Moral Utilitarianism and Attitudes Toward Animals

The majority of studies investigating attitudes toward animals have underscored the role of demographic and personality factors. The study of the role of general moral worldviews on attitudes toward animals represents an important complementary perspective. In the current study, we analyzed the relationship between moral utilitarianism toward humans and attitudes toward animals. In psychological and neuroscientific studies, moral utilitarianism has been shown to be related to empathy deficits. We expected that utilitarian decision making would be related to the endorsement of an instrumental representation of animals. We measured utilitarianism with the trolley problem, a hypothetical moral dilemma widely used in the psychological study of moral reasoning. A sample of 20,474 French adults answered an online survey measuring attitudes toward animals and moral decision making involving human beings. Results showed that irrespective of participants’ age and gender, there was a slight relationship between utilitarianism measured by the trolley dilemma and the endorsement of an instrumental representation of animal. Limitations and implications for future research are considered.     

Medical Trainees’ Readiness for the Promotion of Sexual Health in Tunisia: A Cross Sectional Study

In the Arab and Muslim countries, there are several taboos of sexuality. To overcome the latter, and to distinguish between cultural and scientific data, sexual education is a key measure, especially during medical studies. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge of the Tunisian medical trainees and to identify their sources of information concerning sexuality. We conducted a survey among medical trainees of the faculty of medicine of Sfax, in Tunisia. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 171 and completed by 157 trainees (91.8%). The sources of knowledge about sexuality were: friends (81.5%; N = 128), internet (77.1%; N = 121), television and movies (68.2%; N = 107), courses at the faculty (40.1%; N = 63) and parents (22.9%; N = 36). The score of correct answers was higher than or equal to 75% for 28 trainees (17.8%). It was on average 63.3%. It was correlated with male gender (p = 0.006), being a second-year trainee (p = 0.017) and television and movies as a source of knowledge about sexuality (p = 0.008). Masturbation was considered pathological by 17.2% of participants (N = 27). A 5-min period of intercourse was deemed sufficient to have a female orgasm by 44 trainees (28%). Andropause and menopause are inconsistent with a satisfying sexuality according to 44.6% (N = 70) and 56.1% (N = 88) of the participants respectively.     

Increasing the salience of fluency cues does not reduce the recognition memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease!

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), it is now well established that recollection is impaired from the beginning of the disease, whereas findings are less clear concerning familiarity. One of the most important mechanisms underlying familiarity is the sense of familiarity driven by processing fluency. In this study, we attempted to attenuate recognition memory deficits in AD by maximizing the salience of fluency cues in two conditions of a recognition memory task. In one condition, targets and foils have been created from the same pool of letters (Overlap condition). In a second condition, targets and foils have been derived from two separate pools of letters (No‐Overlap condition), promoting the use of letter‐driven visual and phonetic fluency. Targets and foils were low‐frequency words. The memory tasks were performed by 15 patients with AD and 16 healthy controls. Both groups improved their memory performance in the No‐Overlap condition compared to the Overlap condition. Patients with AD were able to use fluency cues during recognition memory as older adults did, but this did not allow to compensate for dysfunction of recognition memory processes.     

Can spatialisation be extended to episodic memory and open sets?

The SPoARC effect (Spatial Positional Associated Response Codes) has only been observed in working memory (WM) using closed sets. It is interpreted as showing that individuals spatialise to-be-remembered items in a left-to-right fashion, using spatialisation as context. Given that context is crucial for episodic memory (EM), we tested if this effect could be observed in EM by using 15-word lists taken from an open set. After each list, 30 probes were sequentially displayed to test recognition. The left/right-hand key assignment for yes/no answers was varied. No SPoARC effect was observed. However, as all previous SPoARC experiments had used short lists and closed sets, it was not possible to know if this absence of SPoARC was due to the open set feature or the length of the lists. A second experiment was thus run using open sets and short 5-word lists, which do not necessitate EM to be remembered. A SPoARC effect was observed indicating that Experiment 1 result was due to the involvement of supra-span lists and that SPoARC effects do not extend to EM with open sets. Experiment 2 also enabled us to generalise the SPoARC effect to open sets in WM for the first time.     

Can Facebook Informational Use Foster Adolescent Civic Engagement?

The findings on the association between Social Networking Sites and civic engagement are mixed. The present study aims to evaluate a theoretical model linking the informational use of Internet‐based social media (specifically, Facebook) with civic competencies and intentions for future civic engagement, taking into account the mediating role of civic discussions with family and friends and sharing the news online. Participants were 114 Italian high school students aged 14–17 years (57 % boys). Path analysis was used to evaluate the proposed theoretical model. Results showed that Facebook informational use was associated with higher levels of adolescent perceived competence for civic action, both directly and through the mediation of civic discussion with parents and friends (offline). Higher levels of civic competencies, then, were associated with a stronger intention to participate in the civic domain in the future. Our findings suggest that Facebook may provide adolescents with additional tools through which they can learn civic activities or develop the skills necessary to participate in the future.     

Therapeutic Creativity,Complexity, and Ed Tronick’s Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness

Ed Tronick’s research on interaction and infant development has greatly inspired clinicians. His new focus on the infant resulted in changes in ways of thinking about infant development and in the psychotherapeutic methods used with very young infants and their caregivers. The mutual regulation model (MRM) gave empirical support to clinical observations and later gave rise to the Still Face paradigm. The MRM model offers a theoretical framework for developing detailed mother–infant therapeutic capacities while it raises major theoretical questions on the manners in which the infant’s personal inner world develops. Considering the parent–infant dyad as a whole underscores the need to address infant and parental characteristics together, integrating development itself as an important force for mental health. This suggests that the infant is both a system in itself, capable of self-organization, and a part of a cocreating system with his or her partner, for example in the dyadic organization of states. It could mean that analysts should probably be both modest and brazen in their therapeutic interventions, taking advantage, as clinicians of knowledge based on the latest scientific research, linked to experience and culturally appropriate socially sensitive interventions. In this way, they may provide positively enriched experiences, working through problematic negative emotions that our patients will keep and use in their own creative way.     

Is Not Doing the Washing Up Like Draft Dodging? The Military Model for Resisting a Gender Based Labour Division

I will examine a version of Bubeck's and Robeyns' proposals for ‘care duty’ which looks at the ways in which care work is analogous to defence work, and what the implications are for the best models in terms both of distributive justice and serving the common good. My own analysis will differ from Bubeck's and Robeyns' in two respects. First I will apply their arguments to all aspects of care including housework. This will mean making a case for housework counting as a form of care work as it is not usually regarded as such, and in particular, would probably be excluded from Robeyns' own account as she follows Bubeck's earlier characterisation of care as involving face‐to‐face interaction. Secondly, I will explore various ways in which care, and especially housework, could and has been distributed by appealing to a number of military models, concluding that the best gender‐just distribution of care requires a style of care experience modelled on universal military service. I will consider a number of objections to my view before concluding that not doing one's share of the housework could indeed come to be regarded as not doing one's duty as a citizen.