Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the Ethics of Body and Place: Critical Methodological Reflections

This article is a critical methodological reflection on the use of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) initiated in the context of a qualitative research project on the experience of seclusion in a psychiatric setting. It addresses an explicit gap in the IPA literature to explore the ways that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology can extend the remit of IPA for noncognitivist qualitative research projects beyond the field of health psychology. In particular, the article develops Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the lived-body, language, and embodied speech, with specific attention to the ethical implications of body and place. It concludes with a discussion on phenomenological reflexivity and prompts a reconsideration of phenomenological methods across a wide range of qualitative research projects concerned with subjectivity and ethical practice, including critical health studies, critical bioethics, and cultural studies that employ a qualitative empirical research design.     

Neurostructural and Neurophysiological Correlates of Multiple Sclerosis Physical Fatigue: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cross-Sectional Studies

Neuropsychology Review - Fatigue is one of the most debilitating symptoms for people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). By consolidating a diverse and conflicting evidence-base, this systematic review...     

Molding the Past: Biased Assimilation of Historical Information1

The present study examined whether individuals' current political worldviews would bias perceptions of historical information gathered over the course of their lifetime. Kent State University students from 1995 and 2000 reported their political ideologies (e.g., conservative, liberal) and responded to items assessing their culpability and global attributions about the shooting of demonstrators by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970. The 1995 data revealed consistent support for biased responding to culpability and global attribution items. The 2000 data replicated the political ideology differences of the 1995 data. However, by including knowledge of the incident as an independent variable, the 2000 data revealed that the political ideology bias was strongest among people reporting high knowledge about the event.     

Principlism, medical individualism, and health promotion in resource-poor countries: can autonomy-based bioethics promote social justice and population health?

Through its adoption of the biomedical model of disease which promotes medical individualism and its reliance on the individual-based anthropology, mainstream bioethics has predominantly focused on respect for autonomy in the clinical setting and respect for person in the research site, emphasizing self-determination and freedom of choice. However, the emphasis on the individual has often led to moral vacuum, exaggeration of human agency, and a thin (liberal?) conception of justice. Applied to resource-poor countries and communities within developed countries, autonomy-based bioethics fails to address the root causes of diseases and public health crises with which individuals or communities are confronted. A sociological explanation of disease causation is needed to broaden principles of biomedical ethics and provides a renewed understanding of disease, freedom, medical practice, patient-physician relationship, risk and benefit of research and treatment, research priorities, and health policy.     

Affective forecasting and the Big Five

Recent studies on affective forecasting clarify that the emotional reactions people anticipate often differ markedly from those they actually experience in response to affective stimuli and events. However, core personality differences in affective forecasting have received limited attention, despite their potential relevance to choice behavior. In the present study, 226 college undergraduates rated their anticipated and experienced reactions to the emotionally-evocative event of Valentine's Day and completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits - neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness - and their facet scales. Neuroticism and extraversion were associated with baseline mood, experienced emotional reactions, and anticipated emotional reactions. The present findings hold implications for the study of individual differences in affective forecasting, personality theory, and interventions research.     

Modifying Social Aggression in Schools

The paper identifies aspects of subtle social aggression in the school environment that can make children and staff feel quite miserable and unsafe, and which will thus likely impair a child's capacity to learn, and a teacher's capacity to teach. Unaddressed power dynamics created by the interaction and attitudes of those in the social context are defined, and the interpersonal dynamics of the abdicating bystander described. A randomized controlled trial of an intervention for elementary schools is described briefly, which attempts to modify social aggression.