Naturalist Political Realism and the First Political Question

Many political realists reject the idea that the first task for political philosophy is to justify the existence of coercive political institutions (CPIs). Instead, they say, we should begin with the factual existence of CPIs, and ask how they ought to be structured. In holding this view, they adopt a form of political naturalism that is broadly Aristotelian in character. In this article, I distinguish between two forms that this political naturalism might take ‐ what I call a ‘strong’ form, and a ‘weak’ form ‐ and argue that both ought to be rejected. 1     

A Phenomenological Inquiry of Identity Development,Same‐Sex Attraction,and Religious Upbringing

Growing up in religious/spiritual communities often creates identity issues for lesbian and gay individuals. In this phenomenological study, the authors investigated the experiences of 25 lesbian and gay individuals who self‐identified as having been raised within organized religious communities. Participants described that these communities were affirming, tolerant, or nonaffirming. Accordingly, emergent themes indicated that the current spiritual lives of participants varied greatly depending on their experiences of identity integration and affirmation. Implications for counselors and researchers are discussed.     

Yielding behavior of Israeli drivers: interaction of age and sex

The main objective of the present study was to explore the yielding behavior of Israeli drivers. A series of observations were carried out at a busy crosswalk during rush hour to determine the association between demographic factors, i.e., the sex and age of both pedestrians and drivers and the rate of compliance with yielding regulations. The rate of yielding observed did not exceed 53%. Drivers within the 26-50 age range, excluding other age groups, tended to exhibit a higher yielding rate towards the members of their own age group.     

In conflict with ourselves? An investigation of heuristic and analytic processes in decision making

Many theorists propose two types of processing: heuristic and analytic. In conflict tasks, in which these processing types lead to opposing responses, giving the analytic response may require bothdetection andresolution of the conflict. The ratio bias task, in which people tend to treat larger numbered ratios (e.g., 20/100) as indicating a higher likelihood of winning than do equivalent smaller numbered ratios (e.g., 2/10), is considered to induce such a conflict. Experiment 1 showed response time differences associated with conflict detection, resolution, and the amount of conflict induced. The conflict detection and resolution effects were replicated in Experiment 2 and were not affected by decreasing the influence of the heuristic response or decreasing the capacity to make the analytic response. The results are consistent with dual-process accounts, but a single-process account in which quantitative, rather than qualitative, differences in processing are assumed fares equally well in explaining the data.     

Memories defining the self in Alzheimer’s disease

ABSTRACT

There is a debate over the extent to which personal identity or the self is preserved in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Autobiographical memory deficits at early stages of AD could contribute to altering patients’ self. However, the nature of the relationship between autobiographical memory deficits and the self in AD has not been much investigated experimentally. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the integrative meaning of self-defining memories (SDMs) in early stages of AD and to analyse its relationship with the self-concept. The results showed that, when compared to the control group, AD patients less frequently extracted meaning from their SDMs and the meaning was less frequently tied to the self. Patients exhibited some altered aspects of the self-concept (i.e., complexity and strength), though some other components still persisted (i.e., valence and certainty). Correlation analyses showed that the impaired integrative meaning in the AD group was correlated with some changes in self-concept. We suggest that integrative meaning may act as a bridge between autobiographical memories and the self-concept, with reduced integration abilities appearing as a potential mechanism for the deterioration of the self-concept in AD.     

The relationship between age,processing speed,working memory capacity,and language comprehension

A total of 50 elderly individuals and 48 college students were tested on several measures of processing speed and of working memory capacity. Language processing was tested with an on‐line measure of sentence processing efficiency, an end‐of‐sentence acceptability judgement task, and a paragraph comprehension test. Elderly individuals performed more poorly than college students on the speed of processing and working memory measures and had longer listening times overall on the sentence processing measures. Elderly individuals did not, however, have overall longer listening times at the most capacity‐demanding regions of the harder sentence types. Correlational analyses failed to establish a relationship between the increase in syntactic processing load at the capacity‐demanding region of the harder sentence type and the measures of working memory capacity, but did establish a relationship between paragraph comprehension and working memory capacity. The data are argued to provide evidence that the WM system used to structure sentences syntactically is separate from that used in other aspects of language comprehension.     

Relatedness Support and the Retention of Young Female Golfers

In this study, self-determination theory was used as a guiding framework to understand the putative role of relatedness support for retention in golf among young females. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 10 female participants (M_age = 21.40, SD = 3.13). Content analyses revealed 5 distinct factors that contributed to the provision of relatedness support: Parents, Peers, Coaches, Golf Club, and Institutional and Societal Support. Findings highlighted that retention of female golfers may be facilitated through promoting valued relationships with parents, peers, coaches, and golf clubs. Policies that decrease the perceived marginalization of female participants may also be perceived as a form of relatedness support and may promote retention within this cohort. This study underscores the importance of relatedness support for young women and identifies strategies that may help to improve female retention in sport.     

Collectivism and coping: Current theories,evidence, and measurements of collective coping

A burgeoning body of cultural coping research has begun to identify the prevalence and the functional importance of collective coping behaviors among culturally diverse populations in North America and internationally. These emerging findings are highly significant as they evidence culture's impacts on the stress‐coping process via collectivistic values and orientation. They provide a critical counterpoint to the prevailing Western, individualistic stress and coping paradigm. However, current research and understanding about collective coping appear to be piecemeal and not well integrated. To address this issue, this review attempts to comprehensively survey, summarize, and evaluate existing research related to collective coping and its implications for coping research with culturally diverse populations from multiple domains. Specifically, this paper reviews relevant research and knowledge on collective coping in terms of: (a) operational definitions; (b) theories; (c) empirical evidence based on studies of specific cultural groups and broad cultural values/dimensions; (d) measurements; and (e) implications for future cultural coping research. Overall, collective coping behaviors are conceived as a product of the communal/relational norms and values of a cultural group across studies. They also encompass a wide array of stress responses ranging from value‐driven to interpersonally based to culturally conditioned emotional/cognitive to religion‐ and spirituality‐grounded coping strategies. In addition, this review highlights: (a) the relevance and the potential of cultural coping theories to guide future collective coping research; (b) growing evidence for the prominence of collective coping behaviors particularly among Asian nationals, Asian Americans/Canadians and African Americans/Canadians; (c) preference for collective coping behaviors as a function of collectivism and interdependent cultural value and orientation; and (d) six cultural coping scales. This study brings to light the present theoretical and methodological contributions as well as limitations of this body of literature and the implications it holds for future coping research.