Depressive realism and clinical depression

Depressive realism suggests that depressed individuals make more accurate judgments of control than their nondepressed counterparts. However, most studies demonstrating this phenomenon were conducted in nonclinical samples. In this study, psychiatric patients who met criteria for major depressive disorder underestimated control in a contingent situation and were consistently more negative in their judgments than were nondepressed controls. Depressed patients were less likely than their nondepressed counterparts to overestimate control in a noncontingent situation, but largely because they perceived receiving less reinforcement. Depressed patients were no more likely to use the appropriate logical heuristic to generate their judgments of control than their nondepressed counterparts and each appeared to rely on different primitive heuristics. Depressed patients were consistently more negative than their nondepressed counterparts and when they did appear to be more “accurate” in their judgments of control (as in the noncontingent situation) it was largely because they applied the wrong heuristic to less accurate information. These findings do not support the notion of depressive realism and suggest that depressed patients distort their judgments in a characteristically negative fashion.     

Essentialism in the absence of language? Evidence from rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

We explored whether rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) share one important feature of human essentialist reasoning: the capacity to track category membership across radical featural transformations. Specifically, we examined whether monkeys – like children ( Keil, 1989 ) – expect a transformed object to have the internal properties of its original category. In two experiments, monkeys watched as an experimenter visually transformed a familiar fruit (e.g. apple) into a new kind of fruit (e.g. coconut) either by placing a fruit exterior over the original, or by removing an exterior shell and revealing the inside kind of fruit. The experimenter then pretended to place an inside piece of the transformed fruit into a box which the monkey was allowed to search. Results indicated that monkeys searched the box longer when they found a piece of fruit inconsistent with the inside kind, suggesting that the monkeys expected that the inside of the transformed fruit would taste like the innermost kind they saw. These results suggest that monkeys may share at least one aspect of psychological essentialism: They maintain category‐specific expectations about an object’s internal properties even when that object’s external properties change. These results therefore suggest that some essentialist expectations may emerge in the absence of language, and thus raise the possibility that such tendencies may emerge earlier in human development than has previously been considered.     

Theoretical and practical problems with wide reflective equilibrium in bioethics

Various theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain what makes moral judgments justifiable. One of the main theories currently advocated in bioethics is a form of coherentism known as wide reflective equilibrium. In this paper, I argue that wide reflective equilibrium is not a satisfactory approach for justifying moral beliefs and propositions. A long-standing theoretical problem for reflective equilibrium has not been adequately resolved, and, as a result, the main arguments for wide reflective equilibrium are unsuccessful. Moreover, practical problems that arise in using the method of wide reflective equilibrium undermine the idea that it is a viable approach for justifying moral judgments about cases and policies. Given that wide reflective equilibrium is the most prominent version of coherentism, these considerations call into question the coherentist approach to justification in bioethics.     

Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God – Laurence Paul Hemming

Book reviewed:
Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God , Laurence Paul Hemming, SCM Press 2005 (0-334-02992-9), 269 pp., pb £30.00     

The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology – Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Book reviewed:
The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology , Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Westminster John Knox Press 2005 (0-6642-2327-3), xv + 487 pp., $25.00     

Religion and Spirituality in Quality of Life Studies

The authors present their views on the current state of the art for research focused upon religion/spirituality and quality of life. Because of the undeniable influence of religion and spirituality at the macro-level of cultures, the internal and external worlds of individuals embedded in any culture are touched by religion and spirituality – even for individuals who deny any religious affiliation or beliefs. Religion and spirituality has already attracted attention from QOL researchers across a wide set of disciplines and should continue to do so in the future. The authors discuss approaches, topics and methodological issues that should be considered when researching religion/spirituality and QOL. Recommendations for future research are set in italics.