Evaluating Single-Subject Treatment Research: Lessons Learned from the Aphasia Literature

The mandate for evidence-based practice has prompted careful consideration of the weight of the scientific evidence regarding the therapeutic value of various clinical treatments. In the field of aphasia, a large number of single-subject research studies have been conducted, providing clinical outcome data that are potentially useful for clinicians and researchers; however, it has been difficult to discern the relative potency of these treatments in a standardized manner. In this paper we describe an approach to quantify treatment outcomes for single-subject research studies using effect sizes. These values provide a means to compare treatment outcomes within and between individuals, as well as to compare the relative strength of various treatments. Effect sizes also can be aggregated in order to conduct meta-analyses of specific treatment approaches. Consideration is given to optimizing research designs and providing adequate data so that the value of treatment research is maximized.     

Biopolitics: Lessons from history

Biopolitics is an emerging subdiscipline within the field of political science. The essay examines historical antecedents and delineates three categories of such works: 1) metaphor, 2) evolutionary/genetic influences on behavior, and 3) public policy implications. A number of problems with these works are noted. Finally, suggestions for the current interest in biopolitics are outlined, based upon the historical analysis.     

Evaluating research institutions: Lessons from the CGIAR

Investing in research is a long-term, risky proposition. In agriculture, it could take fifteen years or more for a research finding to show an improvement in a farmer’s field. Yet, research institutions, like other organizations it needs to be evaluated. For more than twenty years, independent panels of outside experts have evaluated each of the international research centers that the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) supports. This paper examines the evolution of this review system, outlines the key methodological challenges faced, and draws lessons for others engaged in evaluating research institutions. It notes that the scope of the CGIAR reviews have been broadened over time in response to users’ concerns. Reviews now cover four dimensions of performance: research results, quality and relevance of research, vision and strategic directions, and management efficiency. The methodological challenges faced in measurement, valuation, and attribution are reviewed, along with practices found to be helpful in addressing these concerns. The paper concludes that the panel approach to institutional evaluation has served CGIAR’s needs well, and recommends it as an evaluation technique for integrating quantitative and qualitative dimensions of institutional performance. His recent work has concentrated on the governance and management of the CGIAR and the individual research centers it supports, including questions of evaluating management effectiveness. Prior to joining the World Bank in 1979, he was Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bogazici University (Istanbul) and Senior Research Director of Systems Research Incorporated (Lansing, Michigan).     

Evolution of language: Lessons from the genome

The post-genomic era is an exciting time for researchers interested in the biology of speech and language. Substantive advances in molecular methodologies have opened up entire vistas of investigation that were not previously possible, or in some cases even imagined. Speculations concerning the origins of human cognitive traits are being transformed into empirically addressable questions, generating specific hypotheses that can be explicitly tested using data collected from both the natural world and experimental settings. In this article, I discuss a number of promising lines of research in this area. For example, the field has begun to identify genes implicated in speech and language skills, including not just disorders but also the normal range of abilities. Such genes provide powerful entry points for gaining insights into neural bases and evolutionary origins, using sophisticated experimental tools from molecular neuroscience and developmental neurobiology. At the same time, sequencing of ancient hominin genomes is giving us an unprecedented view of the molecular genetic changes that have occurred during the evolution of our species. Synthesis of data from these complementary sources offers an opportunity to robustly evaluate alternative accounts of language evolution. Of course, this endeavour remains challenging on many fronts, as I also highlight in the article. Nonetheless, such an integrated approach holds great potential for untangling the complexities of the capacities that make us human.     

Practicing the Disseminary: Technology Lessons from Napster

Whatever will happen in the way of the confluence of pedagogy and technology, it will not so much perpetuate past models in more efficient ways as it will reflect a stronger element of (for example) the unanticipated success of Napster. The author suggests a fivefold interpretation of Napster's implications as a guideline of what cybermedia do well, and how theological educators can use cybermedia to enrich their classroom teaching by distinguishing online from in‐class education. Cybermedia serve best when they do not duplicate or usurp functions best accomplished in person, and personal interaction thrives when not burdened with information‐transmission that might as well take place online.     

Debunking a stereotype: The female medical student

The combined research of Horner (1972) and Monahan, Kuhn, and Shaver (1974) has demonstrated the existence of a stereotype of the female medical student as sex-role deviant and disinterested in sex. The present study examined the validity of this stereotype. Male and female medical students' scores on two psychometric measures were compared with the male and female college norms. The stereotype was not supported. Female medical students demonstrated no greater sex-role deviance than did their male counterparts. Furthermore, only male medical students indicated significantly less heterosexual interest than their same-sex norm.The authors wish to thank Dr. David G. Fish, who was involved in the original data collection. Support for the analyses of these data was obtained from Grant Number 607-1034-21 and from a Career Scientist Award, Number 607-1001-22, to the Junior Author.     

Morality and the View from Here

According to one influential conception of morality, being moral is a matter of acting from or in accordance with a moral point of view, a point of view which is arrived at by abstracting from a more natural, pre-ethical, personal point of view, and recognizing that each person's personal point of view has equal standing. The idea that, were it not for morality, rational persons would act from their respectively personal points of view is, however, simplistic and misleading. Because our nonmoral reasons cannot all be adequately captured as falling within any single, unified and coherent point of view, morality cannot be adequately understood as a matter of abstracting from such points of view and taking them all equally into account. After considering several ways of modifying the initial conception of morality in a way that accommodates the variety of nonmoral reasons that do not have their source in a personal point of view, the paper concludes with the suggestion that we free ourselves more thoroughly from the grip of the metaphor that takes morality as a whole to be a matter of acting in accordance with the judgments of a single unified and coherent point of view.     

道德视野下的内疚

几十年来, 内疚备受国内外研究者的关注, 其研究多从儿童发展、心理健康等方面展开。而近些年, 研究者关注的焦点开始转向内疚的道德层面, 即关注人际交往或社会事件中情绪的道德价值。内疚作为一种道德情绪, 是伴随道德意识的发展而发展的, 在维持和修复社会关系以及情绪情感发展中起着重要作用。因此, 文章从道德视角对内疚的界定、产生机制、行为反应以及亲社会作用等方面进行了梳理和探讨, 以期为国内的同类研究提供一些新的线索。     

Safer sex: Lessons from the male sex industry

Discerning the complex factors influencing male sex work is an important element of understanding HIV transmission. The present study examines a sample of London-based masseurs and street workers' ideas concerning their sexual encounters, their partners and their role in society. Unsafe sex is associated with (1) a lack of perception of control in the sexual encounter, (2) attractive clients, and (3) loving relationships with non-clients. The ways in which personal needs and stigma influence sexual practices and the men's sense of identity are considered. For some of the men, unsafe sex demarcates a sphere containing a type of intimacy that is absent from their working life. Since working life is associated with negative social judgements, the importance of this separate sphere is heightened. The findings call into question models of health behaviour that are built on individualist, reason-based tenets and highlight the importance of social and emotional factors in safer sexual behaviour. The implications of the findings for prevention programmes and future research are discussed.     

Betrayals of Therapist Trust: Lessons from the Field

This article explores violations of therapist trust in the practice of psychotherapy and how they can be understood from an experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) perspective. Case examples are used to highlight the ways in which therapists, sometimes naïvely or unknowingly, place a great deal of trust in clients, and thus are vulnerable to injury. The examples also demonstrate how EPCP can be a powerful perspective from which to anticipate potential injuries, as well as to understand and heal from them. Based on the lessons learned from these examples, suggestions for clinical training are offered.     

Debunking Antipsychiatry: Laing,Law, and Largactil

The term “psychiatry” refers to two radically different ideas and practices: curing–healing “souls” and coercing–controlling persons. It is important that critics of psychiatry clarify whether they object to the former or the latter or both, and why. Because I believe coerced psychiatric relations are like coerced labor relations called “slavery,” and like coerced sexual relations called “rape,” I spent the better part of my professional life criticizing involuntary-institutional psychiatry and the insanity defense. In 1967, my effort to undermine the medical-political legitimacy of the term “mental illness” and the moral-legal legitimacy of depriving individuals of liberty by means of psychiatric rationalizations suffered a serious blow: the creation of the antipsychiatry movement. Despite their claims, “antipsychiatrists” rejected neither the idea of mental illness nor coercion practiced in the name of “treating” mental illness. Sensational claims about managing “schizophrenia” and pretentious pseudophilosophical pronouncements diverted attention from the crucial role of the psychiatrist as an agent of the state and as an adversary of the denominated patient. The legacy of the antipsychiatry movement is the creation of a catchall term used to delegitimize and dismiss critics of psychiatric fraud and force by labeling them “antipsychiatrists.”

Debunking Arguments and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Do the cognitive origins of our theistic beliefs debunk them or explain them away? This paper develops an empirically motivated debunking argument and defends it against objections. First, we introduce the empirical and epistemological background. Second, we develop and defend the main argument, the debunking argument from false god beliefs. Third, we characterize and evaluate the most prominent religious debunking argument to date: the debunking argument from insensitivity. It is found that insensitivity-based arguments are problematic, which makes them less promising than the debunking argument from false god beliefs.     

Lessons from Wittgenstein: Elucidating folk psychology

To the extent that psychologists are concerned to do more than collect raw data for possible interpretation, they cannot avoid interrogating the philosophical assumptions which inform their work. This paper argues that there is a vital need for conceptual clarification of many of the central topics studied by today's sciences of the mind. Yet, rather than offering a comprehensive survey of these, this paper focuses on one illustrative, high profile case: the way in which our everyday understanding of reasons for action has been wrongly categorized in terms of ‘theory of mind’ abilities. Focusing on this example I show how it is possible to elucidate topics in the philosophy of psychology by relinquishing certain powerful explanatory temptations and by attending more closely to our everyday practices and activities.     

Assimilation and Heritage Identity: Lessons from the Coptic Diaspora

Many first generation immigrants share a concern for retaining their heritage culture, though they still aspire to successfully assimilate into the country of residence society. Assimilation theories suggest facilitating factors for positive assimilation but differ in terms of whether the loss of heritage culture is inevitable. The Coptic diaspora illustrates that upward mobility can be achieved without loss of heritage identity. Religious structures can play an important role not only in sustaining heritage identity but also facilitating positive assimilation. A review of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s ministry in diaspora, along with findings of a Coptic diaspora survey may offer lessons for other immigrant groups. The study affirms some theoretical findings and raises questions for future research.