Studies in the Peripheral Retina: I. The Purkinje After-Image

Maslow, A. H., Ed. New Knowledge in Human Values. New York: Harper, 1959. Pp. 268. Reviewed by Henry Winthrop.     

Creativity to Sexual Values as Factors of Importance,Frequency, and Feeling Ratings

Factor analyses identified one General and 23 Primary factors, grouping independently the dimensions of importance (attitudinal), frequency (of experiences), and pleasantness-unpleasantness (of bodily feelings) for 48 items that broadly reflect human values, activities, and feelings such that they are applicable cross-culturally. This Specific Value Scale was self-rated by 296 college students whose 13 “Values” (incorporating the three dimensions) ranged from Social Activities and Ethical Beliefs to Sexual Activities and Significance (importance feeling), these values being also reflected in factors. The importance of self-understanding and the pleasantness of clothes grooming and of friendship were emphasized. Deemphasized were rebelling, arguments, and negative feelings. No significant differences were found between the sexes.     

Counselor Education and Supervision: The Development of the CACREP Doctoral Standards

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the unique features of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs guidelines and accreditation standards that shaped doctoral preparation in counselor education. Current issues that affect advanced training in counselor education and implications for future doctoral standards revisions are also presented.     

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores women's experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the women's identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.     

Moral Psychology And Moral Intuition: A Pox On All Your Houses

Peter Singer has argued for a radical anti-intuitionism on the basis of recent empirical research into the psychological and evolutionary origins of moral intuition. There is, however, a gap between the putative genealogy of moral intuition that Singer offers and his desired methodological claim. I explore three ways to bridge the gap, and argue that the promising way is to construe the genealogy as a debunking genealogy. I sketch an account of how debunking arguments work, and then show that this causes problems for Singer, since utilitarianism itself is liable to be debunked. Finally, I suggest how we can take lessons for ethics from the empirical work, but that the result is a far more restricted kind of anti-intuitionism than Singer was hoping for.     

Gratitude,well-being and psychological distress among South African university students

This study investigated the associations between gratitude, measures of well-being, and indicators of psychological distress (depression and negative emotion) among South African university students. Data were collected from 198 first-year university students (female = 69.70%; mean age = 20.55 years, SD = 1.70 years) using measures of gratitude, flourishing, well-being, depression, and negative emotion. The results showed that gratitude is positively associated with measures of well-being, and inversely related to indicators of psychological distress. University-based support programmes should consider gratitude interventions to support student success.     

Thoughts and oughts

Many now accept the thesis that norms are somehow constitutively involved in people's contentful intentional states. I distinguish three versions of this normative thesis that disagree about the type of norms constitutively involved. Are they objective norms of correctness, subjective norms of rationality, or intersubjective norms of social practices? I show the advantages of the third version, arguing that it improves upon the other two versions, as well as incorporating their principal insights. I then defend it against two serious challenges: (1) If content is constituted by others' normative judgments, how can content be causally efficacious? (2) This account appears to make having contentful thoughts a matter of people having contentful thoughts about your thoughts. That appears to be viciously circular and so can't be naturalistic.