Contemporary Neuroscience Humanizes: A Look at Cortical Bilateral Asymmetry and How It Got That Way

Exciting research that has surfaced from a host of neuroscience laboratories is presented, and the assumption that they have little to offer human science considered. This includes the sensory substitution work of Bach-y-Rita (1967 Bach-y-Rita , P. ( 1967 ). Sensory plasticity: Applications to a vision substitution system . Acta Neurologica Scandinavia , 43 , 417 – 426 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), as well as the phantom pain hypothesis of Ramachandran (2011 Ramachandran ( 2011 ). The tell-tale brain . New York , NY : Norton . [Google Scholar]). These studies are considered atop the theoretical and meta-analytical work in the field of neuropsychiatry by McGilchrist (2009 McGilchrist , I. ( 2009 ). The master and his emissary . New Haven , CT : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar]). McGilchrist's inquiry into split-brain patients has resuscitated the once-dubious debate regarding hemispheric differences in the brain. By considering the latter in light of the evidence of neuroplasticity, global differences in right- or left-brain preference may be understood as analogous and reciprocally influential to patterns of thinking. This dynamic relationship between experience and the brain requires a reconsideration of the status of neuroscience as an exclusively reductive enterprise. Indeed, the laboratories seem to be producing results that have become increasingly difficult to reconcile with their biologically reductive commitments. While the neuroscientists are busy sorting out their results, those who do not share said commitments are free to enjoy the implications these results suggest.     

Evaluating Structural Equation Models for Categorical Outcomes: A New Test Statistic and a Practical Challenge of Interpretation

This research is concerned with two topics in assessing model fit for categorical data analysis. The first topic involves the application of a limited-information overall test, introduced in the item response theory literature, to structural equation modeling (SEM) of categorical outcome variables. Most popular SEM test statistics assess how well the model reproduces estimated polychoric correlations. In contrast, limited-information test statistics assess how well the underlying categorical data are reproduced. Here, the recently introduced C₂ statistic of Cai and Monroe (2014) is applied. The second topic concerns how the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) fit index can be affected by the number of categories in the outcome variable. This relationship creates challenges for interpreting RMSEA. While the two topics initially appear unrelated, they may conveniently be studied in tandem since RMSEA is based on an overall test statistic, such as C₂. The results are illustrated with an empirical application to data from a large-scale educational survey.     

The Later Mohists and Logic

This article is a study of the Later Mohists' ‘Lesser Selection (Xiǎoq )’, which, more than any other early Chinese text, seems to engage in the study of logic. I focus on a procedure that the Mohists called móu . Arguments by móu are grounded in linguistic parallelism, implying perhaps that the Mohists were on the way to a formal analysis of argumentation. However, their main aim was to head off arguments by móu that targeted their own doctrines, and if their argument succeeds then it entails that linguistic parallelism can never ground a cogent argument. In a way, this committed them to the view that formal logic cannot work, but the fact that they did not pursue this line of investigation was by no means inevitable. One consequence of this study is that the Later Mohists conducted their logical work by studying the behaviour of terms and verb phrases, and did not identify the sentence as a significant linguistic unit. This tends to confirm Chad Hansen's generalisation that early Chinese philosophers did not posit sentences or other sentence-like entities such as propositions, beliefs, or laws. Focusing on subsentential expressions did not stop the Mohists from addressing genuinely logical issues, but it may help explain the fact that they never developed a conception of logical structure. This study includes the complete Chinese text of the ‘Lesser Selection’ and a translation in English.     

Emancipatory Research: Then and Now

This discussion piece reflects on menstrual cycle research since the founding of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research in the context of contemporary research presented in this special issue of Sex Roles. Although women researchers in the 19th century began documenting that normal menstruation is neither disabling nor dangerous, taboos, concealment and avoidance of menstruation persist. Feminist researchers have worked to find ways to support women’s health and wellbeing within a sociocultural milieu still reflecting largely negative views of menstrual cycle phenomena. The present collection of current menstrual cycle research offers useful contextual approaches to understanding why menstruation remains in the shadows, and how to resist negative characterizations, as well as encourage curiosity and body awareness. Alternatives to mainstream corporate and medical views of menstrual phenomena are discussed. Fruitful theoretical and methodological directions for research are identified to support advocacy, educational, and therapeutic interventions for menstrual health.     

外化行为问题与集体道德情绪、集体责任行为之关系：班级氛围的调节效应*

采用调查法,随机选取上海市3所普通中小学四、六、八、十年级的755名学生为被试,探讨班级氛围在外化行为问题与集体道德情绪、集体责任行为关系间的调节作用。结果表明：(1)男生的外化行为问题显著高于女生,其感知的班级氛围显著低于女生。而男、女生集体道德情绪与集体责任行为的性别差异不显著;(2)学生感知的班级氛围随年龄的增长先下降再上升,八年级时最低;集体道德情绪和集体责任行为随着年级的增高而呈下降趋势,小学生(四、六年级)的集体道德情绪和集体责任行为得分均比中学生(八、十年级)高,高一(十年级)学生的得分处于最低水平;(3)外化行为问题与集体道德情绪、集体责任行为的关系受班级氛围的调节。与消极的班级氛围相比,积极的班级氛围能够弱化外化行为问题与集体道德情绪、集体责任行为的负向关联。结果揭示了积极的班级氛围对外化行为问题学生具有一定的保护作用,有助于改善这些学生的社会适应能力。     

Attracting Graduates to Sales Positions: The Role of Recruiter Knowledge

Corporate recruiting on college campuses has been an important vehicle for selecting and hiring new employees. Previous research has focused on identifying, locating, and selecting new employees, but the recruiting function of attracting good prospects to the interview and job has received less research attention. Increased importance of the attraction function of recruiting may be indicated for the future, particularly given projections of a decline in business college enrollments. The purpose of this article is to examine recruitment of college graduates for sales positions, using the perspective of attracting employees by communicating aspects of the job and company which are important to them. A survey of students and recruiters was used to reveal the attributes of importance to students, differences among students, and the extent to which recruiters are aware of student importance ratings. Differences between students and recruiters perceptions are identified for half of the 50 attributes examined, revealing an opportunity for recruiters to obtain better knowledge of students' perceptions and, thus, to improve their ability to attract graduates to sales positions.     

“Too Asian?” or the Invisible Citizen on the Other Side of the Nation?

In November 2010, Maclean’s magazine published a provocative article “Too Asian?” which aroused hot debate and critique from various social groups. However, its racist nature and the role of media in reinforcing racial stereotypes, manufacturing consent, and naturalizing unequal power relations has not been examined in a systematic way. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper aims to reveal its ideological and hegemonic function in constructing unequal social identities and social relations which consequently prevents racialized minorities from accessing post-secondary educational opportunities. Four themes are identified and discussed here. First, the “Too Asian?” article reinforces an Us/Them division and a “forever foreigner” identity of racialized minorities. Second, it essentializes ethnic culture and identifies culture rather than structural constraints as an explanation for individual social behaviors. Third, it represents “Asian” students as self-segregationists who should be blamed for their own exclusion. Last, but most important, it aims to justify white privilege in the field of post-secondary education by questioning the idea of meritocracy as university admission criteria and suggests maintaining “WASP Credentials.”     

The effect of stress on the suppression of erroneous competing responses

Abstract

Evidence exists that the intention to perform certain cognitive tasks activates, unintentionally, competing responses and computations that intrude on the performance of the intended tasks. For the intended task to be performed effectively, such intrusions must be controlled. Two experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that stress heightens the difficulty of exercising effective control over erroneous competing responses, a possible explanation of decrements in the performance of cognitive tasks under stress. Participants performed four tasks, which contained features that could potentially prime or activate erroneous responses. The results demonstrated that the interference of these features with performance was more pronounced among stressed than among less-stressed participants. The need for a more comprehensive theory of the effects of stress on information processing is discussed.     

Good intentions and failed implementations: Understanding culture-based resistance to organizational change

Based on the insight that culture shapes resistance to change in an organization, and the recognition that cultures of organizations are embedded in a broader societal culture, this study seeks to provide empirical evidence on how societal-based cultural understandings and values within an organization serve as a source of resistance to change among employees. The study is based on a case study of a medium-sized Turkish company. The study shows how certain managerial decisions toward a professionally running organizational design are difficult to implement due to societal-based patterns of understandings and meaning systems gathered around status, hierarchy, and emotion-based (personalized) relations in the company.