English adaptation versus mother tongue: reliability of the English version of MODDI-F administered to Hong Kong Chinese college students

Two samples of Hong Kong college students completed the English and the Chinese version of the Multidimensional Orientation Toward Dying and Death Inventory (MODDI-F), respectively. Results show substantially lower coefficients of internal consistency in the English version when compared with its Chinese counterpart. The construct validity of the instrument, i.e., the statistical relationships between its subtests, was confirmed. Whenever available, the use of a questionnaire that is worded in the participants' mother tongue is recommended.     

For love or money? What motivates people to know the minds of others?

Mood affects social cognition and "theory of mind", such that people in a persistent negative mood (i.e., dysphoria) have enhanced abilities at making subtle judgements about others' mental states. Theorists have argued that this hypersensitivity to subtle social cues may have adaptive significance in terms of solving interpersonal problems and/or minimising social risk. We tested whether increasing the social salience of a theory of mind task would preferentially increase dyspshoric individuals' performance on the task. Forty-four dysphoric and 51 non-dysphoric undergraduate women participated in a theory of mind decoding task following one of three motivational manipulations: (i) social motivation (ii) monetary motivation, or (iii) no motivation. Social motivation was associated with the greatest accuracy of mental state decoding for the dysphoric group, whereas the non-dysphoric group showed the highest accuracy in the monetary motivation condition. These results suggest that dysphoric individuals may be especially, and preferentially, motivated to understand the mental states of others.     

Recognition of context and experience: a civic-based Canadian conception of religious literacy

ABSTRACT

Several conceptions of religious literacy exist globally and are informed by the contextual nuances of the scholars who developed them in the UK, US and Australia. As five Canadian scholar-educators across British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, we analyse the well-known religious literacy conceptions of Jackson, Nesbitt, Dinham, Moore and Crisp through a framework based on the recognition of context and experience. In doing so, we propose a Canadian-specific conception that considers the contextual nuances in these four provinces and relates to Canada as a nation and the individual experiences of each author, and recognises the diversity across Canada. We posit that our conception addresses the social and political dynamics and shifts in Canada, namely the changing demography of religious, spiritual and non-religious individuals and the response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report that calls Canadians and its institutions to respond to the wrong towards First Nations, Metis and Inuit people.     

Intransitivity and Future Generations: Debunking Parfit's Mere Addition Paradox

ABSTRACT Duties to future persons contribute critically to many important contemporaneous ethical dilemmas, such as environmental protection, contraception, abortion, and population policy. Yet this area of ethics is mired in paradoxes. It appeared that any principle for dealing with future persons encountered Kavka's paradox of future individuals, Parfit's repugnant conclusion, or an indefensible asymmetry. In 1976, Singer proposed a utilitarian solution that seemed to avoid the above trio of obstacles, but Parfit so successfully demonstrated the unacceptability of this position that Singer abandoned it. Indeed, the apparently intransitivity of Singer's solution contributed to Temkin's argument that the notion of “all things considered better than” may be intransitive. In this paper, I demonstrate that a time‐extended view of Singer's solution avoids the intransitivity that allows Parfit's mere addition paradox to lead to the repugnant conclusion. However, the heart of the mere addition paradox remains: the time‐extended view still yields intransitive judgments. I discuss a general theory for dealing with intransitivity (Transitivity by Transformation) that was inspired by Temkin's sports analogy, and demonstrate that such a solution is more palatable than Temkin suspected. When a pair‐wise comparison also requires consideration of a small number of relevant external alternatives, we can avoid intransitivity and the mere addition paradox without infinite comparisons or rejecting the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Principle     

Self-reported mental health problems and performance in mathematics and reading in children across Europe

ABSTRACT

The study examines the associations of specific self-reported internalizing and externalizing problems and performance in mathematics and reading in school-aged children across Europe. Data were drawn from 5,842 children between 6 and 13 years of age participating in the School Children Mental Health in Europe study and a large cross-sectional survey in France. Self-reported child mental health was assessed using the Dominic Interactive, academic performance was reported by teachers. Across Europe, controlling for key sociodemographic factors associated with achievement including maternal education, performance in mathematics was more often associated with the presence of externalizing and internalizing problems as compared to performance in reading. In addition, the findings point to significant sex differences in the associations of internalizing problems and academic achievement. Considering the impact of early academic difficulties in terms of later internalizing and externalizing problems and academic attainment, school-based interventions interrupting the cycle as early as possible are warranted.     

THE CLASSICAL CONFUCIAN POSITION ON THE LEGITIMATE USE OF MILITARY FORCE

Focusing on the thought of Mencius and Xunzi, this essay reconstructs and examines the classical Confucian position on the legitimate use of military force. It begins by sketching historically important political concepts, such as types of political leaders, politics of the kingly way versus politics of the hegemonic way, and the controversial role of lords‐protector. It then moves on to explore Confucian criteria for justifying resort to the use of force, giving special attention to undertaking punitive expeditions to interdict and punish aggression and tyranny. Following this discussion, the essay then attends to important Confucian moral constraints on how military force is properly employed, including prohibitions on attacking the defenseless, indiscriminate slaughter of enemy forces, destruction of civilian infrastructure, prisoner abuse, and non‐consensual annexation of territory. The essay concludes by first discussing an illustrative case from Mencius and then comparing its reconstruction of the Confucian position to those offered by other scholars.     

Affective influences on thinking and behavior: Implications for clinical, applied and preventive psychology

What role do affective states play in everyday social behavior? This article presents an overview of recent research on the influence of affective states on the way people think and act in social situations, with a special emphasis on the applied and preventive implications of this work. We review psychodynamic, conditioning, and cognitive explanations of affective influences, and present an integrative theory, the affect infusion model (AIM; Forgas, 1995a). We then review recent evidence for affective influences on social memory, self- and other judgments, attitudes, strategic interaction, stereotyping, future forecasting and a range of other everyday psychological phenomena. We also consider the relevance of these findings for practitioners and professionals in applied areas such as health, counseling, clinical, educational, and organizational psychology.