Exploring Culture-Specific Differences in Beliefs about Causes, Kinship and the Heritability of Major Depressive Disorder: The Views of Anglo-Celtic and Chinese-Australians

The aim of this study was to explore cultural differences in causal attributions and beliefs about heritability of major depressive disorder (MDD). Face-to-face interviews with Anglo-Celtic- and Chinese-Australians community members with a family history of MDD were conducted and subjected to a rigorous qualitative analysis, using the computer software NVivo. Sixteen Anglo-Celtic-Australians and 16 Chinese-Australians were interviewed. Both groups believed that a combination of genetic and environmental factors contributed to MDD, that stress was an important cause of MDD, and that coping factors were significant moderators of the impact of stress on MDD. Both cultural groups believed that the causes of MDD affecting multiple family members included a shared family environment and a “contagion effect”, in addition to genetics. Unique to the Chinese-Australian group was the beliefs that parental pressures to exceed academically contributed to MDD; this cultural group also reported beliefs that depression was due to God’s will or alternatively fate, which in turn was related to attributions to feng shui and auspicious dates. This study documented key culture-specific differences in beliefs about causes and inheritance of MDD; such differences have major implications for clinician-patient communication about genetic risk associated with having a family history of MDD.     

Reading your own lips: Common-coding theory and visual speech perception

Common-coding theory posits that (1) perceiving an action activates the same representations of motor plans that are activated by actually performing that action, and (2) because of individual differences in the ways that actions are performed, observing recordings of one’s own previous behavior activates motor plans to an even greater degree than does observing someone else’s behavior. We hypothesized that if observing oneself activates motor plans to a greater degree than does observing others, and if these activated plans contribute to perception, then people should be able to lipread silent video clips of their own previous utterances more accurately than they can lipread video clips of other talkers. As predicted, two groups of participants were able to lipread video clips of themselves, recorded more than two weeks earlier, significantly more accurately than video clips of others. These results suggest that visual input activates speech motor activity that links to word representations in the mental lexicon.     

College Men’s Concerns About Sharing Dormitory Space with a Male-to-Female Transsexual

We examined male college students’ attitudes toward sharing dormitory space with a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual. Participants read three scenarios, in a sequence of either increasing or decreasing contact with the transsexual, in which they imagined sharing dormitory space with a MTF transsexual as a roommate, in the bathroom, and at a residence hall meeting, after each of which they answered open-ended questions about how they would feel or act, or what they would do if they were a resident advisor, in the imagined scenarios. Participants then rated statements measuring their attitudes toward transsexuals and toward masculine norms. Whether they imagined increased or decreased contact, participants expressed comparable transphobia, and made numerous negative and neutral statements and fewer positive statements about how they would feel or act. However, many students made positive statements about how they would act toward the transsexual, particularly in the roommate situation. Adherence to masculine norms and transphobia were so highly positively correlated that they apparently measured a common attitude, but regression analyses indicated that transphobia mediated the association between adherence to masculine norms and frequencies of positive, negative and neutral responses to the open-ended questions. Men who were Christian, from middle to high SES families, and heterosexual were more transphobic and adhered more to masculine norms than those who were nonChristian, from lower SES families, and gay, respectively. Black and white men were equally transphobic and adhered equally to masculine norms. The men’s recommendations when imagining themselves as a resident advisor typically concerned making connections between the men and the transsexual and controlling the situation.     

Does the burden of the experience sampling method undermine data quality in state body image research?

Despite growing popularity of experience sampling methodology (ESM) for evaluations of state-based components of body image, there have been concerns that the frequent repeated measurement might encourage problematic responding resulting in low data quantity and/or quality. Using a sample of 105 women (mean age = 24.84), this study used multilevel modelling to investigate whether (a) there were changes in compliance or response variability across a 7-day period, and (b) whether such changes are explained by participant characteristics. Present findings suggest that demands of ESM protocol undermine quantity more so than quality of obtained data. Decline in procedural compliance across the testing period correlated with BMI and body shame, whereas reduced variability in state-based assessments did not adversely impact the strength of association between state body satisfaction ratings and other variables in the dataset. The authors make several recommendations for ensuring the quality of ESM-based data in future studies.     

A Feminist Defense of the Unity of the Virtues

In The Impossibility of Perfection, Michael Slote tries to show that the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of the unity of the virtues is mistaken. His argumentative strategy is to provide counterexamples to this doctrine, by showing that there are what he calls “partial virtues”—pairs of virtues that conflict with one another but both of which are ethically indispensible. Slote offers two lines of argument for the existence of partial virtues. The first is an argument for the partiality of a particular pair of virtues: frankness and tact. The second is a kind of feminist critique. I argue that both of these lines of argument fail. In both cases, Slote fails to ask whether the apparent conflict between putatively partial virtues has arisen from a misunderstanding of the demands of those virtues. From this error I suggest we can learn an important lesson: whether in our studies thinking about the virtues or in our everyday lives trying to practice them, it is a serious mistake to focus on the relationships among virtues without considering precisely what each of these virtues demands.     

The effect of variety expectations on interest, enjoyment, and locus of causality in exercise

Most attempts to influence intrinsic motivation have focused on contextual support for basic need satisfaction, including the provision of autonomy support, structure, and interpersonal involvement (e.g., Edmunds et al. in Eur J Soc Psychol 38:375–388, 2008). This study explored the extent to which another factor, expectations for task variety, influenced interest, enjoyment, and locus of causality in a novel exercise setting. Results showed that participants exposed to messages about variety in an exercise class enjoyed the class more, found it more interesting, and perceived greater internal causality than those who received messages about similarity in the class. Moderator analyses indicated that expectations of task variety were particularly conducive for task interest among participants who usually demonstrated lower intrinsic motivation for exercise. Discussion focuses on the relevance of these findings to self-determination theory and on opportunities for future research.     

Buridan's Solution to the Liar Paradox

Jean Buridan has offered a solution to the Liar Paradox, i.e. to the problem of assigning a truth-value to the sentence ‘What I am saying is false’. It has been argued that either (1) this solution is ad hoc since it would only apply to self-referencing sentences [Read, S. 2002. ‘The Liar Paradox from John Buridan back to Thomas Bradwardine’, Vivarium, 40 (2), 189–218] or else (2) it weakens his theory of truth, making his ‘a logic without truth’ [Klima, G. 2008. ‘Logic without truth: Buridan on the Liar’, in S. Rahman, T. Tulenheimo and E. Genot, Unity, Truth and the Liar: The Modern Relevance of Medieval Solutions to the Liar Paradox, Berlin: Springer, 87–112 (Chapter 5); Dutilh Novaes, C. 2011. ‘Lessons on truth from mediaeval solutions to the Liar Paradox’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 61 (242), 58–78]. Against (1), I will argue that Buridan's solution by means of truth by supposition does not involve new principles. Self-referential sentences force us to handle supposition more carefully, which does not warrant the accusation of adhoccery. I will also argue, against (2), that it is exaggerated to assert that this solution leads to a ‘weakened’ theory of truth, since it is consistent with other passages of the Sophismata, which only gives necessary conditions for the truth of affirmative propositions, but sufficient conditions for falsity.     

Positive and negative deviance: More fuel for a controversy∗

While it is quite clear that there IS a theoretical and empirical accumulation of knowledge in the area of the sociological study of deviance which supports the viability of the notion of “positive deviance,” it also seems that the overwhelming majority of sociologists of deviance reject this possible paradigmatic shift. Hence, the voices “pushing” this shift are generally quiet, typically hesitant and the debate is made on the margins of the acceptable in deviance research. What we may be witnessing here is an attempt to introduce a change into the boundaries of a specific scientific paradigm (to the extent that such a paradigm indeed exists), and the typical reaction in the form of “resistance to innovation.” Once accepted, it is quite clear that sociologists of deviance, as well as others, will have to think in different terms, to develop different research strategies and to acquire new skills ‐ methodological and analytical. In this respect, the position of sociologists of deviance is better than that of criminologists because the latter really work with those acts that were defined by society as negatives ("crimes"). Sociologists of deviance are not limited by this self imposed barricade, hence, they can broaden their view and break new grounds. Grappling with the concept of “positive deviance” is one possible and exciting route.     

The Body Image Boundary Construct: A Reply to Fisher and Cleveland

The ability of expert and naive judges to discriminate between genuine and Barnum assessment statements was assessed. In a 2 x 2 x 2 design (naive vs. expert judges, genuine vs. Barnum test statements, sex), judges rated assessment statements for their information value, usefulness, social desirability, and typicalness. Results indicated that judges were able to make expected discriminations between genuine and Barnum statements. These results were discussed in terms of previous findings which have suggested that judges have seen Barnum statements as "accurate" or "good" as genuine statements. In the present study, the discriminations seemed due to the use of a population of judges more representative of clinical assessment consumers and to the more specific judgments required.