The near-death experience: Private or public?

This editorial contrasts the private, personal near-death experience with the public concept of the experience, and finds important messages for humanity that are common to both.     

Response to “The luminous experience and the scientific method” by Oliver Nichelson

Acknowledging the cultural shaping of near-death experiences makes possible a deeper and more sophisticated appreciation of their meaning and validity.     

Right or Wrong? The Brain's Fast Response to Morally Objectionable Statements

ABSTRACT— How does the brain respond to statements that clash with a person's value system? We recorded event-related brain potentials while respondents from contrasting political-ethical backgrounds completed an attitude survey on drugs, medical ethics, social conduct, and other issues. Our results show that value-based disagreement is unlocked by language extremely rapidly, within 200 to 250 ms after the first word that indicates a clash with the reader's value system (e.g., "I think euthanasia is an acceptable/unacceptable…"). Furthermore, strong disagreement rapidly influences the ongoing analysis of meaning, which indicates that even very early processes in language comprehension are sensitive to a person's value system. Our results testify to rapid reciprocal links between neural systems for language and for valuation.     

The instinct to teach: Altruism or aggression?

In this paper, the term ‘teaching’ means activities which induce a specific change in the behavior of a member of the same species, and are adapted until the pupil reaches a certain standard of performance. Teaching in this sense is confined to man, with one group of exceptions. Other forms of social learning are observed among the mammals and even the buds. The most important is imitation, or learning by observation. Teaching by other species always involves punishment, and always leads to the separation or spacing out of individuals. It occurs 1) at weaning, 2) in maintaining status within a group, and 3) in territorial behavior. In each case an animal is punished for approaching another. Man is distinguished by using punishment not only as a deterrent but also in the teaching of skills. Such conduct is sometimes called aggressive. To give it this name is to put teaching (by punishment) in the same class as socially undesirable acts. Such a usage obscures questions that can profitably be asked. Children learn much by imitation, and are encouraged to do so. But teaching of skills (usually not by punishment) and of customs seems to be universal in human communities, both primitive and advanced. To say that there is an instinct or drive to teach adds, however, nothing to this statement. Some teaching, especially the formal process in schools, is by adults and is confined to particular societies. But, in addition, children teach younger children, sometimes evidently without prompting by elders. This is one aspect of the nurturant behavior which is perhaps a feature of all societies. Some traditions seem to be maintained solely by children. Such conduct is probably at times altruistic in the traditional sense of the term. “Altruism” in biological writings today has, however, a different meaning, and is therefore becoming a source of confusion. In many communities, both primitive and advanced, nurturant behavior and the teaching of young children by older children are reported to be more prominent among girls than among boys. Teaching, considered as a type of behavior, has been neglected as a subject of study. It would repay multidisciplinary investigation, especially as it appears in the conduct of children.     

Mass Response to the Lewinsky Scandal: Motivated Reasoning or BayesianUpdating?

This study attempts to account for the vastly different trajectories taken by mass andelite opinion in the wake of the Lewinsky affair. Data from a panel study, collected before andjust after the scandal broke, suggest that Clinton's prior popularity indelibly colored massresponse to the scandal, thereby constraining citizens' reactions. As would be predicted bytheories of "motivated reasoning," the influence of various considerations (like thecredibility and importance of the allegations) on reactions to the scandal was conditional uponprior affect for the president. Such findings are difficult to accommodate within the more rational"Bayesian updating" perspective. These data shed light on mass response to theLewinsky scandal in particular and citizen reaction to presidential behavior more generally, aswell as on the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate motivated reasoning in candidate evaluation.     

The humbling experience of treating obesity: Should we persist or desist?

Obesity has humbled one research group after another. Some of the field’s brightest scientists have attempted to subdue obesity by treating it, but now, after decades of work, treatment gains remain small, maintenance is poor, and the field produces effects far below what patients want or expect. This can be explained by strong biological and environmental forces that oppose weight loss and foster regain. Attempts to improve treatment must continue, but with recognition that treatment is a clinical measure and will not affect prevalence (because treatments are too expensive to be used broadly). Policy change and prevention will be necessary to improve public health.     

“To Name or Not to Name: That is the Question”: The Role of Response Inhibition in Reading

Reading is a complex process that includes the integration of information about letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). In many circumstances, such as noisy environments, response inhibition is an additional factor that plays a marked role in successful oral reading. Response inhibition can take the form of task relevant inhibition (i.e., foils in a go/no-go task) and task irrelevant inhibition (i.e., distractor information). Here we investigated task relevant inhibition by having participants (N?=?30) take part in two tasks: go/no-go naming with nonwords foils (GNG-NW) and go/no-go naming with pseudohomophones foils (GNG-PH). Also, we investigated the addition of task irrelevant inhibition by having participants (N?=?28) take part in two tasks: GNG-NW?+?information masking and GNG-PH?+?information masking. We provide evidence that during a task relevant inhibition task, sub-word sound level information can be successfully inhibited, as evidenced by comparable response times for regular words and exception words, provided the foils do not contain familiar sound-based information (GNG-NW). In contrast, regular words were read aloud faster than exception words in a GNG-PH task, indicating that sub-word level interference occurs when the foils contain familiar sound-based information. The addition of task irrelevant inhibition (i.e., information masking at the phoneme level), served to increase response time overall, but did not impact the pattern of response times between regular words and exception words. Together these findings provide useful information regarding the role of response inhibition in word recognition and may be useful in computational models of word recognition and future work may benefit from accounting for the effects outlined in this paper.     

The White House Conference: tips or taps for counselors?

Counselors cannot continue to drift complacently in the shallows of their traditional roles. Whatever their work setting, they must heed the symbolic cries of their clients who feel alienated from family, school, work, institutions, and even from themselves, and find solace in meaningless or destructive outlets. If the counseling profession has a future, it will be concerned with humanizing environments where children, youth, and adults live, learn, work, and play; serving as advocates for all persons of all ages; and responding positively to the complexities of living which confront everyone. These priorities, highlighted by the 1970 White House Conference on Children, seem to have implications for the survival of all counseling.     

Response to commentary: is collaboration a viable target for family therapists?

In response to Zimmerman's commentary, ‘Is collaboration a viable target for family therapists?’ we explore more conventional perspectives of therapeutic collaboration featured in the family therapy literature, including Zimmerman's commentary. In particular, we critique essentialist and universal formulations that portray the client–therapist relationship to be inherently unequal as inconsistent and limiting. We conclude by addressing what appear to be some misunderstandings in Zimmerman's commentary and clarify what we see as differences between his ideas and our stance on collaboration and power in family therapy.     

The outcomes and correlates of job search objectives: searching to leave or searching for leverage?

The authors investigate a previously overlooked yet important objective for employee job search--seeking leverage against the current employer. They explore the outcomes and correlates of leverage-seeking search and how it may differ from the more traditional objective for engaging in job search--to change jobs. Results show that leverage-seeking and separation-seeking search objectives associate with different outcomes. The authors also find that characteristics of the work situation and individual differences associate with leverage-seeking search and relate differently with the 2 job search objectives. Implications for practice and the advancement of job search research are discussed.     

The Greensboro Child Response Initiative: A Trauma-Informed,Mental Health–Law Enforcement Model for Children Exposed to Violence

This article evaluates a trauma-informed, mental health–law enforcement intervention model called the Greensboro Child Response Initiative (CRI). CRI is a community-coordinated response to mitigate the development of traumatic stress symptoms in children exposed to violence, with the goals of decreasing mental health symptoms and other negative outcomes. Results from a quasi-experimental study indicated that caregivers appreciate the quick follow-up and support by CRI advocates and police reported seeing CRI as a critical component of their responses to calls for service related to families and children. Police line-ups and training provided by CRI increased levels of empathy and awareness of child trauma. Monthly stakeholder meetings promoted an informed victim response and increased communication and networking opportunities among community providers and law enforcement. Results suggest that CRI is a promising community-based early intervention, and implications and suggestions are provided for replicability.     

The Duty to Eradicate Global Poverty: Positive or Negative?

In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can at little cost to themselves, but because of their having violated a principle of justice not to unduly harm others by imposing on them a coercive global order that makes their access to the objects of their human right to subsistence insecure. In this paper, I claim that although Pogge is right in arguing that negative duties are crucial in an account of global justice, he is wrong in saying that they are the only ones that are crucial. Harming the global poor by causing their poverty provides a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the global rich to have a duty of justice to assist them. After engaging in a critical analysis of Pogges argument, I conclude by suggesting the need for a robust conception of cosmopolitan solidarity that includes positive duties of assistance which are not mere duties of charity, but enforceable ones of justice.