Return to Sepharad: Is it possible to heal an ancient wound? A reflection on the construction of large-group identity

Abstract

Spanish parliament recently issued a new law offering Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews who so desired and could demonstrate a basic knowledge of the Spanish language and culture. This law attempted to redress a five-centuries-old injustice and was expected to unleash both criticism and praise. Surprisingly, reactions in the public or the press were minimal or absent. Reasons for this are explored through a qualitative study with focus groups, which showed ideas that can be grouped into four main categories: ignorance, justice, distrust, and fear. It is hypothesized that the predominantly silent response to the new law might be due to the fact that it touches on an extremely sensible issue: the historically fragmented Spanish identity. A position of negation is constructed, to avoid deep anxieties related to the fragile core of a collective identity built from many “others” forced to the refuge of an introspection that protects them from the conviction of not fulfiling the ideal identity status, known by all but reached by none. All those “others” have mixed their bloods with the Old Christians along the centuries, possibly transmitting a profound insecurity about their personal and collective identity that might contribute to understanding current social reactions.     

Looking at the past through a telescope: adults postdated their earliest childhood memories

ABSTRACT

Our previous studies have consistently shown a telescoping error in children’s dating of earliest childhood memories. Preschool children through adolescents systematically date their earliest memories at older ages, in comparison with the age estimates provided by their parents or by themselves previously. In the current study, we examined the dating of earliest childhood memories in two samples of college adults and collected independent age estimates from their parents. Consistent with our findings with children, adults significantly postdated their earlier memories by approximately 12 months (Study 1) and 6 months (Study 2). The actual age of earliest memories was 2.5 years after adjusted for telescoping errors, 1 year earlier than what is commonly believed at 3.5 years. These findings challenge commonly held theoretical assumptions about childhood amnesia and highlight critical methodological issues in the study of childhood memory.     

Hemispheric activation increases positive manifold for lateralized cognitive tasks: an extension of Stankov's hypothesis

Stankov (1983a, Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 471-490) suggests that the dual task paradigm, requiring the division of attention, increases positive manifold (i.e., positive intercorrelations) for cognitive tasks relative to the single task paradigm. Two dual task studies are reported. Unimanual finger-tapping served as the primary task and the short-term retention (20 sec) of digit or spatial-location sequences served as the secondary tasks. When both tasks were lateralized to the same hemisphere (digits and right-hand tapping or spatial locations and left-hand tapping), highest memory task intercorrelations (Experiment 1) and better retention of sequences (Experiments 1 and 2) resulted. Left-hand tapping produced more leftward looking and right-hand tapping more rightward looking (Experiment 2). Overflow from lateralized finger-tapping may shift the gradient of attentional activation toward the contralateral hemisphere, producing the homolateral gaze direction, the increase in positive manifold, and the better retention of sequences lateralized to that hemisphere.