Beyond Stages of Change: Multi-Determinant Continuum Models of Action Readiness and Menu-Based Interventions

The merits of modelling action readiness as a series of stages is discussed, focusing on the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) which postulates a motivational stage (for non‐intenders) and a volitional stage (for intenders). The HAPA helpfully clarifies that the relationship between self‐efficacy and action may be different for inexperienced intenders and experienced actors. This model also usefully distinguishes between different types of planning undertaken by intenders and it is suggested that further specification of planning tasks could explain why some intenders act while others do not. Despite the advantages of the HAPA, it is argued that the distinction between intenders and non‐intenders is fuzzy and unstable and that demarcation of the stage boundary is arbitrary. A multi‐determinant, multi‐goal continuum approach is recommended. Such modelling recognises graded discontinuities throughout the development of action readiness from attitude formation to behaviour change maintenance. It is argued that menu‐based interventions designed to deliver different messages and materials to people with different action‐readiness deficits may be more cost effective than stage‐tailored interventions. On discute de l’intérêt qu’il y a de modéliser la préparation à l’action en une série de stades à partir de l’Approche des Processus d’Action en faveur de la Santé (HAPA) qui pose l’existence d’une phase motivationnelle (pour ceux qui n’ont pas l’intention d’agir) et d’une phase volitionnelle (pour ceux qui l’ont). L’HAPA met utilement en évidence que la relation entre l’auto‐efficience et l’action peut différer selon que l’on a affaire à un acteur expérimenté ou à une personne sans expérience qui pense agir. Ce modèle fait aussi une distinction utile entre les différentes sortes de planification qui s’offrent à ceux qui ont l’intention d’agir et laisse entendre qu’un approfondissement de la planification des tâches pourrait expliquer pourquoi certains passent à l’action et d’autres pas. En dépit de l’intérêt de l’HAPA, on peut penser que la distinction entre l’intention et l’absence d’intention est floue et instable et que le découpage en stades est arbitraire. On recommande une approche retenant un continuum à déterminants et à buts multiples. Cette modélisation reconnaît l’existence de discontinuités échelonnées tout au long du développement de la préparation à l’action depuis la formation de l’attitude jusqu’au changement effectif du comportement. On défend l’idée que les interventions à la carte conçues pour procurer différents messages et fournitures aux gens qui présentent différentes carences de préparation à l’action peuvent être plus rentables que les interventions basées sur les stades.     

Coorientation of body image among older married couples

This study examined how older husbands and wives perceived their bodies and appearance in the framework of coorientation effect. Data were collected via a mail survey of older married couples residing in three metropolitan areas in Florida. A total of 94 married couples who were 60 years older participated in this study. Results indicated that older husbands’ self-assessment of appearance was positively correlated with wives’ self-assessment of appearance. Husbands’ evaluation of their wives’ appearance was positively associated with wives’ self-assessment of their own appearance (self-other agreement), and wives’ evaluation of their husbands’ appearance was also positively correlated with husbands’ self-assessment of their own appearance (self-other agreement). In addition, husbands’ evaluation of their wives’ appearance corresponded to wives’ evaluation of their husbands’ appearance (reciprocity). These results indicated that the agreement in two spouses’ self-assessment of appearance can be explained by the two coorientation effects (self-other agreement and reciprocity) occurred in two partners of married couples.     

Capitalism and the Banality of Desire

ABSTRACT

This paper elaborates on Todd McGowan’s perspicacious, psychoanalytic explanation of capitalism’s resilience, due to its formidable ideological insinuation into the banal micro-desires of consumers. I outline his contention that capitalism’s false promise of future satisfaction is subverted by the psychical change indicated by Freud’s re-evaluation of the desire/satisfaction relationship. This is elaborated on via Lacan’s claim, somewhat underplayed in McGowan’s reflections, that desire is essentially narcissistic. Lacan’s claim raises the stakes of capitalism’s psychic appeal, but also indicates how Lacanian psychoanalysis offers a point of intervention. I briefly point to the consistency between Lacan’s conception of the actualized subject and Deleuze’s and Guattari’s articulation of desire in terms of “the process” and the complex metaphor of “desiring machines”. I finally turn to ?i?ek’s conception of the developing world as “the place of rupture” and a major fault line internal to capitalism that threatens to disrupt its operation.     

The problems of consciousness and content in theories of perception

The paper aims to show, first, that O’Regan’s and Noë’s Sensorimotor Theory of Vision and Visual Experiences suffers from circularity, and that evidence from empirical research within perception psychology unequivocally invalidates their theory. Secondly, to show that the circularity in O’Regan’s and Noë’s theory of vision and in other general causal and functional theories of perception (i.e. Gibson’s and Marr’s theories of perception) is the inevitable consequence of mutually conflicting assumption of Cartesian dualism underlying these theories. The paper concludes by outlining the consequences of this conflict of assumptions for psychological theories of perception.     

Against the Politics of Postmodern Philosophy of Science

This paper discusses the tenets of the politics of postmodern philosophy of science. At issue are Rouse’s version of naturalism and his reading of Quine’s distinction between the indeterminacy of translation and the underdetermination of theories by empirical evidence. I argue that the postmodern approach to science’s research practices as patterns of interaction within the world is not in line with the naturalistic account Rouse aims at. I focus also on Rouse’s readings of Heidegger’s existential conception of science and Kuhn’s concept of normal science. Finally, a strategy of defending science’s cognitive distinctiveness in terms of hermeneutic philosophy is suggested as an alternative to the postmodern philosophy of science.     

Richard Wagner and the Birth of The Birth of Tragedy 1

Abstract

Nietzsche writes that the ‘real task’ of The Birth of Tragedy is to ‘solve the puzzle of Wagner’s relation to Greek tragedy’. The ‘puzzle’, I suggest, is the intermingling in his art and writings of earlier socialist optimism with later Schopenhauerian pessimism. According to the former the function of the ‘rebirth of Greek tragedy’ in the ‘collective artwork’ is to ‘collect’, and so create, community. According to the second the function of the artwork is to intimate a realm ‘beyond’ this world of pain and death. The audacity of The Birth is that it attempts to show that Wagner can have his cake and eat it: the ‘Dionysian’, musical, element provides a ‘metaphysical comfort’, while the ‘Apollonian’, verbal, element draws a ‘veil of oblivion’ over the metaphysical, thereby allowing the artwork to solidify community. Contrary to the standard Anglophone view, this perspective on The Birth shows that Nietzsche’s intimate association with Wagner during the period of its creation lies at the heart of its philosophical content.     

The Cognitive Interview for Use with Adults: An Empirical Test of an Alternative Mnemonic and of a Partial Protocol

Research showed that the four Cognitive Interview (CI) mnemonics used individually are unequally effective. We propose to test (i) their benefit when used within the same free recall phase and (ii) an original instruction, ‘guided peripheral focus’ (GPF). In two studies, 84 and 42 students were interviewed with Structured Interviews (SI), CIs or CI variations about a film viewed 1 week before. Results indicated that (i) if a CI variation with the GPF instead of the ‘perspective’ elicits more correct information than an SI or a CI, variations replacing the ‘perspective’ or the ‘order’ and ‘perspective’ with control instruction(s) do not; (ii) a partial CI integrating the ‘everything’, ‘context’ and GPF increases correct information compared with an SI, whereas the CI does not. We will discuss in which extent these results demonstrate the effectiveness of the ‘everything’, ‘context’ and ‘GPF’ and a potential lack of benefit of the ‘order’ and ‘perspective’. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time/History,Self-disclosure and Anticipation: Pannenberg,Heidegger and the Question of Metaphysics

This essay examines Wolfhart Pannenberg’s defense of metaphysics’ foundational importance for philosophy and theology. Among all the modern philosophers whose claims Pannenberg challenges, Martin Heidegger’s discourse against Western metaphysics receives the major portion of criticism. The first thing one concludes from this criticism is an affirmation of a wide intellectual gap that separates Pannenberg’s thought from Heidegger’s, as if each stands at the very opposite corner of the other’s school of thought. The questions this essay tackles are: is this seemingly irreconcilable difference between Pannenberg and Heidegger fully justifiable? What if there is a reading of Panneberg’s and Heidegger’s view of metaphysics that can reveal deeper similarities between the two thinkers than the first reading of Pannenberg’s criticism of Heidegger allows us to see? It then answers these questions by showing that both thinkers actually share a common emphasis on the concepts of ‘time/history’, ‘self-disclosure’ and ‘anticipation’, and their reliance on these notions reveals that Heidegger’s and Pannenberg’s approaches to the phenomenon of understanding and to metaphysical ontology are not fully contradictory but rather hold noticeable hermeneutical similarities.     

Re-Reading the Declaration of Independence as Perlocutionary Performative

This paper addresses the question of the constitution of ‘the people’. It argues that J.L. Austin’s concept of the ‘perlocutionary’ speech act gives us a framework for understanding the constitutive force of a specific constitutional document: the American Declaration of Independence. It does so through responding to Derrida’s analysis of the Declaration, which itself draws on Austin’s work. Derrida argues that the Declaration’s constitutive force lies in the fact that it cannot be simply understood as either ‘performative’ or ‘constative’, in Austin’s terminology. According to Derrida, ‘the people’ do not pre-exist the Declaration, but are constituted in the act of declaration itself. In response, I argue that while Derrida’s insight regarding the constitution of ‘the people’ is sound, his analysis misses two key aspects of the Declaration. These two lacunae point the way to an understanding of the constitutive force of the Declaration in terms of Austin’s ‘perlocutionary’ speech act.     

老子之道的虚空特征与本体性之新探

"道"是老子哲学体系中的核心。"道"以"虚空"或"无"的形态存在,"虚空"或"无"是物质的潜在状态。"道"是混成之物,所以"道"是具有精妙的内部结构特性的,它是人类尚未完全认识的物质存在的高级形态。宇宙万物是"道"创生与演化的结果,而且在演化的过程中,"道"的作用是"无为而无不为"的。在研究宇宙的本体(或本源)问题上,没有其它的概念可以替代它、超越它。"道"是具有至上性的。     

A Q methodological study of rebelliousness

Through the use of the notion of rebelliousness, the argument is raised and developed that conventional social psychological research tends to downplay investigation of intangible, ‘fuzzy’ issues in favour of the study of more clearly operationalizable constructs. The thesis is developed that slippery social categories should concern us both for their own sake (because social knowing is fuzzy) and because they require of investigation analytics that have a sensitivity to the social and historical circumstances which impinge upon psychological processes. A Q methodological study into construals of rebelliousness is reported, which reveals eight interpretable factors explicated as ‘the ambivalent rebel’, ‘the antirebel’, ‘rejecting rebelliousness: the free thinker’, ‘rebellion as social change’, ‘shockable and anti-confrontational’, ‘positive support for the rebel’, ‘rebel with a cause’ and ‘strong-willed confrontational rebel’.     

The Process of Growth in Krishna Consciousness and Sacredness in Belgium

The article focuses on the Hare Krishna members in Belgium. The movement owns a temple on the outskirts of a provincial city in the south of the country. Fieldwork was carried out among the ‘temple residents’ (at Radhadesh, the ‘Petite Somme’), those who live in its vicinity, the ‘congregationalists’ in the local centres, and those who are on the way of being initiated. The article focuses on the development members undergo from ‘adepts’ to ‘devotees’, that is from ‘congregationalists’ to becoming full-time ‘temple residents’ in Radhadesh. The question we address concerns the process of members’ growth in Krishna consciousness and sacredness.     

In Spite of Indeterminacy Many Common Factor Score Estimates Yield an Identical Reproduced Covariance Matrix

It was investigated whether commonly used factor score estimates lead to the same reproduced covariance matrix of observed variables. This was achieved by means of Schönemann and Steiger’s (1976) regression component analysis, since it is possible to compute the reproduced covariance matrices of the regression components corresponding to different factor score estimates. It was shown that Thurstone’s, Ledermann’s, Bartlett’s, Anderson-Rubin’s, McDonald’s, Krijnen, Wansbeek, and Ten Berge’s, as well as Takeuchi, Yanai, and Mukherjee’s score estimates reproduce the same covariance matrix. In contrast, Harman’s ideal variables score estimates lead to a different reproduced covariance matrix.     

专家医生的知识结构及诊断推理方式

医学专长研究中“中间者效应”的发现,引发了研究者对专家医生知识结构的探讨。在“知识打包”的基础上,医生的临床知识以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来。随着临床经验的增加,专家医生积累了丰富的疾病脚本。在临床诊断中,他们无需对病人所有的体征和症状进行仔细地和系统地分析,而是通过非分析性的推理方式——“模式识别”或“样例识别”便可自动激活与之匹配的疾病脚本,据此对病人做出迅速而准确的诊断。医学专长的本质就在于专家医生以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来的知识结构。“适应性专长”代表了未来医学专长研究的新方向     

组织氛围对员工行为有效性的影响机制

该研究采用问卷调查法和专家评估法探讨员工行为有效性的影响机制.结果表明:(1)组织氛围对员工行为有效性有积极的影响.(2)员工的自我效能感在组织氛围与绩效间起完全中介作用,在组织氛围与组织承诺间起部分中介作用,在组织氛围与满意度之间没有中介效应.(3)员工的自我效能感、满意度和组织承诺在组织氛围与员工绩效间起完全中介作用.(4)组织氛围对员工绩效的影响存在双重中介效应.结论:组织氛围对员工绩效的影响机制非常复杂,不仅可以直接影响,而且还可以通过影响员工的自我效能感、满意度和组织承诺等多种中介效应来影响.     

Heidegger’s Destruktion of Theology: ‘Primordial Faith’ and ‘Recognition’ of the Messiah

Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life offers important insights by engaging Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where he distinguishes ‘Paul the Pharisee’ from ‘Paul the Christian’ in order to explicate the nature of faith in contrast to systematic theology. Neither certitude in God’s existence is primordial to Christian faith, according to Heidegger, nor is rabbinic nor theological disputation concerning God’s existence or God’s nature. Instead, what is essential to Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life are: (1) faith as lived experience and (2) recognition of ‘the Christ’ (ho christos/ha ma?ía?). This ‘recognition’, however, requires phenomenological clarification and not philosophy of religion as traditionally construed.     

‘Sin is Rightly Called the Punishment of Sin’: Francis Turretin’s Reformed Doctrine of Sin

ABSTRACT

This article contextualizes Francis Turretin’s (1623–87) doctrine of sin, and in particular his understanding of sin as a punishment for sin. Specifically, it elaborates on the theological context into which Turretin speaks. Through analyzing Turretin’s historical situation, it progresses to the content of Turretin’s theology in light of his theological and political opponents. Utilizing Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology (1679–1685), St Augustine’s Contra Julianum, and John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, amongst others, this article evaluates Turretin’s view of the doctrine of sin and its relation to medieval and early-modern European theology. Ultimately, it argues that Turretin’s view of sin as a punishment of sin is born from his understanding of God’s holiness being demonstrated through his ‘vindicatory justice’ and Turretin’s self-understanding as an ‘orthodox’ theologian in the grand tradition of Western theology extending back to the Church Fathers.     

4岁儿童对他人记忆的评判与错误信念理解的关系

从观点采择的角度考察儿童对他人记忆的评判及其与错误信念理解的关系。与他人分享记忆时,个体需要同时处理自我与他人对过去的表征和看法;而要顺利完成错误信念任务,个体需要同时加工自我的真实信念与他人的错误信念。因此个体对他人记忆的评判能力可能会与其对错误信念的理解相关。40名4岁儿童完成一系列错误信念任务和评判他人记忆是否正确任务,情境包括视觉、意图解释和情绪解释。结果表明,控制年龄、语言和记忆能力等因素后,被试评判他人记忆的成绩仍然可以预测其对错误信念的理解。这些结果为幼儿在回忆叙述中谈及他人越多,其心理理论越好提供了进一步的证据和可能的解释