Can the “Stripping of the Boss” be More Than a Joke?

In January 2011, uprisings and demonstrations broke out in Egypt, and the reverberations of the revolution are felt up to this day. The events that lead President Hosni Mubarak to resign were violent, disturbing, and definitely serious, but at the same time they were fuelled by and caused a plethora of jokes and funny slogans which circulated among the protesters. Previous studies on the functions of humour have suggested that among other things, humour can be used to enhance group cohesion by lifting up the spirits or to attack the (political) enemy by sharp sarcasm, the duality of which is captured in the metaphors of a shield and a sword. The present article builds upon “Stripping the Boss: The Powerful Role of Humor in the Egyptian Revolution 2011” by Helmy and Frerichs (2013), offering another perspective on the functionality Egyptian political jokes grounded in the current sociological approaches to humour. It aims to argue that humour as an ambiguous phenomenon is unreliable in reaching serious aims and thus cannot be conceptualised as a predictably functioning tool in conflicts, although it can sometimes give insights into the functioning of a society as a mirror of the social reality.     

Talking about Spirituality in the Clinical Setting: Can Being Professional Require Being Personal?

Spirituality or religion often presents as a foreign element to the clinical environment, and its language and reasoning can be a source of conflict there. As a result, the use of spirituality or religion by patients and families seems to be a solicitation that is destined to be unanswered and seems to open a distance between those who speak this language and those who do not. I argue that there are two promising approaches for engaging such language and helping patients and their families to productively engage in the decision-making process. First, patient-centered interviewing techniques can be employed to explore the patient's religious or spiritual beliefs and successfully translate them into choices. Second, and more radically, I suggest that in some more recalcitrant conflicts regarding treatment plans, resolution may require that clinicians become more involved, personally engaging in discussion and disclosure of religious and spiritual worldviews. I believe that both these approaches are supported by rich models of informed consent such as the transparency model and identify considerations and circumstances that can justify such personal disclosures. I conclude by offering some considerations for curbing potential unprofessional excesses or abuses in discussing spirituality and religion with patients.     

Is it Really Just About Being More Like a Fag? Confronting the Gay Male Model Mantra

Although the debate between feminism and queer is by now a fairly old and some might argue, trite and overwrought one, in this paper I direct my attention to a specific feminist assessment of queer that I find to be especially unhelpful and pernicious: the automatic linkage of queer with the exaltation of a gay male subjectivity. This article is informed by my own ethnographic research on lesbian/queer public sexual cultures; specifically, two Canadian lesbian/queer bathhouses, where public sex and sexual exploration are encouraged. I argue that this contention, that lesbians who espouse queer are aping (gay) male sexuality and subjectivity—due to the privileging of non-normative sexual practices found within the gay male community—does two things: (re)essentializes genders and sexualities, and, more importantly, robs non-gay male subjects (e.g., women, lesbians, butches, trans identified individuals) of their own agency. In sum, I believe that this linkage to a supposed gay male imitation, and concomitantly, viewing lesbian/queer sexual cultures, behaviors, configurations, and signifying sexual economies as mere derivatives of gay male culture, reinforces lesbian/queer invisibility and (re)centers the heterosexual matrix. For the sake of lesbian/queer subjects’ own viability, lesbian/queer sexualities must thus be pulled out of this discursive trap.     

Can Deweyan Pragmatist Aesthetics Provide a Robust Framework for the Philosophy for Children Programme?

In this paper, I argue that Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics, and in particular, his concept of consummatory experience, should be engaged anew to rethink the merits of the Philosophy for Children (PFC) programme, which arose in the 1970s in the US as an innovative educational programme that aims to use philosophy to help school children (aged 6–18) improve their ability to become more conscious of and make judgments about the aspects of their experience that have ethical, aesthetic, political, logical, or even metaphysical meaning. Although an international success, the PFC programme has attracted many criticisms from a variety of directions. I claim that Deweyan concept of consummatory aesthetic experience is broad and flexible enough to provide a robust framework to make sense of the pedagogical horizon of PFC and therefore fruitfully engage the various critics of the movement coming from religious and social conservatives, educational psychologists, critical theorists, postmodernists/posthumanists, and professional philosophers themselves. The goal of this paper is to offer in a preliminary fashion the basic elements of Deweyan pragmatist aesthetics, which was principally elucidated in his Art as Experience, to defend PFC as a viable pedagogy.     

What If the Church Really is the Body of Christ?

Abstract : What does it mean to claim that the church is the body of Christ? Following the lead of the New Testament, Bonhoeffer, Jenson, and Hauerwas, this article articulates how the church becomes the body of Christ through the narrative of Scripture and the practices of worship. As Jesus Christ has a distinctive character, so also the body of Christ has a distinctive character. This character is described through the four classical marks of the church—one, holy, catholic, apostolic. These notae ecclesiae are to be interpreted not only in relation to the inner constitution of the church but ethically in relation to the church's calling to be “shalom church” for the life of the world in peacemaking, doing justice, caring for creation, and defending human dignity. Particular communal practices that embody this character are proposed for the life of the church.     

What If the Energizer Bunny Were Female? Importance of Gender in Perceptions of Advertising Spokes-Character Effectiveness

An experiment was designed to determine whether and in what way gender makes a difference in the ratings of advertising spokes-characters. It was hypothesized and results confirmed that gender and product type affect the likability of spokes-characters and perceptions of target audience. A male spokes-character is perceived as more appropriate for a male-oriented product; however, a female spokes-character and a male product created the impression that the product was not quite so male oriented. It was also hypothesized that the spokes-character with the most positive ratings would be the most memorable. Results did not bear this out.     

Gender Bias in Leader Selection? Evidence from a Hiring Simulation Study

The present research investigated factors that might affect gender discrimination in a hiring simulation context from the perspectives of social role theory and the shifting standards model. Specifically, the experimental study investigated whether gender biases are evident in the screening and hiring stage of the personnel selection process depending on the applicants?? social role and evaluators?? gender. A sample of German undergraduate business students (54 women, 53 men) was asked to make a personnel selection decision (short-listing or hiring) about a fictitious applicant (man or woman) in a specific role (leader or non-leader) for a managerial position. Consistent with social role theory??s assumption that social role information is more influential than gender information, participants selected applicants described as leaders over applicants described as non-leaders, regardless of applicant gender. In addition, in the presence of role information, female applicants portrayed as leaders were similarly short-listed and hired as male applicants with the same credentials. In the absence of role information, female applicants were similarly short-listed as male applicants; however, male applicants were hired over female applicants, albeit by male participants only. This is consistent with the shifting standards model??s assumption that group members are held to a higher standard to confirm traits on which they are perceived to be deficient: Male participants hired female applicants portrayed as non-leaders with less certainty than their male counterparts possibly due to higher confirmatory standards for leadership ability in women than men. The research and practice implications of these results are discussed.     

What’s in a Purse? Maybe a Woman’s Reputation

Does a woman’s reputation suffer when others discover condoms in her possession? Fifty-two male and female predominantly white undergraduates from a small, private, Catholic university in the northeast USA examined the contents of a purse to formulate an impression of its owner. Unflattering inferences were drawn about the character of the target when her purse contained condoms. A follow-up study with 55 comparable participants confirmed that these inferences were indeed uncomplimentary. The results are discussed in terms of the multi-dimensional price women pay when assuming responsibility for their sexual health.     

“Can One Put Faith and Work in the Same Sentence?” Faith Development and Vocation of a Female Leader in the Engineering Profession

Faith has been pointed out as a possible resource in strengthening individuals’ health and well-being at work. The aim of this article is to gain in-depth knowledge of the faith development and vocation of a selected female leader in a male-dominated work context. The article contributes to research on faith development in women leaders, based on Fowler’s faith development theory. This is a single case study grounded in a qualitative research design. In-depth qualitative data were gathered through observation and interviews over 18 months. Findings showed the development of faith across a women leader’s life span and highlight that faith and vocation are important resources that provide strength, meaningfulness and a vision.     

If Reason is ‘in the World’, Where Exactly is it Located?

In his recent book James Kreines argues that for Hegel reason is “in the world”, but how we are to understand the idea of reason's being so located? One answer, suggested by more traditional theocentric readings of Hegel, would be to appeal to the idea of a divine thought, coursing through the world. Another answer, more congenial to modern sensibilities, might locate reason within the rational activities of inter‐subjectively connected human beings, as suggested by Terry Pinkard's idea of the “sociality of reason”. Kreines seems to want to avoid suggestions of the former, but in distancing himself from approaches like the latter, he also seems to refuse the more metaphysically modest alternative. In retracing the contours of Kreines's nuanced attempt to reinflate Hegel's metaphysics as a “metaphysics of reason”, I pose the question as to whether he can avoid reintroducing a more extravagantly metaphysical Hegel than he wishes.     

If it is a dog,can it be an animal? the role of metalinguistic knowledge in the acquisition of linguistic superordination

Acquisition of superordinate classification has traditionally been explained in terms of development of class inclusion. More recently, alternative explanations have been put forward by many authors, who consider superordination, as a product of linguistic and metalinguistic acquisitions. An experiment was carried out aimed at understanding the role of metalinguistic knowledge—defined in terms of the nominal realism/nominal relativism distinction. Subjects were 41 children from 7 years 1 month to 8 years 9 months, presented with a free-definition task of objects belonging to familiar categories and a questionnaire regarding the origin of names, their nature, exchangeability, etc. A significant correlation was found between spontaneous definitions of objects and conceptions of the relationships between names and things: Those subjects who are aware of the historical and cultural origin of names (decline of ontological realism) are also able to use superordinates in their definitions. However, superordination is not linked to awareness of the arbitrary nature of the word-referent connection (decline of logical realism).The study was supported by Grants 40% 1984/85 of MPI and 84.01238.08 of CNR.     

Can Darwinian Feminism Save Female Autonomy and Leadership in Egalitarian Society?

As a Darwinian feminist I welcome any attempt at correcting the historical neglect of women’s roles in human evolution, as Rebecca J. Hannagan (2008, in this issue) does in her paper “Gendered Political Behavior: A Darwinian Feminist Approach.” There is much to be said for the view that women’s political agency in foraging societies has systematically been underestimated, due to a combination of researcher bias and the lesser visibility of women’s political strategies. As a feminist Darwinian, however, I must conclude that wishful thinking seems to have led Hannagan into overestimating the degree of female autonomy and leadership in these societies.     

Can the location negative priming process operate in a proactive manner?

The location negative priming (NP) effect refers to the fact that the processing of a current target stimulus (probe trial) is delayed when it appears at a location that has recently contained a distractor event (prime trial), relative to when it occurs at a previously unoccupied position. One view is that the process causing the NP effect involves the inhibition of the internal representation of the prime-distractor event, and that the future processing of target stimuli that involve this event are prolonged because this distractor inhibition is persistent. In this study, we examined the possibility that the NP process (inhibition) could act proactively; specifically asking whether inhibition could be allocated to a location merely predicted to hold a future distractor event. To do this, we cued the probe distractor's location using an otherwise traditional location NP paradigm. No evidence of a proactive NP process was obtained. Probe-trial target latency was the same whether it appeared at the cued distractor location or at a new location, but was delayed when it occupied the prime-distractor location (NP effect). The location NP process is seemingly a reactive one, applying inhibition only when an actual distractor is present, much as past theories have implied.     

Where in the brain is the self?

Localizing the self in the brain has been the goal of consciousness research for centuries. Recently, there has been an increase in attention to the localization of the self. Here we present data from patients suffering from a loss of self in an attempt to understand the neural correlates of consciousness. Focusing on delusional misidentification syndrome (DMS), we find that frontal regions, as well as the right hemisphere appear to play a significant role in DMS and DMS related disorders. These data are placed in the context of neuroimaging findings.     

Being a Traveller—On Traversing the Self-Process in Qualitative Research

This paper addresses certain key questions about researching in psychology from a qualitative perspective. It debates the question of certainty versus variability—are truths fixed and universal or is there something beyond immortal, objective facts? The question of sharability versus particularity is raised—is the complete picture explained by generalisations or does one view the psychological landscape in a way that highlights the difference? The question of objectivity versus subjectivity is dwelled upon—should the researcher be a detached, neutral observer of the Other or should she let her subjectivity flow freely in the researching process? And finally, the question of neutrality versus positionality is examined—does reality come into focus only if the researcher stands at a certain distance or would her lens blur if she stands too close? Through engagement with these questions, the researcher, akin to a traveller who meanders across a littered landscape, attempts to traverse personal territories in the search of truths of human knowledge. The paper also delves into some of the unsettling aspects of qualitative research.     

Gender,Risk, and Religiousness: Can Power Control Provide the Theory?

Collett and Lizardo (2009) offer a model of gender differences that revisits and expands earlier research, in particular nascent ideas used by Miller and Hoffmann (1995) that were borrowed, in part, from a power-control theory of delinquency and crime. However, I am skeptical of their attempt to apply power-control theory as a general explanation of gender differences in religiousness. In this response piece, I first set the context by describing how Alan Miller and I initially approached our risk and religion work. I then point out where I think the research stream went awry and why recent studies of risk preferences and religion have failed to provide convincing evidence one way or the other. Finally, I offer an appraisal of Collett and Lizardo's work, with particular attention to why adopting power-control theory should be viewed with caution. I conclude with suggestions for future research on gender and religiousness.     

Can Bioethics Survive in a Dying World?

Significant changes in the natural environment over the past 40 years pose key challenges to health and health care in the 21st century. Health care has not yet given serious attention to what the current environmental situation means for human health, or for maintaining an effective health care system. Bioethics is in a good position to help health professionals engage environmental questions. But bioethics, as a field, will first need to explore and integrate “ecological thinking”—thinking based in the concept of connectedness and committed to viewing humans are part of nature rather than exempt from it.     

Is there a baby in the bathwater? Maybe: some methodological issues for the de novo protein synthesis hypothesis

The de novo protein synthesis hypothesis has a long history and will no doubt continue to influence research. Yet, the primary behavioral evidence for this claim continues to come from studies in which amnesia is produced by broad scale protein synthesis inhibitors such as anisomycin. What is remarkable is the uncritical acceptance of the idea that because anisomycin is a protein synthesis inhibitor then it must have produced amnesia because it prevented translation. Several viable alternative interpretations of such experiments are discussed here and it is concluded that there is nothing to be gained by the continued use of broad-scaled antibiotics to address this hypothesis. Moreover, this approach cannot answer two critical and related questions - why must new proteins be synthesized and what are they? A focus on specific proteins such as those synthesized locally and upregulate the translation of other proteins may be a promising approach to answering these questions.