Uncivil Disobedience: Political Commitment and Violence

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience.     

Emergence of the ability to discriminate a blue from gray at one month of age

Two different methods which minimize achromatic cues were used to test the ability of 1-month-olds to discriminate gray from broadband blue (lambda peak = 475-480 nm). Unlike the newborns we tested previously, 1-month-olds demonstrated the discrimination with both methods. In Experiment 1 they showed preferences for each of four blue-and-gray checkerboards over gray squares of the same mean luminance, even though the luminance of the gray checks was varied in small steps over a wide range. In Experiment 2 they looked longer at a blue square than at a gray square, after they had been habituated to five other gray squares of varying luminance. Compared to previous results, these data imply an improvement between birth and 1 month of age in the discrimination of gray from broadband blue. Possible physiological changes underlying this improvement are discussed.     

Modification of verbal behavior in speech deficient children

Operant conditioning techniques were applied to the verbal behavior of three speech deficient children. Subjects A and B having no intelligible speech and Subject C having very little. Using candy and a puppet with a 13-yr-old boy (A), it was possible to condition vocalization rate. Using social reinforcement with a 6-yr-old boy (B), it was possible to extinguish animal-like sounds, to condition vocalization rate, and to shape a small vocabulary of syllables, but not to gain discriminative control over word emission. Using varied reinforcers, e.g., candy, praise, repetitions other own responses, and hand clapping with a 13-yr-old girl (C), it was possible to condition rate of verbalization, to establish appropriate mimicking, and to establish naming of five pictures. The results were consistent with the findings of Salzinger et al. (1965) and with those of Kerr et al. (1965).     

Conceptions of love in Ghana: An exploration among Ghanaian Christians

We explored conceptions of love from the perspective of Ghanaian Christians. Using an ethnographic approach, we interviewed 61 participants (males = 39; females = 22; age range 20 to 70) on their understanding and experiences of love in the context of family. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed understandings of love expression in meeting material needs (of children, spouse, parents, and close relatives), helping other people in need (including the elderly, friends, and strangers), and affectionate care. Communal and maintenance-oriented love appears to characterise love expression among Ghanaian Christians.     

Looking the other way: The role of gaze direction in the cross-race memory effect

One of the most replicable findings reported in the social psychological literature is the cross-race memory effect. We argue this effect derives from higher-order interactions among social cues that determine the perceived relevance of a face to an observer. The current research tested this hypothesis by examining the combined influences of eye gaze direction and race on face memory. The physical subtlety of eye gaze belies its powerful influence on social perception, and in this case helps specify the relevance of same- versus other-race faces. We found that only in faces making direct eye contact—not those displaying averted eye gaze—was the cross-race memory effect evident. Likewise, only in same-race faces did direct relative to averted-gaze enhance face memory. These findings have implications for our general understanding of the combinatorial nature of social perception and help clarify the underlying cause of the cross-race memory effect.