Influence of text cohesion on the persuasive power of expository text

The present study examined how global text cohesion affects persuasion and memory for message arguments presented in expository text. Sixty-nine participants who held a neutral prior attitude towards NATO read a persuasive text about NATO that was either high or low in global cohesion. After reading, participants voted whether Finland should seek NATO membership and filled in an attitude questionnaire. After a 1-week delay they returned for a surprise recall task. The results showed that the high cohesion text was more persuasive than the low cohesion text. Moreover, attitude after reading but not text cohesion predicted later recall of the message arguments. The results show that global text cohesion increases text's persuasive power and that readers who form a positive attitude have better memory of the persuasive arguments after a delay than readers who are less persuaded.     

Differences between right versus left lateral body tilt in its effect on the visual and tactual perception of verticality

Summary Ninety six Ss were subjected to lateral body tilt, ranging from 10° to 90° to the right and to the left, and indicated the visual vertical (by means of a luminescent rod) and the tactual vertical (by means of a metal bar) in a darkroom. There were significant differences for deviations of apparent from true vertical in both series between body tilt to the right versus to the left. With tilts to the right, apparent vertical deviated more opposite the direction of tilt, the E-phenomenon, or less in the direction of tilt, the A-phenomenon, as compared with tilts to the left.This study was supported, in part, by a Public Health Service Research Grant, MH 00348, from the National Institute of Mental Health, while the author was a NATO research fellow at Clark University, Worcester, MA; and in part by a Federal Grant, MR HD 06276, to the Children's Hospital Medical Center, while the author was a research fellow in child psychiatry at Harvard University, School of Medicine, Boston, MA.     

Trends and developments in community and applied social psychology: JCASP 1991–2010

This paper looks back on the trends and developments in and of the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology since its inception twenty years ago. We review to what extent the aims that were originally set for JCASP have been fulfilled. The trends in nationality of authors, themes of publications and their methodology are discussed. Possible implications of these trends and developments for JCASP and its future are pointed at. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developments in Catholic Biblical Studies Reflected in Three 20th Century “Catholic Encyclopedias”

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes entries pertaining to biblical studies in three Catholic encyclopedias, the Catholic Encyclopedia(1907-1914) and the original and revised editions of the New Catholic Encyclopedia(1967 and 2003), to determine the degree to which, individually, they represent the “state of the art” at the time of publication and, collectively, whether they accurately reflect developments in Catholic biblical scholarship in the twentieth century. The author concludes that, despite certain inadequacies and gaps in coverage, the three encyclopedias are a valuable resource for tracing the course of those developments.     

THE CHANGING CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE AND ZYGON

Since Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science was founded 49 years ago and since one of its co‐publishers, the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), was founded 60 years ago, there have been significant developments in their various cultural contexts—in science, in religion, in culture, in academia, and in the science and religion dialogue. This article is a personal remembrance and reflection that compares the context of IRAS in 1954 when it was first organized with the context of IRAS and Zygon today. It considers the contemporary niche of IRAS in relation to the developments that have occurred over the past 60 years.     

The Influence of Predeployment Training on Coordination in Multinational Headquarters: The Moderating Role of Organizational Obstacles to Information Sharing

Coordination is critical to the success of multinational military operations and may be fostered by predeployment training. We argue that whether such training is related to a high degree of perceived coordination at the individual level is likely to depend on whether individuals experience a low degree of organizational obstacles to information sharing. We examined this using data from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Kosovo Force headquarters (survey: n = 131). We controlled for whether it was the participants’ first deployment, the participants’ background (military or civilian), the amount of time spent in the headquarters by participants, whether differences pertaining to culture and opinions were valued by the organization, the quality of supervisor/subordinate relationships, and the degree of national cultural obstacles to information sharing. The results showed no significant direct effects on coordination from 3 different training configurations: national training, multinational training, and a combination of national and multinational training. However, we found a negative direct effect from organizational obstacles to information sharing on coordination, and support for organizational obstacles to information sharing as negatively moderating the multinational predeployment training and coordination relationship. Qualitative interviews (n = 14) indicated that informal information sharing, and the problems exchanging information from tactical to operational levels could hinder coordination. Interventions to foster coordination could benefit from a focus on multinational training and lowering organizational obstacles to information sharing. Our findings contribute to more precisely pinpointing the types of training that are useful in multinational operations, as well as the factors upon which training transfer is contingent.     

Collaboration,meaning‐making and therapy: What practitioners can learn from recent developments in qualitative research

Recent developments in qualitative research provide a rich resource of ideas and insights for counsellors and psychotherapists interested in postmodern approaches to theory and practice. The second edition of the landmark Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000) is discussed in terms of its potential value for therapists.     

Cognitive theory,cognitive impairment and clinical practice

The aim of this paper is to present a practical model for investigating cognitive impairment which integrates the experimental-cogaitive-information processing-theory and the psychometric-intellectual-abilities-tradition in psychology to understanding cognitive functioning. It reviews developments in cognitive theory in terms of Processes, complex and simple, such as Intelligence and Information Processing, and Factors of attained Level and Learning ability in the Verbal and Performance modalities. The Savage Cognitive Impairment Model (SCIM) is outlined and types of cognitive impairment defined. Measures of cognitive impairment relevant to clinical practice and research are presented.     

Linear correlations between sets of variables

While the traditional multiple correlation coefficient appears to be inherently an asymmetrical statistic, it is actually a special case of a more general measure of linear relationship between twosets of variables. Another symmetric generalization of linear correlation is to the total relatednesswithin a set of variables. Both of these developments rest upon thegeneralized variance of a multivariate distribution, which is seen to be the fundamental concept of linear correlational theory.     

Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion

According to the old feeling theory of emotion, an emotion is just a feeling: a conscious experience with a characteristic phenomenal character. This theory is widely dismissed in contemporary discussions of emotion as hopelessly naïve. In particular, it is thought to suffer from two fatal drawbacks: its inability to account for the cognitive dimension of emotion (which is thought to go beyond the phenomenal dimension), and its inability to accommodate unconscious emotions (which, of course, lack any phenomenal character). In this paper, I argue that the old feeling theory is in reality only a pair of modifications removed from a highly plausible account of the nature of emotion that retains the essential connection between emotion and feeling. These modifications are, moreover, motivated by recent developments in work on phenomenal consciousness. The first development is the rising recognition of a phenomenal character proper to cognition—so‐called cognitive phenomenology. The second is the gathering momentum behind various ‘connection principles’ that specify some connection that a given state must bear to phenomenally conscious states in order to qualify as mental. These developments make it possible to formulate a new feeling theory of emotion, which would overcome the two fatal drawbacks of the old feeling theory. According to the new feeling theory, an emotion is a mental state that bears the right connection to conscious experiences with the right phenomenal character (involving, among other elements, a cognitive phenomenology).     

GENETICS AND THE ETHICS OF COMMUNITY

At times decisions are made in the field of genetics that are presented as if the ethical debates have been adequately treated and so all moral considerations have been addressed, when the truth is very different. Nor is it always easy or desirable to separate the ethical, legal and social questions posed by new developments. The impact of developments in genetic science upon communities is one field of enquiry that envelops each of these areas. This paper explores the impact of genetics upon communities through focusing, in particular, upon certain developments in reproductive science. After introducing core issues and technologies, it discusses particular ethical concerns in relation to the ‘shadow’ of eugenics over such developments, before exploring the role of legislative debates and procedures in transforming social attitudes, values and hence norms. It then turns to consider debates concerning the ‘quality of life ethic’ now prevalent in healthcare, and moves on to discuss the issue of genetic discrimination – focusing, in particular, upon discrimination against disabled persons as a representative instance of the actual ethical and social/communitarian implications of the foregoing. It ends by highlighting the need to discern the ways in which the ethics of genetics is presently shaped and practised in order to discern better the particular social and communitarian implications of certain technological advances.     

Group psychotherapy in the late twentieth century: An international perspective

The state of contemporary group psychotherapy is reviewed in the light of developments in the areas of theory, practice, research directions, and the internationalization of the field and its literature.This is a revised and updated version of a paper presented at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Warsaw, April 26, 1989.He is the founding editor of the Non-English Literature Review Section of theInternational Journal of Group Psychotherapy and the editor of theInternational Forum of Group Psychotherapy of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy.     

Vectors into the Future of Mass and Interpersonal Communication Research: Big Data,Social Media,and Computational Social Science

Simultaneous developments in big data, social media, and computational social science have set the stage for how we think about and understand interpersonal and mass communication. This article explores some of the ways that these developments generate 4 hypothetical “vectors”—directions—into the next generation of communication research. These vectors include developments in network analysis, modeling interpersonal and social influence, recommendation systems, and the blurring of distinctions between interpersonal and mass audiences through narrowcasting and broadcasting. The methods and research in these arenas are occurring in areas outside the typical boundaries of the communication discipline but engage classic, substantive questions in mass and interpersonal communication.     

SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ETHICS: THE BOYLE LECTURE 2019

How do we and should we decide what is morally right and what is morally wrong? For much of human history, the teachings of religion were presumed to provide either the answer, or much of the answer. Over time, two developments challenged this. The first was the establishment of the discipline of moral philosophy. Foundational texts, such as Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the growth of coherent, nonreligious approaches to ethics, notably utilitarianism, served to marginalize the role of religion. And then, second, the twentieth century saw the rapid growth of evolutionary biology with an enthusiastic presumption that biology was the source of ethics. Here, I begin by discussing these developments and then examine the extent to which religion is still needed for a coherent account of ethics.     

De Se Content and Action Generalisation

Ever since John Perry's developments in the late 70s, it is customary among philosophers to take de se contents as essentially tied to the explanation of action. The target explanation appeals to a subject-specific notion of de se content capable of capturing behavioural differences in central cases. But a subject-specific de se content leads us, I argue, to a subject-specific notion of intentional action that prevents basic forms of generalisation. Although this might be seen as a welcome revision of our pre-theoretical conceptions, I propose, instead, a strategy to circumvent this rather unexpected result: to reject subject-specific de se contents in favour of subject-specific ways of thinking that do not enter into the content of one's attitudes.     

Object knowledge and the emergence of language

Infants' spontaneous play with objects was examined for evidence of developments in object knowledge in relation to the emergence of words and the single-word period in language development. Subjects were 7 girls and 7 boys, from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, who were studied longitudinally from 9 months to 26 months of age. Two types of displacements of objects in relation to one another were identified in the children's play: separations and constructions. The development of constructions was associated with the emergence of words, and constructions increased with age while separations decreased. The development of specific constructions, which account for knowledge of the particular properties of objects, was more strongly associated with a vocabulary spurt at the end of the single-word period than with chronological age. Despite the wide variation in the infants' ages when developments in language and play were reached, relations between achievements in the two domains were consistent among them, as confirmed with the Friedman test, p<.001. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive developments required for play with objects and saying words.     

Complicated Grief: An Evolving Theoretical Landscape

The bereavement literature has proliferated in recent decades, generating a shift from conceptualizing grief as a stepwise, uniform process to an idiosyncratic experience that varies among individuals. Among the most notable developments is the empirical exploration of complicated grief—a protracted, debilitating, sometimes life‐threatening response to the death of a loved one—and the testing of novel interventions to treat it. This article provides counselors with recommendations for identifying and treating complicated grief.     

Feeling and representing: Computational theory and the modularity of affect

In this paper I review some leading developments in the empirical theory of affect. I argue that (1) affect is a distinct perceptual representation governed system, and (2) that there are significant modular factors in affect. The paper concludes with the observation thatfeeler (affective perceptual system) may be a natural kind within cognitive science. The main purpose of the paper is to explore some hitherto unappreciated connections between the theory of affect and the computational theory of mind.     

Profiling of Participants in Chat Conversations Using Creativity-Based Heuristics

This article proposes a new fully automated method for identifying creativity that is manifested in a divergent task. The task is represented by chat conversations in small groups, each group having to debate on the same topics, with the purpose of better understanding the discussed concepts. The chat conversations were created by undergraduate students in computer science studying human-computer interaction in several consecutive years. From this corpus of conversations, the chats from a single year were selected for analysis. These 25 chats contained 8,798 utterance, made of 82,176 word appearances with a vocabulary size of 5,948 distinct words. By analyzing the resulted dataset of chat conversations, the creative ideas expressed by participants are automatically identified and extracted. The application is a first step in supporting creativity in online group discussions by highlighting the novel concepts present in conversations (new ideas) and also by identifying topics that could have become important, but they were forgotten during the debates (lost ideas). Once the ideas are identified, the system tries to also capture their developments, the reactions they attract and the conclusions that are drawn based on them. Because group constituency might influence the level of creative discourse within a conversation, the typology of each participant to the conversation is evaluated, starting from the analysis of the ideas already discovered, along with the utterances labeled as developments, reactions and conclusions.