Compathy or Physical Empathy: Implications for the Caregiver Relationship

In this article a case is made for the importance of a previously overlooked phenomenon, physical empathy orcompathy,defined as the physical manifestation of caregiver distress that occurs in the presence of a patient in physical pain or distress. According to the similarity of a caregiver's response to the original symptoms, there can be four types of compathetic response: identical, initiated, transferred, and converted. Controlling for the compathetic response may involve narrowing one's focus and/or changing caregiver attitudes. Finally, we argue that while the compathetic response may be beneficial to the caregiving relationship, enabling the provision of appropriate and adequate humane treatment and care, the caregiver must at times shield against the compathetic response in order to provide care.     

Friend or foe: A brief examination of the ethics of corporate sponsored research at universities

In his paper entitled “Ethics and the Funding of Research and Development at Universities”¹ Spier examines some of the potential problems of the relationship between 1) corporate sponsors of research and 2) the universities (and faculty) that receive that funding. Citing “He who pays the piper, calls the tune,” Spier suggests that a better way of funding research would be to “set up a dedicated publicly sponsored research establishment” with the stated goal of achieving particular technical or engineering objectives. (Spier cited the successful Animal Virus Research of the UK as an example). Spier states that researchers at these establishments are “not subjected to the triple requirement to teach, research and administer as are university members, so they do not have to face the same ethical challenges of the academics.” This paper will examine the stated dangers of public/corporate research partnerships and whether the proposed alternative shares equally troubling ethical issues.     

What is a Seminar? Two Views of the Same Course

This article presents a methodology for a feminist theology of education based on reflection of women's educational experience in light of historical and contemporary theological works, especially the writing of Julian of Norwich. It argues for hospitality as a metaphor for theological education and suggests an understanding of the student, teacher, and environment of education that can create hospitality in the classroom.     

Relationships Between Selected Social Factors and Extent of High School Counseling

This research compares highly counseled and non-counseled secondary school students for differences in social status, attitudinal, and parental characteristics. The 2 guidance functions of career and non-career guidance were studied. Subjects were selected from a larger pool of seniors at 8 diverse high schools. The data revealed that subjects who received extensive career guidance (a) participated more actively in high status social and leadership activities in school, (b) reported their parents to be more active in community, social, and recreational activities, (c) had higher educational goals, and (d) that extensively counseled males were more other-directed, while highly counseled females were more inner-directed. Parental social status and academic achievement did not distinguish between highly counseled and non-counseled students. Few measures differentiated the 2 groups on amount of non-career guidance. These results were interpreted as indicating that utilization of secondary school guidance services may be determined to an important degree by factors extrinsic to the interpersonal process of the guidance situation.     

Apparent haptic movement

When Os were presented with ISO-Hz vibrotactile bursts at two loci on the skin of the thigh and permitted to adjust the time between burst onsets, they reported good apparent movement between the loci. The time between stimulus onsets for optimal movement was found to vary directly with the duration of the stimulus. Replication of the experiment with electrocutaneous stimuli at 1 KHz yielded similar results. Comparison of the data with results from a study of visual apparent movement revealed no difference between the two modalities for the relationship between stimulus onset intervals and stimulus duration. The significance of the results for hypotheses about the processes underlying perception of apparent movement is discussed.     

Apparent haptic movement

When as were presented with 150-Hz vibrotactile bursts at two loci on the skin of the thigh and permitted to adjust the time between burst onsets, they reported good apparent movement between the loci. The time between stimulus onsets for optimal movement was found to vary directly with the duration of the stimulus. Replication of the experiment with electrocutaneous stimuli at 1 KHz yielded similar results. Comparison of the data with results from a study of visual apparent movement revealed no difference between the two modalities for the relationship between stimulus onset intervals and stimulus duration. The significance of the results for hypotheses about the processes underlying perception of apparent movement is discussed.     

Discrimination and Eating Disorder Psychopathology: A Meta-Analysis

Eating disorders occur in diverse populations, and discrimination may be a specific factor that is related to higher eating disorder psychopathology among marginalized individuals. To evaluate the current evidence on this topic, a meta-analysis was used to quantitatively synthesize the literature on discrimination and eating disorder psychopathology across a heterogeneous range of studies. Searches were conducted in peer-reviewed journals and accessible unpublished dissertations of all years through January 2020. Studies were coded by two authors using a tailored coding form, and zero-order bivariate correlations were used as effect size measures. There were 55 cross-sectional studies extracted for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Results showed a small-to-medium association between discrimination and eating disorder psychopathology that was consistent across domains. Effect sizes were typically higher for weight discrimination. For binge eating and general eating disorder pathology, effects were smaller in studies that had larger proportions of women, and for binge eating only, effects were higher in college samples. These findings could suggest that discrimination represents a contributory factor related to eating disorder psychopathology across types of discrimination and eating disorder psychopathology. Implications are discussed for future research on discrimination and psychopathology including possible mechanisms.     

More than fantasy: Prosocial daydreams relate to prosocial dispositions and behaviour

The current studies examined the relationship between the penchant to daydream about helping others and prosocial traits and behaviour. We reasoned that fantasising about prosocial acts should be positively associated with a more prosocial disposition and real behaviour. Across both studies, the findings suggest that people who exhibit prosocial characteristics (e.g., empathic concern, fantasy/fictional empathy, moral reasoning) are more likely to fantasise about prosocial behaviour, and these characteristics are reliably associated with increased helping behaviours. From Study 1, the correlational results showed that people higher in agreeableness exhibited a stronger tendency to engage in prosocial fantasising, and empathy, in part, mediated the relationship. The experimental results from Study 2 conceptually support those from Study 1; when prompted to fantasise about prosocial behaviour, those higher in agreeableness and openness to experience engaged in more helping behaviour, whereas in a control condition, no helping differences emerged. Finding that empathic concern was most consistently related to daydreaming is consistent with the theory in that people are more intrinsically motivated to promote other's welfare at a personal cost when they feel empathy. Engaging in prosocial fantasising may increase empathy, which in turn, may enhance one's prosocial disposition and increase one's helping behaviour.     

Stimulus contributions to operant resurgence

In two experiments, pigeons were exposed to a three‐phase resurgence procedure (train Response A; extinguish Response A and train Response B; extinguish Response B). In the first experiment, the stimuli associated with phases were different, resulting in a resurgence procedure combined with an ABC renewal procedure. Presenting the novel stimulus, C, during extinction of both responses in the third phase resulted in minimal resurgence. Subsequently, substituting the original training Stimulus A for Stimulus C resulted in resurgence with all pigeons. In the second experiment, resurgence with the same stimuli present in all three phases of the resurgence procedure (AAA) was compared concurrently with a resurgence procedure in which the ABC renewal procedure used in Experiment 1 was superimposed. Substantially more resurgence occurred with the AAA procedure compared to the ABC procedure. Although ABC renewal in combination with the resurgence procedure generated some resurgence, such recurrent responding was attenuated relative to that observed when the stimulus conditions were constant across phases. Combined with earlier research showing the enhancing effects of combining resurgence and ABA renewal procedures, the present results elaborate on how stimuli correlated with certain behavioral histories affect the course of operant resurgence.     

Natural Properties,Necessary Connections,and the Problem of Induction

The necessitarian solution to the problem of induction involves two claims: first, that necessary connections are justified by an inference to the best explanation; second, that the best theory of necessary connections entails the timeless uniformity of nature. In this paper, I defend the second claim. My arguments are based on considerations from the metaphysics of laws, properties, and fundamentality.