The other Man by Donald J. West

The American Group Psychotherapy Association began in 1942 as an elite, strictly Freudian organization. Its dramatic growth in the 1960s and 1970s was accompanied by much theoretical disagreement and professional “chauvinism.” During the past decade, however, the ideological controversy has yielded to pluralism* in theory and eclecticism in practice.     

Inglehart‐Welzel's Traditional vs. Rational index revisited: A comparison between China and the West

Inglehart‐Welzel's ‘Traditional‐Rational’ Index has been widely accepted as a way to summarize changes in values between agricultural and industrial societies. An empirical re‐examination of the Index using the most recent World Values Survey data, however, suggests that it fails to represent the value profiles of mainland Chinese. I introduce a five‐item measurement called ‘Confucian Index of interpersonal relations’. It aims to capture some salient values in Chinese culture and show that, in China, Confucian values that govern interpersonal relations within one's immediate social environment are not in conflict with support for democratic government and social liberal values, such as tolerance and trust. The opposite is very much true in the rich West, where those who endorse ‘Confucian’ values are less tolerant of social diversity and where Inglehart's Index does make a lot of sense.     

After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West – Eugene F. Rogers

Book reviewed:
After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West , Eugene F. Rogers Jr, Eerdmans Press 2005 (0-8028-2891-4), xi + 251 pp., pb $22.00/£12.99     

East–West cultural differences in context‐sensitivity are evident in early childhood

Accumulating evidence suggests that North Americans tend to focus on central objects whereas East Asians tend to pay more attention to contextual information in a visual scene. Although it is generally believed that such culturally divergent attention tendencies develop through socialization, existing evidence largely depends on adult samples. Moreover, no past research has investigated the relation between context‐sensitivity and other domains of cognitive development. The present study examined children in the United States and Japan (N = 175, age 4–9 years) to investigate the developmental pattern in context‐sensitivity and its relation to executive function. The study found that context‐sensitivity increased with age across cultures. Nevertheless, Japanese children showed significantly greater context‐sensitivity than American children. Also, context‐sensitivity fully mediated the cultural difference in a set‐shifting executive function task, which might help explain past findings that East Asian children outperformed their American counterparts on executive function.     

Validation de la version française de l'échelle de réflexivité en groupe de Carter et West, 1998

Several studies found reflexivity —the extent to which team discuss objectives, strategies and processes and adapt them to changes— to be related to team efficacy. Two studies were conducted with 80 teams (320 participants) to validate French version of reflexivity scale. In study 1 exploratory factor analysis revealed 3 factors which partly confirms the 2 factor structure (task reflexivity and social reflexivity) expected from the original study (Carter and West, 1998). Two items of the original task reflexivity scale load on a third factor we named strategic reflexivity. The three factor structure was replicated in study 2 with confirmatory factor analysis. Criterion validity is proved by correlations between reflexivity and team performance. Task, social and strategic reflexivity correlate with different aspects of team effectiveness. The French version of reflexivity scale is reliable and appropriate for evaluating team reflexivity.