan Africa. Two studies using open-ended data involving university students from six African countries fill this gap. In Study 1, nominations from Cape Verde and Mozambique for the most important events in world history in the past 1000 years were dominated by war and politics, recency effects, and Western-centrism tempered by African sociocentrism on colonization and independence. The first three findings replicated previous research conducted in other parts of the world, but the last pattern contrasted sharply with European data. Study 2 employed a novel method asking participants how they would begin the narration of world history, and then to describe a major transition to the present. Participants most frequently wrote about the evolution of humanity out of Africa, followed by war and then colonization as a beginning, and then replicated previous findings with war, colonization, and technology as major transitions to the present. Finally, when asked about how they foresaw the future, many participants expressed hope for peace and cooperation, especially those facing more risk of collective violence (Burundi and Congo). A colonial/liberation narrative was more predominant in the data from former Portuguese colonies (Angola, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau) than from former Belgian colonies (Burundi and Congo).     

Production of non-canonical sentences in agrammatic aphasia: limits in representation or rule application?

The study reported here compares two linguistically informed hypotheses on agrammatic sentence production, the TPH [Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397-425.] and the DOP [Bastiaanse, R., & van Zonneveld, R. (2005). Sentence production with verbs of alternating transitivity in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 18, 59-66]. To explain impaired production of non-canonical sentences in agrammatism, the TPH basically relies on deleted or pruned clause structure positions in the left periphery, whereas the DOP appeals to limitations in the application of movement rules. Certain non-canonical sentences such as object-questions and object-relative clauses require the availability of nodes in the left periphery as well as movement to these nodes. In languages with relatively fixed word order such as English, the relevant test cases generally involve a coincidence of left periphery and movement, such that the predictions of the TPH and the DOP are identical although for different reasons. In languages with relatively free word order such as German, on the other hand, it is possible to devise specific tests of the different predictions due to the availability of scrambling. Scrambled object sentences, for example, do not involve the left periphery but do require application of movement in a domain below the left periphery. A study was conducted with German agrammatic subjects which elicited canonical sentences without object movement and non-canonical scrambled sentences with object movement. The results show that agrammatic speakers have a particular problem with the production of scrambled sentences. Further evidence reported in the study from spontaneous speech, elicitation of object relatives, questions and passives and with different agrammatic subjects confirms that non-canonical sentences are generally harder to produce for agrammatics. These findings provide evidence in favor of the DOP and it will be argued that a cross-modal explanation of agrammatic deficits is possible if two factors--movement and canonicity--are taken into consideration.     

The mental representation of numerical fractions: real or integer?

Numerical fractions are commonly used to express ratios and proportions (i.e., real numbers), but little is known about how they are mentally represented and processed by skilled adults. Four experiments employed comparison tasks to investigate the distance effect and the effect of the spatial numerical association of response codes (SNARC) for fractions. Results showed that fractions were processed componentially and that the real numerical value of the fraction was not accessed, indicating that processing the fraction's magnitude is not automatic. In contrast, responses were influenced by the numerical magnitude of the components and reflected the simple comparison between numerators, denominators, and reference, depending on the strategy adopted. Strategies were used even by highly skilled participants and were flexibly adapted to the specific experimental context. In line with results on the whole number bias in children, these findings suggest that the understanding of fractions is rooted in the ability to represent discrete numerosities (i.e., integers) rather than real numbers and that the well-known difficulties of children in mastering fractions are circumvented by skilled adults through a flexible use of strategies based on the integer components.     

The discourse of oppression in contemporary gay Asian diasporal literature: Liberation or limitation?

In this article I examine contemporary Asian gay literature and argue that the experience of oppression is the central focus of this writing. Although this focus has helped gay Asians understand their experiences as a minority, the privileging of oppression as the primary site of gay identity also has other ramifications. In particular, it works to exclude experiences that are crucial to gay Asian identity but that are not centered around the experience of oppression. Because language not only describes but also determines and creates our reality, the centering of oppression in contemporary Asian gay literature helps to construct a reality for gay Asians in which oppression becomes the primary locus for identity politics. Consequently other kinds of experiences become, unwittingly, excluded as worthwhile areas of study in gay Asian criticism.     

Social categories in the making: construction or recruitment?

Real kinds, both natural and social categories, are characterized by rich inductive potential. They have relatively stable sets of conceptually independent projectable properties. Somewhat surprisingly, even some purely social categories (e.g., ethnicity, gender, political orientation) show such multiple projectability. The article explores the origin of the inductive richness of social categories and concepts. I argue that existing philosophical accounts provide only a partial explanation, and mechanisms of boundary formation and stabilization must be brought into view for a more comprehensive account of inductively rich social categories.

     

Agreeableness: Dimension of Personality or Social Desirability Artifact?

Agreeableness is linked to socially valued traits and prosocial motives, so self-reported Agreeableness may be distorted by self-favoring biases (SFB). A three-study multimethod research program explored links between the Big Five dimension of Agreeableness and SFB from three perspectives. First, we examined zero-order relations between Agreeableness and SFB measures (N = 316). Next, we used a round robin design (N = 351) and the Social Relations Model analyses (Kenny, 1994) to partition perceptions of Agreeableness into target and perceiver effects. These effects then were related to SFB concerns, and differential responsiveness to a manipulation of the social desirability of Agreeableness. Study 3 (N = 312) examined a manipulation of Agreeableness as a moderator of the relation between dispositional Agreeableness and interpersonal conflict tactics. Overall, results indicate that Agreeableness is not easily manipulated nor distorted by SFB. Results are discussed in terms of Agreeableness as a substantive system of motives.     

Response mode differences in perspective taking: Differences in representation or differences in retrieval?

Three experiments explored whether response mode differences in perspective taking result from different spatial representations or different retrieval processes. Participants learned object locations and then, while blindfolded, pointed to or verbally described object locations from perspectives aligned or misaligned with their facing direction and aligned or misaligned with the learning perspective. Pointing was facilitated from the perspective aligned with the body during testing. Similar facilitation occurred when verbally labeling, but only when conducted in the context of pointing (e.g., after pointing). Without this pointing context, or after third-person strategy instructions, the effect of body alignment was eliminated for verbal responses. Pointing was less responsive to context and strategy. Across all conditions, performance was facilitated for the learning perspective. Taken together, these experiments indicate that response mode differences are due to differences in the retrieval process, which varies with strategy, rather than differences in the organization of the underlying spatial memory.     

Country-specific or convergent? A typology of immigrant policies in Western Europe

This article raises the question as to whether European immigrant policies are shaped by country-specific traditions of nation-state building or whether, on the contrary, they are converging toward the same policy goals. On the basis of four case studies of 30 years of policy development (United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands), the authors develop a broad typology of immigrant policies in Western Europe. This typology shows that in the shadow of the debate on different “integration models”, Western European countries have implemented a whole range of similar immigrant policies. However, in policy fields touching the core of historically established notions of how state and society should relate to each other—notably the struggle against discrimination and the opening of public institutions to immigrants—significant differences persist.     

Memory development in the second year: for events or locations?

We employed an object-placement/object-removal design, inspired by recent work on 'episodic-like' memory in scrub jays (Clayton, N. S., & Dickinson, A. (1998). Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub jays. Nature, 395, 272-274), to examine the possibility that children in the second year of life have event-based memories. In one task, a successful search could have been due to the recall of an object-removal event. In the second task, a successful search could only have been caused by recall of where objects were located. Success was general in the oldest group of children (21-25 months), while performance was broadly similar on the two tasks. The parsimonious interpretation of this outcome is that the first task was performed by location memory, not by event memory. We place these data in the context of object permanence development.     

The Russian Orthodox Church in Western Europe: one or many?

This article analyses the way Russian Orthodox communities, primarily in Western Europe, cope with the ecclesiological challenge of de-territorialisation and increased individual mobility in the modern world. It focuses on the developments within the three parallel Russian Orthodox jurisdictions in Western Europe, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain. These developments can primarily be summarised in the context of two dilemmas. First, there is the question whether the ‘temporary’ solutions that were put in place as a result of the Soviet regime’s hostility towards the Russian Orthodox Church should come to an end in the new ‘free’ circumstances since 1990. Second, there is the question of how to reconcile Russian traditions and allegiances with the religious needs of local converts to Orthodoxy. The main developments include the conflict in the UK since the death of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh in 2003, the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 2007 and, most importantly, the developments in the Archdiocese of Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople) since the turn of the millennium. The French debate on the future of Russian Orthodoxy in Western Europe is the most pertinent one and provides a key to understanding the challenges posed to Orthodox ecclesiology in the West.     

The Role of the Family Therapist in Divorce: Benevolent Healer or Agent of Social Change?

Essay Review of:
The Dynamics of Divorce: A Life Cycle Perspective , F. W. Kaslow and L. L. Schwartz, New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1987.
Divorced Families: A Multidisciplinary Developmental View , C. R. Ahrons and R. H. Rodgers, New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.
The Difficult Divorce: Therapy for Children and Families , M. B. Isaacs, B. Montalvo, and D. Abelson, New York: Basic Books, 1986.     

Social Perceptions of Termination of Medical Treatment: Suicide or Rational Decision?

In two studies, college students read about a critically ill patient who died after CPR attempts failed, CPR was not attempted pursuant to a \"Do-Not-Resuscitate\" (DNR) order, he terminated all medical treatment, or he self-administered a lethal injection. Death resulting from treatment termination was perceived as significantly more unconventional than were death by CPR failure or DNR order. Ending treatment and lethal injection were perceived as equivalent acts of suicide, and resulted in the patient's being seen as less rational and less capable of making health care decisions. Timing of the patient's decisions regarding treatment, as indicated by the presence or absence of Living Will information, did not alter these perceptions. Results are discussed in light of opposing hypotheses regarding views of \"naive\" social perceivers toward actions with identical outcomes: that acts of commission are perceived as causal and rated more negatively than acts of omission (Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991), and that acts seen as abnormal are attributed greater causal impact (Hilton & Slugoski, 1986).     

Social phobia in ultra-orthodox Jewish males: culture-bound syndrome or virtue?

Social difficulties of the performing variety are reported by ultra-orthodox male referrals to a psychiatrist in Jerusalem and confirmed by key communal informants. Three cases of social phobia are presented, and the content concerns performing, either speaking on religious matters publicly, a role associated with status and authority, or leading prayers and ceremonies, a role of sanctity and duty. The absence of women sufferers may be understood as a consequence of the value placed on modesty in women and there being no expectation of women to participate in study and public prayer, while the absence of complaints of interactional social phobia may be a consequence of the general discouragement of social intercourse not related to religious study. Aymat zibur, literally meaning fear of the community, is a term used by ultra-orthodox Jews to describe these fears of performance, although in its original meaning the term expresses the respect that the leader of prayers is expected to have for his awesome role. The cases described, however, were motivated by personal shame, similar to social phobia of the performance variety found in other cultures, rather than fear and respect. The values of ultra-orthodox religious life are presented that invest a person who avoids interactional social behaviors with the status of zaddik (a righteous person) while one who avoids the performance behaviors of speaking publicly on religious matters or leading prayers suffers from an idiom of distress in this particular society. Religious law and societal mores appear to be critical factors in deciding whether symptoms of social phobia are perceived and experienced as idioms of distress.     

Negative Social Cognitions in Socially Anxious Youth: Distorted Reality or a Kernel of Truth?

We review studies that investigate negative social cognitions of socially anxious youth in relation to two specific domains: interpretation of ambiguous social situations and self-evaluation of social performance, including social skills and nervous behaviors. In this review, we address the question whether socially anxious youth’s negative perceptions are distortions of reality or reflect a kernel of truth as compared to other sources of information including independent adult observers and age peers. Studies key to this question are those that investigate not only the social perceptions themselves but also the social behavior of socially anxious youth. Hence the selection of studies for the review was based on this criterion. From the relevant literature it is, as yet, unclear whether the negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations shown by socially anxious youth are distorted or a reflection of reality. Socially anxious youth’s self-evaluations of social skills appear partly distorted and partly true, depending on the person judging the social skills. In contrast, self-evaluations of nervous behaviors appear distorted. The studies reviewed indicate that research would benefit from including a wider range of perceptions from persons relevant to the socially anxious youth’s daily social environment, not only parents and teachers but also their age peers.