The Role of Innocent Guilt in Post‐Conflict Work

The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, who both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post‐conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering.     

Post‐Analytic Tractatus

Books reviewed: Barry Stocker (ed.), Post‐Analytic Tractatus (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). viii + 244, price £47.50 hb.
Reviewed by Patrick Horn, Claremont Graduate University
School of Religion
831 N. Dartmouth
Claremont, CA 91711
USA     

Measuring and Reducing Religious Bias in Post‐Conflict Zones: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

This article explores how religious bias, once it has been cultivated through politicization and violence, can be reduced. Using foundations from social identity theory and superordinate goal theory, I develop post‐conflict bias reduction strategies that include competing types of superordinate messages, economic and theological, as well as different sources of those messages. To test these strategies, I use video‐based information treatments coupled with Implicit Association Tests in Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire. The experimental findings point to three conclusions. First, implicit Muslim‐Christian bias in the study area remains high. Second, Christians in the study tend to be more biased against Muslims than Muslims are against Christians. Third, the effectiveness of treatments depends on the subjects who receive those treatments: theological messages are most effective in reducing bias among Muslims, regardless of their source, and strategies that rely on political leaders to deliver messages perform best among Christians, regardless of the content.     

Preparing Rural Adolescents for Post‐High School Transitions

In this study, the authors evaluated the impact of 4 career development curricular strategies and emotional/instrumental support in preparing rural adolescents to make successful post‐high school transitions. Curriculum strategies and perceived support helped 8th‐, 10th‐, and 12th‐grade students attain critical aspects of career development, enhanced student satisfaction that their education was better preparing them to achieve future educational and career goals, and increased student intentions to enter post‐high school settings that required greater levels of education and training. Girls reported earning higher grades and participating in more work‐based learning activities and intended to enter post–high school training settings that required more education than did boys.     

Research in counselling and psychotherapy Post‐COVID‐19

The COVID‐19 pandemic brings to light many areas the field of counselling and psychotherapy may need to address in future research. We outline several issues stemming from or exacerbated by the pandemic and offer suggestions for future research to address the mental health needs of those impacted. Our suggestions focus on five domains: (a) the health and well‐being of helping professionals, (b) the infodemic, (c) discrimination and minority stress, (d) spiritual and existential dynamics in mental health and (e) couple and family stress and resilience. We aim to provide a multi‐systemic perspective of mental health and well‐being in the time of COVID‐19, as well as encourage current and future studies to incorporate these suggestions to advance the health and well‐being of our communities through evidence‐based treatment approaches.     

Post‐truth politics and discursive psychology

This article argues for the potential of discursive psychology (DP) in the study of post‐truth politics. Work produced outside of psychology is considered, particularly from political science and international relations, which have made a promising start. Providing an overview of this body of research, I argue for their respective strengths and weaknesses. The literature so far tends to work with the notion that truth and emotion are matters that are, or at least should be, distinguishable. Instead, I argue that, rather than lament the blurring between truth and untruth, one should look to how these unfold as matters of practical concern in political discourse. DP is a tool particularly suited to the task; it highlights the importance of viewing ‘truth’ as a rhetorical resource. In this light, we can view post‐truth politics as a rhetorical matter rather than a degeneration of truth.     

Post‐Learning Verbal Information Changes Visual and Motor Memory for Hand‐Manipulative Tasks

Many instructions of a motor task include visual and verbal information. However, verbal information presented after a visual event has been shown to influence memory. This study examined whether this effect applies for hand‐manipulative motor tasks such as knot tying. Eighty‐six naive participants learned to tie the archaic bowline. Subsequently, half of the participants received misleading verbal information about the cowboy bowline, which differs from the originally instructed archaic bowline in one central detail: At a certain point, the rope crosses from left to right instead of from right to left. The remaining half of the participants received no misinformation. Dependent variables measured visual and motor memory for the knot. Results showed that misleading verbal information influenced visual and motor memory for knot‐tying tasks. More specifically, the misleading information changed memory at exactly this point to which it referred. This study suggests new avenues for our understanding and design of learning environments. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors Associated with Delays of Days to Decades to Criminal Prosecutions of Child Sexual Abuse

Until the latter part of the 20th century, legal doctrines made it almost impossible to successfully prosecute in criminal court a case involving child sexual abuse (CSA), whether the complaint was timely or delayed. Many English-speaking countries have abrogated most formal legal barriers to prosecuting CSA cases, and courts are faced with the singular challenge of adjudicating sexual offenses against children that are reported to have happened years or decades earlier. We conducted analyses of 4,237 criminal complaints of CSA heard in Canadian criminal courts. There were several differences between timely and delayed prosecutions that led us to conclude that delayed prosecutions of CSA are common and due, in part, to the nature of the offense. Offense duration was associated with longer delays to prosecution. When the accused had access to the child through his position in the community, length of delay to prosecution was very long, particularly for male complainants. More research is needed on delayed CSA prosecutions, particularly given an apparent trend for jurisdictions to abolish barriers to criminal prosecutions of CSA that occurred years or decades earlier. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Post‐It® Note Persuasion: A Sticky Influence

Four studies examine the influence of attaching a seemingly insignificant Post‐it^® note to a survey packet on the likelihood of completing the survey. Participants who received a packet with an affixed Post‐it note request had significantly higher return rates than participants who received the identical survey with (a) no sticky note, (b) the same message written on the cover sheet but without a Post‐it, or (c) a blank Post‐it with no message provided. Furthermore, they returned the materials more promptly with higher quality responses. A more personalized Post‐it appeal increased returns when the survey was long and time consuming but was no more effective than a nonpersonalized Post‐it when the survey was easy to complete. Results suggest that the Post‐it leads the request to be interpreted as a solicitation for a personal favor, facilitating a normative compliance response.     

Colonial and Post‐Colonial Elaborations of Avataric Evolutionism

Avataric evolutionism is the idea that ancient Hindu myths of Vishnu's ten incarnations foreshadowed Darwinian evolution. In a previous essay I examined the late nineteenth‐century origins of the theory in the works of Keshub Chunder Sen and Madame Blavatsky. Here I consider two major figures in the history of avataric evolutionism in the early twentieth century, N. B. Pavgee, a Marathi Brahmin deeply involved in the question of Aryan origins, and Aurobindo Ghose, political activist turned mystic. Pavgee, unlike Keshub, used avataric evolutionism in expounding his nationalistic goals for an independent India. His rationale was bolstered by the idea that India was the fountainhead of all science and civilization. Aurobindo saw in avataric evolutionism a possible key to understanding the involution and evolution of the supreme spirit in the realm of matter as taught in traditional Vedanta. This material‐spiritual evolution represented for Aurobindo the necessary knowledge for the true liberation of India, transcending purely political independence. Such knowledge he also saw as the means for the spiritual liberation of the whole of humankind. The processes of involution and evolution he claimed were not in conflict with modern science, and Western evolutionary thinking seems to have inspired many of his own evolutionary reflections, even though in the end he rejected the Darwinian transmutation of species. I conclude with an overview and assessment of recent, post‐colonial Hindu assimilations of avataric evolutionism.     

Post‐identification feedback effects: Investigators and evaluators

We investigated the effects of post‐identification feedback and viewing conditions on beliefs and interviewing tactics of participant‐investigators, crime reports of participant‐witnesses and participant‐evaluators' credibility judgments of the witnesses. Study 1 participants assumed the roles of witness and investigator (N = 167 pairs). Witnesses' view of a simulated crime video was manipulated by distance from viewing monitor: 2 or 9 ft. Participants made a line‐up identification and received either positive feedback or no feedback. Significant effects for witnesses and investigators were associated with viewing condition and post‐identification feedback. Interviews between investigator‐witness pairs were videotaped. Investigators asked more positive, leading questions when they were led to believe that the witness had identified the suspect. In Study 2 evaluators (N = 302) viewed the witness‐investigator interviews. Viewing condition had no effect on judgments of witness credibility but positive post‐identification feedback led evaluators to judge witnesses as more credible than witnesses who received no feedback. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Protecting Against Misleading Post‐event Information with a Self‐Administered Interview

Two studies investigated whether an early recall opportunity, in the form of a self‐administered interview (SAI), reduced forgetting and protected against the negative consequences of post‐event misinformation. In both studies, participants viewed a simulated crime on DVD after which half immediately recorded their statement by using the SAI, whereas control participants did not have an immediate recall opportunity. Following a delay, participants were presented with misinformation encountered either in a misleading news report (Study 1) or in the form of misleading cued‐recall questions (Study 2). Results showed that participants who had completed a SAI after witnessing an event were significantly less prone to forgetting and significantly more resistant to the negative consequences of misinformation. The SAI was able to protect both the quantity and quality of information about a previously witnessed event. Applied implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Career Services in the Post‐COVID‐19 Era: A Paradigm for Career Counseling Unemployed Individuals

The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic has caused unprecedented economic disruption and unemployment worldwide, threatening to become both a financial and a humanitarian crisis. Prolonged labor market recession and an acute rise of unemployment are expected. The main question for career counselors will be how to provide effective career counseling to unemployed people in the post‐COVID‐19 world, where they may face many other unemployment‐related problems. In this article, we suggest application of a holistic intervention model of career counseling for unemployed people that was designed to address the consequences of the acute financial recession in Greece.     

Forgetting Trauma: Socially Shared Retrieval‐induced Forgetting and Post‐traumatic Stress Disorder

Memory for related but unpracticed aspects of an event can be impaired by selectively retrieving parts of the same event. This occurs when selective retrieval [within‐individual retrieval‐induced forgetting (WI‐RIF)] is undertaken by individuals and has been extended to social contexts—RIF can be produced in listeners [socially shared retrieval‐induced forgetting (SS‐RIF)] by a speaker's selective recounting. The effects of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF were examined by two experiments. In Experiment 1, combat veterans (with or without PTSD) and non‐veteran dyads participated in a RIF paired‐associates paradigm adapted for combat‐related stimuli. WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF occurred for combat‐related and neutral pairs regardless of group. However, greater WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF for combat‐related words were shown by individuals with PTSD. These findings were replicated by Experiment 2, in which either a combat‐related or neutral story was learned by participants, and selective retrieval was embedded in a conversation. That the selective retrieval of trauma‐related stimuli leads to enhancement of induced forgetting for individuals with PTSD under certain conditions is suggested by these data. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Religion,Human Rights,and Neo‐liberalism in a Post‐Humanist Era

In a modern and secularized world, churches and religious groups that fight in the public sphere for social justice justify these actions in the name of defending human rights. This has been the path taken to express in non‐religious language what they understand to be a God‐given mission. Based on the distinction between civil rights, political rights, and social rights, which make up the set of human rights, this article analyzes the relationship between the notion of religious mission and the struggle for human rights; how neoliberal ideology, in an anti‐humanist perspective, criticizes the notion of social rights and social justice with the denial of any human right above the laws of the market; and the challenges that this neoliberal ideology poses for the justification of the social and political action of religious groups and institutions in the contemporary globalized world with a growing post/anti‐humanist culture.