Using trait–state models to evaluate the longitudinal consistency of global self-esteem from adolescence to adulthood

The present research used a latent variable trait–state model to evaluate the longitudinal consistency of self-esteem during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Analyses were based on ten administrations of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965) spanning the ages of approximately 13–32 for a sample of 451 participants. Results indicated that a completely stable trait factor and an autoregressive trait factor accounted for the majority of the variance in latent self-esteem assessments, whereas state factors accounted for about 16% of the variance in repeated assessments of latent self-esteem. The stability of individual differences in self-esteem increased with age consistent with the cumulative continuity principle of personality development.     

Health Impact of Jewish Religious Observance in the USA: Findings from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey

Using data from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) (N = 5,148), effects of eight religious measures were investigated in relation to two health outcomes, standard single-item indicators of self-rated health and presence of an activity-limiting health condition. Seven of the religious measures were associated bivariately with one or both health indicators. Through two-step OLS regression of each health indicator onto all of the religious measures, adjusting for age and other sociodemographic correlates, two measures of synagogue involvement remained statistically significant. Follow-up analysis revealed a net health impact of religious observance primarily limited to Orthodox and Conservative Jews.     

‘Elite’ young Muslims in Britain: from transnational to global politics

Studies on the politics of young western Muslims have been diverse; however, radicalisation theory has achieved dominant status. As espoused by its key proponents Kepel (2004) and Roy (2004), this theory argues that young, western Muslims are being radicalised by the dislocations and uncertainties of globalization, and trying to forge a religious identity in a secular environment. Focusing on a cohort of ‘elite’ young British Muslims, this paper highlights an often overlooked current of thinking whereby sectarianism/localism has been replaced with a commitment to universal principles such as human rights and other global causes. This cohort of young Muslims was less ‘home-centred’ (i.e. transnational) than their parents’ generation and more global in political orientation, reinforcing the view that ethnic and/or religious politics and universalism are not necessarily counter-posed. This shift is explained as a process whereby inter-generational differences (in terms of aspirations and resources) have created a momentum for intra-generational cohesion across boundaries and peer-to-peer information transfer heightened by experience of major traumas, either directly or indirectly, and by new global communications. In the face of global traumas such as 9/11, the first generation’s localism and transnationalism is regarded as inappropriate to the new global context.     

The Messiah and Rabbi Jesus: Policing the Jewish–Christian border in Christian Zionism

For all their ostensible difference and separateness, Judaism and Christianity have a long history of mutual engagement and profound entanglement. I take Daniel Boyarin's assertion that ‘…the borders between Christianity and Judaism are as constructed and imposed, as artificial and political as any of the borders of the earth’ (2004, 1) as my starting point. But what Boyarin sees as an ongoing process of differentiation between Judaism and Christianity and distinct identity-building in late antiquity, I look for still today in Christian Zionism. The busy border crossing continues to separate people and ideas at the same time as it serves as the meeting place between them, the uncomfortable place where Judaism and Christianity rub up against each other. This paper examines some constructions of the Jewish–Christian border by way of two case studies of prominent religious leaders, each firmly at home in their respective communities, Jewish and Christian, who ventured out to the borderland of Christian Zionism. This is the story of what happened when they returned home to find themselves examined by those who monitor the Jewish–Christian border, and deemed to be over the limit with intoxicants brought over from the ‘other side’.     

More attentional focusing through binaural beats: evidence from the global–local task

Psychological Research - A recent study showed that binaural beats have an impact on the efficiency of allocating attention over time. We were interested to see whether this impact affects...     

The Structure’s Legacy: Not from Philosophy to Description

In the paper I consider how empirical material, from either history or sociology, features in Kuhn’s account of science in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and argue that the study of scientific practice did not offer him data to be used as evidence for defending hypotheses but rather cultivated a sensitivity for detail and difference which helped him undermine an idealized conception of science. Recent attempts in the science studies literature, appealing to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, have aimed at reducing philosophy to multifaceted empirical research in relation to science. I discuss how this turn which is at odds with Wittgenstein’s philosophy, cannot be a continuation of Kuhn’s project which bears similarities to Wittgenstein’s.     

The culture of gift giving: What do consumers expect from commercial and personal contexts?

Gift giving forms part of a symbolic exchange ritual that is common to all cultures and all periods of history. The goal of the present study is to explore such acts as exchange processes that seek reciprocity aimed at perpetuating relations. From the standpoint of the recipient, we posit the existence of a pattern of behaviour based on the sequence of perceived value–satisfaction–reciprocity. Findings obtained from a sample of 797 individuals indicate that how this sequence works is shaped by the occasion on which the gift is given, whether on commercial occasions—dates marked out by retailers on which everybody gives gifts—or personal occasions—dates marked by private celebrations. If we bear in mind that the ultimate goal of giving gifts is reciprocity or the intention to give in return, choosing an appropriate value may prove to be of particular interest in commercial terms for givers (buyers), recipients (users) and firms (influencers). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The road to Experience and Prediction from within: Hans Reichenbach��s scientific correspondence from Berlin to Istanbul

Ever since the first meeting of the proponents of the emerging Logical Empiricism in 1923, there existed philosophical differences as well as personal rivalries between the groups in Berlin and Vienna, headed by Hans Reichenbach and Moritz Schlick, respectively. Early theoretical tensions between Schlick and Reichenbach were caused by Reichenbach??s (neo)Kantian roots (esp. his version of the relativized a priori), who himself regarded the Vienna Circle as a sort of anti-realist ??positivist school????as he described it in his Experience and Prediction (1938). One result of this divergence was Schlick??s preference of Carnap over Reichenbach for a position at the University of Vienna (in 1926), and his decision not to serve as a co-editor with Reichenbach for the journal Erkenntnis that they jointly established in 1930 (which was then co-edited by Carnap and Reichenbach from 1930 to 1938). A second split rooted in different views on induction and probability, which culminated in the Hans Reichenbach??s refusal to serve as an invited author on probability within the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science series ed. by Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris and Otto Neurath from 1938 onwards. In this regard it is remarkable that also Richard von Mises, who was the second leading figure of Logical Empiricism in Turkish exile, criticized the theory of probability put forward by his former Berlin colleague. In this paper I analyse this controversial exchange, drawing on the relevant correspondence and asking whether these (meta)philosophical differences were a typical feature of the pluralism inherent in Logical Empiricism in general.     

The Bricot–Mair Dispute: Scholastic Prolegomena to Non-Compositional Semantics

From a general semantic point of view, Thomas Bricot (d. 1516) and John Mair (1467–1550) are proponents of the solution to semantic paradoxes based on appreciation of the contextuality of truth, who differ in their approach to the relations of logical consequence and contradiction. The core of the study is the analysis of Mair's criticism of Bricot presented in the sixth quaestio of his Tractatus insolubilium where the consequences of non-compositional semantics for the concepts of synonymy and logical form are addressed. The polemic between John Mair and Thomas Bricot is construed as having immediate consequences for research in the area of non-compositional semantics.     

Soul–life–knowledge: The young Mannheim’s way to sociology

This essay discusses a less known period of Karl Mannheim’s life, namely the period he spent in Hungary. I attempt to point out that the career of the young Mannheim, starting from a philosophical interest and continuing with a sociological one, is continuous. His first published works and letters prove that in the period preceding his emigration to Germany in 1919 he was concerned with questions that received their mature form in his sociology of knowledge. They include primarily the question of culture, that of perspective-boundedness (relativity) of cognition, interpretation and the problem of intellectuals. Despite changing disciplines from philosophy to sociology, the continuity of his oeuvre can be shown.     

Managing Integration: German and British Policy Responses to the “Threat from Within” Post-2001

The involvement of European Muslims in violent events since 2001 has confronted European states with their alleged failure to adequately integrate migrant and ethnic minority populations. More specifically, these events increased cultural and security concerns associated with growing diversity and created a climate in which the issues of breaking up parallel societies, and, more explicitly, integrating Muslim minority populations have become particularly pressing. As previous approaches aimed at incorporating migrants have been branded as a failure, many European governments have begun re-developing their policies on migrant incorporation, not least to mitigate the potential "threat" posed by a lack of integration. This article focuses on German and British policy developments in the area of integration post-2001 and compares how the two states have responded to the alleged "threat from within".     

The impact of implicitly and explicitly primed ingroup–outgroup categorization on the evaluation of others pain: The case of the Jewish–Arab conflict

Despite the automaticity of affective sharing, many studies have documented the role of top-down effects, such as social categorization, on people’s empathic responses. An important question, largely ignored in previous research, concerns empathy to ingroup and outgroup members’ pain in the contexts of ongoing intergroup conflict. In the present study we examined how implicit and explicit ethnic social categorization of others affects empathy to pain in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. To meet this aim, we assessed the evaluation of pain by Jewish and Arab participants who viewed a series of visual stimuli depicting painful and non-painful familiar situations. The stimuli were associated with explicitly or implicitly primed typical names depicting ingroup, neutral outgroup, and adversary outgroup members. Results demonstrate that pain ratings in the explicit priming condition provide support for the ingroup empathy hypothesis, positing that empathy is higher for ingroup than for outgroup members for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Conversely, when the targets’ categories are primed implicitly, results revealed difference in empathy by the two ethnic groups where an ingroup bias was detected only for Palestinian Arabs. This suggests that the activation of ingroup bias on the subliminal implicit level among Palestinian Arab participants might be mediated by the amount of conflict permeating in their daily lives and by deeply rooted cultural values and behavioural patterns.     

The extended mind: born to be wild? A lesson from action-understanding

The extended mind hypothesis (Clark and Chalmers in Analysis 58(1):7–19, 1998; Clark 2008) is an influential hypothesis in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I argue that the extended mind hypothesis is born to be wild. It has undeniable and irrepressible tendencies of flouting grounding assumptions of the traditional information-processing paradigm. I present case-studies from social cognition which not only support the extended mind proposal but also bring out its inherent wildness. In particular, I focus on cases of action-understanding and discuss the role of embodied intentionality in the extended mind project. I discuss two theories of action-understanding for exploring the support for the extended mind hypothesis in embodied intersubjective interaction, namely, simulation theory and a non-simulationist perceptual account. I argue that, if the extended mind adopts a simulation theory of action-understanding, it rejects representationalism. If it adopts a non-simulationist perceptual account of action-understanding, it rejects the classical sandwich view of the mind.     

The consciousness continuum: from “qualia” to “free will”

The consciousness continuum is seen as extending from simple sensory experiences to complex subjective constructions resulting in the apparent exercise of conscious will. The phenomena between these two extremes include spontaneously occurring mental contents, unintended perceptual experiences, memory retrievals, and problem solving including feedback of conscious contents. Two factors describe this continuum: The presence or absence of intention (psychologically defined) and the complexity of the cognitive construction involved. Among other benefits, such an analysis is intended to provide an alternative to metaphysical and vague concepts such as qualia, free will, and intentionality.     

Predictors of Boys’ ADHD Symptoms from Early to Middle Childhood: The Role of Father–Child and Mother–Child Interactions

This prospective 3 year longitudinal study investigated preschool paternal and maternal parenting predictors of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD) in a community sample of 93 school-age boys. Participants were recruited on the basis of inattention-hyperactivity at age 4 and fathers and mothers were observed interacting with their sons. Teachers, fathers, and mothers reported children's ADHD symptoms and impairment. Results from dimensional analysis showed that less observed paternal sensitivity and maternal positive regard predicted higher levels of inattentiveness in middle childhood, and that intrusive paternal behavior was predictive of hyperactive-impulsive behavior at school. In categorical analysis, less maternal warmth and sensitivity were predictive of later ADHD. These predictions held after statistical adjustment for the effects of preschool ADHD behaviors and conduct problems. At follow-up, parents of boys with ADHD reported more negative child-parent relationship perceptions than comparison parents. Findings highlight the importance of examining responsive parenting behaviors of both fathers and mothers in relation to multi-informant ratings of ADHD symptoms.