Realizing race

Philosophical Studies - A prominent way of explaining how race is socially constructed appeals to social positions and social structures. On this view, the construction of a person’s race is...     

COVID-19 and Religious Ethics

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID-19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.     

Relational suffering and the moral authority of love and care

Suffering is a ubiquitous yet elusive concept in health care. In a field devoted to the pursuit of objective data, suffering is a phenomenon with deep ties to subjective experience, moral values, and cultural norms. Suffering’s tie to subjective experience makes it challenging to discern and respond to the suffering of others. In particular, the question of whether a child with profound neurocognitive disabilities can suffer has generated a robust discourse, rooted in philosophical conceptualizations of personhood as well as the academic and experiential expertise of practiced health-care professionals. The issue remains unresolved because it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to ever truly know an infant’s lived experience. But what if this is not the best question? What if instead of asking “can this infant suffer?” the discourse is broadened to ask “is there suffering here?” This latter question demands attention to patients’ subjective experiences of suffering, but also to the web of relationships that envelop them. Without losing sight of the importance of patients’ experiences, consideration of their relationships may elucidate the presence of suffering when the patients themselves are unable to provide the same clarity. In this essay, care ethics frames an examination of how suffering manifests in the loving and caring relationships that surround an infant with profound neurocognitive disabilities, changing those relationships and affecting the individuals within them. Exploring suffering through these relationships may offer clarity on the presence and content of suffering for infants with profound cognitive disabilities, in turn offering moral guidance for responding to suffering and supporting flourishing in this context.

     

Idiographic network analysis of discrete mood states prior to treatment

Idiographic network models based on time‐series data have received recent attention for their ability to model relationships among symptoms and behaviours as they unfold in time within a single individual (cf. Epskamp, Borsboom, & Fried, 2018; Fisher, Medaglia, & Jeronimus, 2018). Rather than examine the correlational relationships between variables in a sample of individuals, an idiographic network examines correlations within a single person, averaged over many time points. Because the approach averages over time, the data must be stationary (i.e. relatively consistent over time). If individuals experience varying states over time—different mixtures of symptoms and behaviours in one moment or another—then averaging over categorically different moments may undermine model accuracy. Fisher and Bosley (2019) address these concerns via the application of Gaussian finite mixture modelling to identify latent classes of time points in intraindividual time‐series data from a sample of adults with major depressive disorder and/or generalised anxiety disorder (n = 45). The present paper outlines an extension of this work, wherein network analysis is used to model within‐class covariation of symptoms. To illustrate this approach, network models were constructed for each intraindividual class identified by Fisher and Bosley (137 networks across the 45 participants, mean classes/person = ~3, range = 2–4 classes/person). We examine the relative consistency in symptom organisation between each individual's multiple mood state networks and assess emergent group‐level patterns. We highlight opportunities for enhanced treatment personalisation and review nomothetic patterns relevant to transdiagnostic conceptualisations of psychopathology. We address opportunities for integrating this approach into clinical practice and outline potential shortcomings.     

Assessment of dysfunctional beliefs in borderline personality disorder

This study had two aims: to test the hypothesis that borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients hold numerous dysfunctional beliefs associated with a variety of Axis II disorders, and to construct a BPD belief scale which captures these beliefs. Beliefs were measured using the Personality Belief Questionnaire (PBQ) which is designed to assess beliefs associated with various personality disorders, although not specifically BPD. Eighty-four BPD patients and 204 patients with other personality disorders (OPD) were randomly split into two study samples. Fourteen PBQ items were found to discriminate BPD from OPD patients in both samples. These items came from the PBQ Dependent, Paranoid, Avoidant, and Histrionic scales and reflect themes of dependency, helplessness, distrust, fears of rejection/abandonment/losing emotional control, and extreme attention-seeking behavior. A BPD beliefs scale constructed from these items showed good internal consistency and diagnostic validity among the 288 study patients. The scale may be used to assist in diagnosis and cognitive therapy of BPD.     

The acquisition of bimanual coordination is mediated by anisotropic coupling between the hands

The present study was designed to test two predictions from the coupled oscillator model of multifrequency coordination. First, it was predicted that multifrequency tasks that match the inherent manual asymmetry (i.e., the preferred hand assigned to the faster tempo) would be easier to learn than tasks that do not match the inherent dynamics (i.e., the non-preferred hand assigned to the faster tempo). Second, in the latter case acquisition of the multifrequency coordination would involve a reorganisation of the coupling dynamics such that the faster hand would exert a greater influence on the slower hand than vice versa. Sixteen right-handed volunteers received extensive training on a 2:1 coordination pattern involving a bimanual forearm pronation-supination task. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1L:2R in which the preferred right hand performed the higher frequency, or 2L:1R in which the non-preferred left hand performed the higher frequency. The dynamic stability of the patterns was assessed by the ability of participants to maintain the coordination pattern as movement frequency was increased. Changes in the directional coupling between the hands was assessed by transition pathways and lead-lag relationship evident in a 1:1 anti-phase frequency-scaled coordination task performed prior to and following three practice sessions of the 2:1 task. The predicted differential stability between the multifrequency patterns was evident in the initial acquisition sessions but by the end of training the two patterns evidenced equivalent stability. Unexpectedly, for both groups the fast hand displayed greater variability in amplitude and movement frequency than the slow hand perhaps reflecting anchoring afforded to the slow hand by synchronising movement endpoints with the auditory pacing metronome. Analysis of pre- to post-training changes to the coupling dynamics in the 1:1 anti-phase task support the hypothesis that acquisition of the 2L:1R pattern involved reorganisation of the inherent dynamics.     

The rattling sound of rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) as a communicative resource for ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia)

Animal communication involves very dynamic processes that can generate new uses and functions for established communicative activities. In this article, the authors describe how an aposematic signal, the rattling sound of rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis), has been exploited by 2 ecological associates of rattlesnakes: (a) California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) use incidental acoustic cues in rattling sounds to assess the danger posed by the rattling snake, and (b) burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) defend themselves against mammalian predators by mimicking the sound of rattling. The remarkable similarity between the burrowing owl's defensive hiss and the rattlesnake's rattling reflects both exaptation and adaptation. Such exploitation of the rattling sound has favored alternations in both the structure and the deployment of rattling by rattlesnakes.