DO THE BSRI AND PAQ MEASURE THE SAME OR DIFFERENT CONCEPTS?

The present article assesses Frable's (1989) contention that the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) measures only desirable instrumental and expressive characteristics, whereas the Bem Sex Role inventory (BSRI) measures gender schema and related gender concepts. Comparison of the two instruments indicates, first, that they are similar in content and that the parallel M and F scales are substantially correlated. Further, the results obtained with the two instruments in three areas (self-esteem, sex-role attitudes, and gender-schematic processing) suggest that both are valid measures of desirable instrumental and expressive traits. Sexrole attitudes, however, tend to have small and typically nonsignificant relationships with both sets of scales, whereas few studies of gender schematic processing have produced replicable results even with the BSRI. However, Bem and her associates have reported positive results using other designs that have yet to be replicated using either the BSRI or the PAQ. Thus, in response to Frable's (1989) assertion, it seems at best premature to come to any conclusion about whether one, both, or neither of the questionnaires measure broad gender constructs.     

TOTALITARIANISM – THE INTERNAL WORLD AND THE POLITICAL MIND1

This paper explores how totalitarianism can develop and become a stable structure both as a state of mind and as a political system. Using Shakespeare's Macbeth as an example the author draws attention to the universal nature of the temptations that power brings with it and which can lead to totalitarian domination. Aspects of Macbeth's mental life are compared with dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. A clinical example is then given which further illustrates and explores the phenomenon of totalitarian ways of thinking as encountered in the consulting room showing how individuals can assert their power through the use of omnipotent destructiveness. This type of destructiveness is more effective when the patient is freed from guilt and the mental mechanisms of psychic retreats are used to maintain their totalitarian systems.     

PRIMATES AND RELIGION: A BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST'S RESPONSE TO J. WENTZEL VAN HUYSSTEEN'S ALONE IN THE WORLD?

For a biological anthropologist interested in the prehistory of religion, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen's book is welcome and resonant. Van Huyssteen's central thesis is that humans' capacity for spirituality emerges from a transformation of cognition and emotions that takes place in the symbolic realm, within Homo sapiens and apart from biology. To his thesis I bring to bear three areas of response: the abundant cognitive and emotional capacities of living apes and extinct hominids; the role of symbolic ritual in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens; and the closely intertwined nature of biology and culture in the workings of evolutionary change.     

A METHOD FOR ESTABLISHING THE REPRESENTATIONAL VALIDITY OF INTERACTION CODING SYSTEMS: DO WE SEE WHAT THEY SEE?

This paper offers a new methodological approach to establishing the validity of interaction coding schemes, and it reports research which applies these procedures to three coding systems that have been used to study small group decision making: Bales' (1950) Interaction Process Analysis System, Fisher's (1970) Decision Proposal Coding System, and Mabry's (1975) Pattern Variable Coding System. The procedures offered here provide a method for determining whether the functions or constructs identified by a coding system are part of the common meanings ascribed to the participants in the interaction. Of the three coding systems evaluated in the study, the IPA System represented subjects' interpretations of decision-making interaction better than the Decision Proposal System, which, in turn, performed better than the Pattern Variable System.     

WHAT IS A SCIENTIFIC WORLD VIEW,AND HOW DOES IT BEAR ON THE INTERPLAY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION?

Abstract. What is a scientific worldview, and why should we care? One worldview can knit together various notions, and therefore understanding a worldview requires analysis of its component parts. Stripped to its minimum, a scientific worldview consists strictly of falsifiable components. Such a worldview, based solely on ideas that can be tested with empirical observation, conforms to the highest levels of objectivity but is severely limited in utility. The limits arise for two reasons: first, many falsifiable ideas cannot be tested adequately until their repercussions already have been felt; second, the reach of science is limited, and ethics, which compose an inevitable part of any useful worldview, are largely unfalsifiable. Thus, a worldview that acts only on scientific components is crippled by a lack of moral relevance. Organized religion traditionally has played a central role in defining moral values, but it lost much of its influence after the discovery that key principles (such as the personal Creator of Genesis) contradict empirical reality. The apparent conundrum is that strictly scientific worldviews are amoral, while many long‐held religious worldviews have proven unscientific. The way out of this conundrum is to recognize that nonscientific ideas, as distinct from unscientific ideas, are acceptable components of a scientific worldview, because they do not contradict science. Nonscientific components of a worldview should draw upon scientific findings to explore traditional religious themes, such as faith and taboo. In contrast, unscientific ideas have been falsified and survive only via ignorance, denial, wishful thinking, blind faith, and institutional inertia. A worldview composed of both scientific components and scientifically informed nonscientific components can be both objective and ethically persuasive.     

THE CHRISTIAN'S DILEMMA: ORGANICISM OR MECHANISM?

Is organicism inherently Christian‐friendly, and for that matter, is mechanism inherently religion nonfriendly? They have tended to be, but the story is much more complicated. The long history of the intertwined metaphors of nature taken as an organism, versus that of nature as a machine, reveals that both metaphors have flourished in the endeavors of philosophers, scientists, and persons of faith alike. Different kinds of Christians have been receptive to both organicist and mechanistic models, just as various kinds of nonreligious scientists have been receptive to both holistic and machine metaphors. Although, it is true, organicism has been generally more attractive to persons of faith than mechanism (and vice versa), an overview of the rich and varied history of allegiances to these metaphors—religious and nonreligious alike—shows that debate is much more interesting and complex. A brief inspection of conversation surrounding recent scientific discoveries shows that this debate between metaphors is still very much alive today.     

THE RHETORICAL INTERROGATIVE: ANXIETY OR CONTROL?

Anxiety and floor control perspectives on speech disturbances were related specifically to rhetorical interrogatives (you know, you see, and okay) and tested in an experimental condition. Communication apprehension and situational stress conditions produced conflicting theoretical predictions. Both anxiety and the perceived potential for interruption increased rhetorical interrogative ratios with no interaction effect; thus partial support was found for both theoretical positions. Neither theory emerged as a major contributor to explain variance in rhetorical interrogative ratios. Additional analysis indicated low/high communication apprehension differences in rhetorical interrogative ratios were primarily a function of the amount of talk.     

ADAPT OR DIE: THE DEATH OF INVARIANTISM?

Contextualists support their view by appeal to cases which show that whether an attribution of knowledge seems correct depends on attributor factors. Contextualists conclude that the truth-conditions of knowledge attributions depend on the attributor's context. Invariantists respond that these cases show only that the warranted assertability-conditions of knowledge attributions depend on the attributor's context. I examine DeRose's recent argument against the possibility of such an invariantist response, an argument which appeals to the knowledge account of assertion and the context-sensitivity of assertion. I argue that DeRose's new argument does not rule out either of the two forms of invariantism, classic and subject-sensitive invariantism. Further, I argue against DeRose that an invariantist can explain the context-sensitivity of assertion.     

DISTINCTIVELY HUMAN? MEANING-MAKING AND WORLD SHAPING AS CORE PROCESSES OF THE HUMAN NICHE

Part of the task in studying human evolution is developing a deep understanding of what we share, and do not share, with other life, as a mammal, a primate, a hominin, and as members of the genus Homo. A key aspect of this last facet is gained via the examination of the genus Homo across the Pleistocene. By at least the later Pleistocene members of the genus Homo began to habitually insert shared meaning into and onto their world forming one of the bases of contemporary human abilities to develop a distinctive human niche and human culture. Meaning-laden cultural dynamics constitute the core of a ubiquitous semiotic ecosystem, which in turn structures the architecture of the complex niches and niche construction processes that characterize humanity today. Here, I offer a summary of Pleistocene evolution of the genus Homo and an argument for when and how that extensive and distinctive capacities for shared meaning-making and a particularly dynamic niche construction emerged.