Stigmatization,Repair, or Undesirable Side Effect of Tolerance? Being Clear About What We Study and Target for Intervention

The terms prejudice and stigmatization tend to be overused and incorrectly applied to normal social control processes and to certain negative side effects of social tolerance. The author proposes that the evolutionary origins of social control stem from the need to repair disturbed relationships in a small group of kin-related individuals without engaging in stigmatization. This perspective results in a comprehensive classification of deviant conditions and their motivational implications. Dependent on type of deviance, situation, and culture, activation of the psychological mechanisms involved in repair may also result in stigmatization or tolerance. Practical implications for stigma prevention and reduction are discussed.     

Group therapy: The Elgin plan

Pastoral Psychology -     

Self-Prophecy Effects and Voter Turnout: An Experimental Replication

Psychological research has found that being asked to predict one's future actions can bring about subsequent behavior consistent with the prediction but different from what would have occurred had no prediction been made. In a 1987 study, Greenwald, Carnot, Beach, and Young induced an increase in voting behavior by means of such a "self-prophecy" effect: Undergraduates who were asked to predict whether they would vote in an upcoming election were substantially more likely to go to the polls than those who had not been asked for a prediction. This paper reports on a replication of the Greenwald study conducted among a larger group of respondents more representative of the American electorate. No evidence was found that self-prophecy effects increase voter turnout.     

Human life invaluableness: An emerging African bioethical principle

Some bioethical literature reveals that there is some concern by some scholars that certain elements of the current bioethical principlism show limitations when applied in the case of communities or societies whose value systems fall outside those of the Western world. Consequently, several efforts are being made by a number of scholars, both in Africa and abroad, to find what may be considered African bioethical principles. Analysing one of the African proverbial sayings, this research proposes “human life invaluableness” as one such principle that is worth considering in the general search for African bioethical principles. In essence, the principle teaches that no resource may be spared at the expense of human life because of the ontologically special place occupied by human beings in the hierarchy of beings in the world.     

Invariance of the “NEO-PI-R” factor structure across exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) carried out in the last decades to test the Five-factor simple structure have generally obtained negative results. McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, and Paunonen (1996) suggested that CFA limitations were the main cause of such negative results. They also claim that Procrustes Orthogonal rotation method is an adequate procedure to test the replicability of the Five-factor structure. The aim of the present paper is twofold: (A) comparing several Exploratory factor procedures (including the Procrustes rotation) to test what is the most appropriate one to analyse the replicability of the Five-factor structure, and (B) replicating the CFA results of the McCrae et al.’s study with a larger number of subjects. The normative American (N = 1000), and Spanish (2000) standardization samples of the NEO-PI-R, together with an independent university sample (N = 948) were analysed. Results were replicated in the three samples, and suggest that: (1) structural properties of the Five-factor model, as measured by the NEO-PI-R, are invariant irrespective of the Exploratory factor procedure used, and (2) when CFA limitations are surpassed, the Five-factor structure is supported.     

The hippocampus: hub of brain network communication for memory

A complex brain network, centered on the hippocampus, supports episodic memories throughout their lifetimes. Classically, upon memory encoding during active behavior, hippocampal activity is dominated by theta oscillations (6-10Hz). During inactivity, hippocampal neurons burst synchronously, constituting sharp waves, which can propagate to other structures, theoretically supporting memory consolidation. This 'two-stage' model has been updated by new data from high-density electrophysiological recordings in animals that shed light on how information is encoded and exchanged between hippocampus, neocortex and subcortical structures such as the striatum. Cell assemblies (tightly related groups of cells) discharge together and synchronize across brain structures orchestrated by theta, sharp waves and slow oscillations, to encode information. This evolving dynamical schema is key to extending our understanding of memory processes.