An Emergent Theory of Altruism and Self‐Interest

Beliefs about altruism and self‐interest of 25 participants were examined through a grounded theory methodology. Altruism was defined as the promotion of needs of others and self‐interest as the promotion of needs of self. Data sources included interviews, focus group, journal analysis, artifacts, and a measure of altruism. The relationship between altruism and self‐interest emerged and was composed of 12 themes. Themes described a dynamic theory that was systemic, values oriented, and interactional.     

Childhood maltreatment, emotional distress, and early adolescent sexual intercourse: multi-informant perspectives on parental monitoring

This prospective investigation used multi-informant models to examine whether parental monitoring moderated associations between child maltreatment and either emotional distress or sexual intercourse. Data included 637 youth in the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Child maltreatment was determined by lifetime Child Protective Service records and youth self-report and included sexual, physical, psychological abuse, and neglect (age 12). The moderating variable was youth- and caregiver-reported parental monitoring (age 12). Outcome variables were emotional distress (age 12) and sexual intercourse (age 14). Analyses included multi- and individual-informant models, adjusting for age, ethnicity/race, family income, and study site. Rates of parental monitoring did not differ by gender, but gender-specific analyses found that among girls, but not boys, youth-reported parental monitoring buffered the effect of maltreatment on emotional distress. Subtype analyses found that the buffering effects of monitoring on emotional distress were strongest for sexual and physical abuse and when youth experienced multiple subtypes of maltreatment. Caregiver-reported monitoring was not associated with reduced emotional distress. Youth and caregiver reports of parental monitoring were inversely associated with sexual intercourse, regardless of maltreatment history. Findings suggest that promoting parental monitoring among caregivers, and perceptions of monitoring among youth, may prevent early sexual intercourse regardless of maltreatment history. Promoting parental monitoring among youth with a history of maltreatment, especially girls or those who have experienced sexual or physical abuse or multiple subtypes of abuse, may reduce the likelihood of emotional distress.     

The brain basis of the phonological deficit in dyslexia is independent of IQ

Although the role of IQ in developmental dyslexia remains ambiguous, the dominant clinical and research approaches rely on a definition of dyslexia that requires reading skill to be significantly below the level expected given an individual's IQ. In the study reported here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine whether differences in brain activation during phonological processing that are characteristic of dyslexia were similar or dissimilar in children with poor reading ability who had high IQ scores (discrepant readers) and in children with poor reading ability who had low IQ scores (nondiscrepant readers). In two independent samples including a total of 131 children, using univariate and multivariate pattern analyses, we found that discrepant and nondiscrepant poor readers exhibited similar patterns of reduced activation in brain areas such as left parietotemporal and occipitotemporal regions. These results converge with behavioral evidence indicating that, regardless of IQ, poor readers have similar kinds of reading difficulties in relation to phonological processing.     

Sympathy reconfi gured: Some reflections on sympathy, empathy and the discovery of values

Two words, sympathy and empathy, are commonly used to describe three distinguishable things. These are: i) an elementary, involuntary capacity which puts us in touch with the emotional state of another; ii) the use of 'trial identification' to discover, consciously or unconsciously, the emotional state of another; iii) the affect of compassion. Because these three usages have not been clearly sorted out, and because the word sympathy has been disparaged, empathy has been overused, and a variety of technical terms (including intersubjectivity, recurrent primary identification, projective identification, alpha function etc.), all of which have important specialised applications, have been used confusingly to describe functions at a much higher level of generality. This paper attempts to sort out the three meanings with reference to the history of the two words, and also to show that the use of clear general terms gives us a more intelligible linguistic base from which other matters can be considered: in particular, whether an origin can be discerned for judgements of value other than that of superego internalisation.     

Ethics,Identity and the Boundaries of the Person

Abstract

Ethical theories and theories of the person constrain each other, in that a proposition about the person may be a reason for or against an ethical proposition, and conversely. An important class of such propositions about the person concern the boundaries of the person. These boundaries enclose a person's defining properties, which constitute his identity. A person's identity may partly determine and partly be determined by his ethical judgments. An equilibrium between one's identity and one's ethical judgments is the counterpart, at the personal level, of the philosophical ideal of reflective equilibrium between a theory of the person and an ethical theory.