Situating Moral Justification: Rethinking the Mission of Moral Epistemology

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology.     

contextualizing the sexual assault event: images from police files

This study focuses on sexual assault from a criminal event perspective, using case files to examine why elements of a crime emerge. Beyond how elements of a crime converge, as proposed by routine activities theory, statements extracted from police files shed light on the precursors to the criminal transaction and contextual elements, allowing insight into questions such as: Why are the offenders motivated? Why are the victims vulnerable? And, why are guardians absent? Results show that actors bring with them unique sets of circumstances that influence the progression of the sexual assault event. Alcohol and/or drugs, broken relationships, and anger were common factors.     

Effects of 7.5% CO2 inhalation on allocation of spatial attention to facial cues of emotional expression

Increased vigilance to threat-related stimuli is thought to be a core cognitive feature of anxiety. We sought to investigate the cognitive impact of experimentally induced anxiety, by means of a 7.5% CO₂ challenge, which acts as an unconditioned anxiogenic stimulus, on attentional bias for positive and negative facial cues of emotional expression in the dot-probe task. In two experiments we found robust physiological and subjective effects of the CO₂ inhalation consistent with the claim that the procedure reliably induces anxiety. Data from the dot-probe task demonstrated an attentional bias to emotional facial expressions compared with neutral faces regardless of valence (happy, angry, and fearful). These attentional effects, however, were entirely inconsistent in terms of their relationship with induced anxiety. We conclude that the previously reported poor reliability of this task is the most parsimonious explanation for our conflicting findings and that future research should develop a more reliable paradigm for measuring attentional bias in this field.     

Maternal ADHD: Parent-Child Interactions and Relations With Child Disruptive Behavior

This study examined how ADHD symptoms in mothers of children with ADHD relate to their behavior during parent-child interactions and to their children's disruptive behavior. Findings indicated that mothers’ retrospective self-ratings of ADHD symptoms were related to their present negativity during parent-led play. Mothers’ self-ratings of current inattentive symptoms were related to their impatience during child-led play. Maternal ADHD symptoms were also related to their ratings of their children's ADHD and oppositional-defiant behaviors. Identifying relations between maternal psychopathology, such as ADHD symptomatology, and behaviors during parent-child interactions may yield clues to additional parent behavioral changes that would enhance treatment outcomes for young children with ADHD.     

Transitioning Between Systems of Care: Missed Opportunities for Engaging Adults with Serious Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Involvement

Individuals with serious mental illness are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and face difficulties accessing mental health services both during incarceration and upon re‐entry into the community. This study examines how such individuals describe their experiences receiving care both during and after their time in custody and explores the perspectives of mental health service providers who treat this population upon re‐entry. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 43 individuals identified as having a history of serious mental illness and criminal justice involvement, as well as with 25 providers who have worked with this population. Clients noted the stress of transitioning to criminal justice settings, the uneven availability of services within jail and prison, and the significant challenges faced upon re‐entry. Providers reported barriers to working with this population, including minimal coordination with the criminal justice system and challenging behaviors and attitudes on the part of both clients and providers. Findings identify potential target areas for improved care coordination as well as for additional provider education regarding the unique needs of this population. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of parents’ mental health on parent–baby interaction: A prospective study

The aims of the current study were to examine the effect of fathers’ and mothers’ pre and postnatal mental health on mother–infant and father–infant interactions. Mental health was broadly defined to include anxiety, depression and PTSD. A community sample of 44 mothers and 40 fathers from 45 families completed questionnaire measures of mental health in late pregnancy and three months postpartum. Mother–infant and father–infant interactions were observed and videoed three months postpartum and analysed using the CARE-index. Results showed that prenatal mental health, in particular anxiety, was associated with parent–infant interactions to a greater extent than postnatal mental health. Fathers’ prenatal symptoms were associated with higher paternal unresponsiveness and infant passivity whilst fathers’ postnatal symptoms were associated with higher levels of infant difficulty in the father–baby interaction. The results also indicated that mothers and fathers interaction with their babies were similar, both on average and within the couples, with 34% being inept or at risk. These findings highlight the need for early detection and prevention of both mental health and parent–infant relationship problems in fathers as well as mothers. However, further prospective and longitudinal studies are needed to understand the influences of parental mental health on the parent–infant interactions further. Also it should be noted that the mental health scores were low in this sample, which may reflect the sample characteristics. Future studies therefore would benefit from focusing on more vulnerable groups of parents.     

Mommy is only happy! Dutch mothers’ realisation of speech sounds in infant-directed speech expresses emotion,not didactic intent

Exaggeration of the vowel space in infant-directed speech (IDS) is well documented for English, but not consistently replicated in other languages or for other speech-sound contrasts. A second attested, but less discussed, pattern of change in IDS is an overall rise of the formant frequencies, which may reflect an affective speaking style. The present study investigates longitudinally how Dutch mothers change their corner vowels, voiceless fricatives, and pitch when speaking to their infant at 11 and 15 months of age. In comparison to adult-directed speech (ADS), Dutch IDS has a smaller vowel space, higher second and third formant frequencies in the vowels, and a higher spectral frequency in the fricatives. The formants of the vowels and spectral frequency of the fricatives are raised more strongly for infants at 11 than at 15 months, while the pitch is more extreme in IDS to 15-month olds. These results show that enhanced positive affect is the main factor influencing Dutch mothers’ realisation of speech sounds in IDS, especially to younger infants. This study provides evidence that mothers’ expression of emotion in IDS can influence the realisation of speech sounds, and that the loss or gain of speech clarity may be secondary effects of affect.     

Predicting uptake of a routine cervical smear test: A comparison of the health belief model and the theory of planned behaviour

Abstract

This paper reports on a study carried out to identify predictors of uptake of cervical screening among 142 women (59% response rate) in inner London. Two social cognition models were used: The Health Belief Model (HBM; Becker, 1974) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) and in addition anticipated affect following non-attendance for screening was assessed. The TPB emerged as by far the superior model for predicting screening intentions, explaining 51% of the variance in comparison with only 4% explained by the HBM variables. However, neither model was able to predict a significant amount of variance in uptake of screening three months later. Possible reasons for the poor prediction of this type of behaviour are discussed.     

Counselling in a culture of competence

In this article, a counsellor working in the public sectors of health and education considers her work in the light of the contemporary political context. Describing the trend towards what she is calling a ‘culture of competence’, she notes recent changes to the identity of the professional, whose authority, once taken for granted, is increasingly limited and subject to evaluation and proof of effectiveness. She then considers some ways in which counsellors working in the public sector are now experiencing such measures, noting both the benefits that can accrue from evaluating their work, but also the dangers when certain pressures and anxieties are not taken into account.     

The Blicket Within: Preschoolers' Inferences About Insides and Causes

Four experiments examined children's inferences about the relation between objects' internal parts and their causal properties. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds recognized that objects with different internal parts had different causal properties, and those causal properties transferred if the internal part moved to another object. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds made inferences from an object's internal parts to its causal properties without being given verbal labels for objects or being shown that insides and causal properties covaried. Experiment 3 found that 4-year-olds chose an object with the same internal part over one with the same external property when asked which object had the same causal property as the target (which had both the internal part and external property). Finally, Experiment 4 demonstrated that 4-year-olds made similar inferences from causal properties to internal parts, but 3-year-olds relied more on objects' external perceptual appearance. These results suggest that by the age of 4, children have developed an understanding of a relation between an artifact's internal parts and its causal properties.