Separation of Religion and State and Secularism in Theory and in Practice

Abstract

This study examines whether states follow the religion policies they declare in their constitutions. It identifies four types of policies which officially seek to limit religion's role in government: absolute separation of religion and state (SRAS); neutral political concern; exclusion of ideals; and secularism–laicism. I determine whether states follow these policies using the religion and state (RAS) dataset and compare this to constitutional declarations that the state is secular and declarations of separation of religion and state. The results show that a majority of states which make both types of declaration do not follow these policies based on any of the four standards used in this study. However, the presence and wording of these clauses are correlated with state religion policy.     

The Meanings of the Community and of the Individual in Slovakia and in Scotland

The purpose of this paper was to examine meanings of the terms ‘individual’, ‘the community’ and ‘local community’ in Slovakia and Scotland. The social, cultural, political and economic histories of these two small European nations are quite different. Slovakia is one of the post-communist countries in which rapid changes have recently taken place. In contrast, Scotland has enjoyed a relatively stable parliamentary democracy within the UK. Two groups of respondents, 200 from Slovakia and 200 from Scotland, were presented with a word association task which included 38 political and economic terms and with two scales containing the same list of terms. They rated phenomena referring to these terms with respect to their importance for the well-being of the individual and to the well-being of the community. The results suggest that for Scots but not for Slovaks, the term ‘local community’ evokes positive associations and that local community is a meaningful concept. The data suggest that local attachments and loyalties were destroyed in Slovakia during communism. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Ritual and spontaneity in healthcare and in the organisation of therapeutic communities

The author, following constructivist psychoanalysis, observes a dialectic at work in the therapeutic community between knowledge and authority of the analyst and his/her spontaneity on the one hand, and between the formal and informal roles that therapists adopt in a therapeutic community on the other hand. The key to successful therapy, he suggests, lies in maintaining this dialectic. He then goes on to discuss the function of staff teams in therapeutic communities and the importance of taking into account the patients’ unconscious representations of the team. He stresses the need for leadership in therapeutic communities and in engaging with moral issues and not just clinical ones.     

Voters and leaders in the mirror of politics: similarity in personality and voting choice in Italy and Spain

Relations between voting choice and similarity in traits between voters and political candidates are examined in two studies. The first study was conducted in Spain, where the personalities of Mariano Rajoy and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero were assessed. The second study was conducted in Italy, where the politicians assessed were Walter Veltroni and Silvio Berlusconi. Results show in both cases a similarity between voters' self-reported personality and their appraisals of the leaders of the party for which they voted. Similarity is generally higher with respect to traits that are the most distinctive for each platform and its leader. The findings show a higher similarity between voters and their leaders on the markers of agreeableness, such as "loyal" and "sincere." Findings hold across countries and political figures, demonstrating the role that personal characteristics of both voters and candidates play in orienting political preference.     

Career Status and Satisfaction of Recent Graduates in Business and in Arts and Humanities

Students in both groups had found jobs and were generally satisfied with them. Business graduates needed help beyond job entry, but arts and humanities graduates needed help with job-entry skills.     

Ego-Identity Achievement and Perception of Risk in Intimacy in Survivors of Stranger and Acquaintance Rape

One hundred twenty-two women participated in a study of the relationship between acquaintance/stranger rape and the respective variables of ego-identity achievement (attainment of self-image during adolescence that integrates one's ideas of what one is and what one wants to be) and perception of risk in intimacy (perception of close interpersonal relationships as a risky proposition). Results showed that compared to women who had not been sexually assaulted, survivors of rape in general reported lower ego-identity achievement and greater perception of risk in intimacy. Focusing on acquaintance rape and stranger rape with age at the time of assault as possible moderator, it was found that lower ego-identity achievement was systematically related to acquaintance rape in women who had been raped during their adolescent years, but not in survivors of rape during adulthood. Perception of risk in intimacy was significantly higher among women who had been raped when adolescents compared to those who had been raped during adulthood, but only in relation to acquaintance rape.     

States of curiosity and interest enhance memory differently in adolescents and in children

Curiosity – broadly defined as the desire to acquire new information – enhances learning and memory in adults. In addition, interest in the information (i.e., when the information is processed) can also facilitate later memory. To date, it is not known how states of pre‐information curiosity and post‐information interest enhance memory in childhood and adolescence. We used a trivia paradigm in which children and adolescents (N = 60, 10–14 years) encoded trivia questions and answers associated with high or low curiosity. States of high pre‐answer curiosity enhanced later memory for trivia answers in both children and adolescents. However, higher positive post‐answer interest enhanced memory for trivia answers beyond the effects of curiosity more strongly in adolescents than in children. These results suggest that curiosity and interest have positive effects on learning and memory in childhood and adolescence, but might need to be harnessed in differential ways across child development to optimize learning.     

Temporal and spatial parameters of stepping in place in children and adults

Characteristics of synchronized and self-paced stepping in place were examined by analyzing a temporal parameter (step frequency) and a spatial parameter (step height). Participants were 20 adults (10 women, 10 men; M age = 22.5 yr., range = 21-23) and 10 children (5 girls, 5 boys; M age=6.1 yr., range = 5-6). Results indicated that: (1) the step frequencies, which were equivalent for both groups, were well coincident with stimulus frequencies; (2) when step frequencies were imposed, the step height decreased with increasing step frequency, except for the lowest frequency condition in children; (3) movement consistency was the highest at 2 Hz and deteriorated if the step frequency was higher or lower; and (4) the self-paced stepping in place was optimal in terms of movement consistency. These results showed that stepping in place is a rhythmic movement at a given range of frequency which is coordinated so as to keep the product of step frequency and step height constant.     

Stability and change in genetic and environmental components of personality in old age

Stability and change in the mean levels and sources of variation in personality was examined. A sample of 149 monozygotic and 202 dizygotic twin pairs over 80 years were studied three times with a 2-year interval between measurement occasions. The Eysenck Personality Inventory to measure extraversion and neuroticism was used. Linear mixed models and Cholesky variance decomposition were carried out (age, gender and mortality controlled). High mean level stability was found in extraversion and neuroticism. Mortality was related to lower scores in extraversion and higher scores in neuroticism. In extraversion and neuroticism, genetic effects were moderate. Though no new genetic contributions emerged over time, significant new environmental effects were found over time. Controlling for mortality slightly increased genetic effect in extraversion.     

Repetition priming of words and pseudowords in divided attention and in amnesia

Repetition priming of novel stimuli (pseudowords) and stimuli with preexisting representations (words) was compared in two experiments. In one, 19 normal male subjects performed a lexical decision task with either focused or divided attention. In another, lexical decision performance was compared between 8 male Korsakoff patients and 8 alcoholic control subjects. In control conditions, repetition speeded responses to both stimulus types. Experimental conditions that minimized the contribution of episodic memory to task performance eliminated reaction time priming for pseudowords but not for words. However, in these same conditions, repetition increased the likelihood that pseudowords would be incorrectly classified. These results indicate that preserved repetition priming effects in amnesia do not solely reflect activation of representations in semantic memory.     

Attention and ageing: Measuring effects of involuntary and voluntary orienting in isolation and in combination

The cueing paradigm provides an established method for eliciting involuntary and voluntary attention shifts. Involuntary orienting is traditionally measured with non‐predictive peripheral cues and voluntary orienting with predictive central arrows. Recent studies with young adults have established that predictive central arrows trigger a combination of involuntary and voluntary orienting, raising the possibility that previous studies – including those with older adults – misinterpreted their findings with central arrow cues as isolating the effects of voluntary attention. The present experiment applied different cueing conditions that measured involuntary orienting, voluntary orienting, and involuntary and voluntary orienting in combination in older adults. The results show that past studies of voluntary orienting in older adults confound involuntary and voluntary orienting. Cueing effects in a condition that for the first time isolated voluntary orienting (predictive number cues) with older adults were significant, and comparable to effects for younger adults, demonstrating that older adults successfully utilize cues to direct their spatial attention strategically. A similar normal pattern of orienting was observed for involuntary orienting. Our study provides a methodology that can be applied effectively to isolate and investigate the effects of age on voluntary and involuntary attention.     

Self and Other in Communication and Cognition: The Role of Auto-Communication and Intersubjectivity in Autopoiesis of Psychic Systems

By referring to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of self-referential systems, Aldo Mascareño (2008, submitted for publication) gives an account of system-environment interrelatedness, explaining how social and individual constitute each other through the process of communication and co-creation of meanings. Two possible extensions to his account are discussed. Firstly, auto-communication within the system that happens without any external reference needs to be taken into account while describing the existence and constant re-creation of psychic systems. Secondly, in order for the system and environment or two systems to communicate, an imagined and temporary intersubjectivity between the two needs to be assumed.     

Standards of performance and aesthetics in counselling and beyond

ABSTRACT

In this article I discuss how drug counselling can be transformed through “aesthetic documentation”: a hybrid of art with narrative practice. After outlining the concepts of performance and standards, and a critique of “customising” counselling through formalised feedback, five claims are made about “aesthetic documentation”: The art works are prototypes rather than rigid standardisations; they represent collaboration rather than individualised performance; they both display and enact substantial meaning; they objectify and achieve recognition of clients and professionals; they facilitate flexible, diverse and transformative attributions of meaning and value; they address social problems rather than individualised malfunctions. This may help overcoming stigmatisation, and suggest a kind of trans-disciplinary knowledge that is different from the dominant scientific forms.     

Holism in Cartesianism and in Today's Philosophy of Physics

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a more balanced judgement than the widespread impression that the changes which are called for in today's philosophy of physics and which centre around the concept of holism amount to a rupture with the framework of Cartesian philosophy of physics. I argue that this framework includes a sort of holism: As a result of the identification of matter with space, any physical property can be instantiated only if there is the whole of matter. Relating this holism to general relativity, I maintain that this holism cannot be directly applied to today's philosophy of physics consequent upon the failure of geometrodynamics. I show in what respect precisely the holism in quantum physics amounts to a revision of the holism within Cartesianism. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Encoding specificity in the recall of pictures and words in children and adults

In this study, the modality of the retrieval cues (pictures or words) was varied in a cued recall task to determine how second and fourth grade children and college adults encode words (Experiment 1) and pictures (Experiment 2). According to the assumptions of the encoding specificity principle, cue modality should affect recall only to the degree to which subjects focus on modality specific (sensory) rather than nonmodality specific (semantic) information in stimuli. In both experiments, the results showed progressively smaller encoding specificity effects with increasing age. To ensure that differences in encoding activity were responsible for these effects, comparisons were made of recall patterns under intentional learn conditions, and under incidental conceptual and sensory orienting conditions. The recall patterns of the children in the conceptual orienting condition were similar to the adult patterns in the learn condition, and the adult recall patterns in the sensory orienting conditions were similar to those of the children in the learn conditions. These results suggest that there are developmental differences in encoding the sensory and semantic information in stimuli that may result from differences in the efficiency with which the semantic information in stimuli is processed. The results suggest that young children typically encode stimuli in a fashion that stresses the sensory aspects of the stimuli, and that recall suffers as a result.     

Crawling in and out of sleep

The goal of the study was to examine the link between motor attainments and sleep–wake regulation by comparing the sleep characteristics of infants who are crawling with the sleep of same‐age infants who have not yet acquired the locomotion milestone. The participants were 59 healthy 8‐month‐old infants with no developmental delays, who were recruited through well‐baby clinics and childcare centers. The measurements included objective sleep recordings (actigraphy), sleep questionnaire, and motor milestones checklist. The main finding was that the sleep of crawlers was more fragmented in comparison to the sleep of pre‐crawlers. While the findings of this report give support to the hypothesized link between sleep regulation and motor development, more studies are needed to clarify why crawling might provide a marker of nightwaking. In discussing the results, it is proposed that the association between fragmented sleep and crawling could be related to maturational, constitutional, and relational factors. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Study of Happiness and Unhappiness in the Childhood and Adolescence of Girls in Different Cultures

Experiments were reviewed which dealt with the effect of an auditory cue stimulus on sensitivity to a visual detection stimulus, and vice versa. In most cases the heteromodal cue was temporally varied around the time of occurrence of the detection stimulus.

Different results were reported when a prolonged cue was used (which overlapped the detection stimulus when the onsets of both were not simultaneous) than when a brief-duration cue was used: e.g., in the former case, but not in the latter, sensitivity to the detection stimulus was affected by the intensity of a clearly perceptible heteromodal cue. Es tended to explain the effects of prolonged cue in “neurophysiological-interaction” terms and of brief-duration cue in “attentional” terms. Delta t (difference between times of detection-stimulus and cue onset) was most likely to affect sensitivity to the detection stimulus when marker stimuli reliably informed S when to attend for the detection stimulus, but did not exactly define its time of possible occurrence. A consistent delta-t effect was that a light-cued sound stimulus was best detected when the flash preceded it by 0 to 500 msec.     

成人和婴儿麻疹临床特点和治疗

麻疹是一种急性呼吸道传染病,常见于6月～5岁儿童。近年来婴儿和成人麻疹患者在总患者数中所占比率表现出上升的趋势,容易造成误诊、漏诊。作为临床工作者,我们认为临床医生应充分认识到麻疹发病人群及年龄的改变,在临床工作中减少误诊,并为患者提供及时有效的治疗,对高危人群的有计划干预对于减低成人麻疹发病率有着重要作用。本文针对婴儿和成人麻疹的诊断和治疗进行了综述,试图提供参考。