Moral and spiritual education as an intrinsic part of the curriculum

This paper reports on a case study undertaken within a small, rural primary school in the UK to explore the extent to which it was possible to run a moral and spiritual programme as an intrinsic and inclusive part of the curriculum based on the children’s acquisition of virtues. The pupils were encouraged to build on their own experience and reflect on virtues such as ‘kindness’, ‘reliability’ or ‘responsibility’. Some positive associations were indicated between the moral and spiritual programme at the school and outcomes such as the pupil’s ability to resolve conflict and self-regulating behaviour as well as examples of empathy and altruism. The curriculum showed some effective ways of encouraging young people to be reflective and responsible for their own actions. This study was developed by observation of an assembly and targeted lessons together with semi-structured interviews. There was also a review of documentation related to the virtues programme to give a triangulated approach.     

Six Levels of Mentality

Abstract

Examination of recent debates about belief shows the need to distinguish:

• (a)?non–linguistic informational states in animal perception;

• (b)?the uncritical use of language, e.g. by children;

• (c)?adult humans' reasoned judgments.

If we also distinguish between mind-directed and object–directed mental states, we have: 1. Perceptual ‘beliefs’ of animals and infants about their material environment.

2. ‘Beliefs’ of animals and infants about the mental states of others.

3. Linguistically-expressible beliefs about the world, resulting from e.g. the uncritical tendency to believe what we are told.

4. Uncritically-formed beliefs about the mental states.

5. Beliefs about the material world arrived at by the weighing of evidence.

6. Beliefs about mental states formed by critical assessment.

     

The Effects of 10 Mgs. of Benzedrine Sulfate and Low Oxygen Tension on the Span of Attention for Letters,and Other Factors

The three wishes of a random sample of 100 subjects were obtained from each of five age groups: elementary, junior high, high school, early college (18–24 years), and late college (25–50 years). The wishes were placed in appropriate categories and into subcategories including possessions, activities, maintenance, achievement, and altruism. Exploratory measures of “confidence” and “sense of personal control” were taken for each subject. Sex and socioeconomic condition were analyzed. Results supported previously established trends of increasing generality, increasing altruism, and decreasing materialistic content up to different ages in adolescence and early adulthood depending on the data chosen to relate to the generalizations. In addition, a gradual increase in achievement wishes through middle adulthood was observed. The measure of “sense of personal control” was found to yield significant variation, while the data related to “confidence” varied only within chance limits. Comparisons with previous studies led to speculation that achievement orientations of adolescents may have lessened over the past decade.     

Exploring the Relationship between Psychopathy and Helping Behaviors in Naturalistic Settings: Preliminary Findings

This study examined the helping behavior of participants with high (High-P; 15 males, 13 females) and low (Low-P; 14 males, 16 females) psychopathic traits without their awareness. In the first of three tests, we found Low-P participants offered more help to an apparently lost female confederate than High-P participants. In the second test, High-P compared to Low-P males offered more help to an “injured” female experimenter, the reverse was true for females. In the third test, High-P compared to Low-P females offered more help to a female confederate who had apparently dropped papers they were carrying; whereas the reverse was true for males. Our preliminary findings indicate that context, gender and psychopathic traits interact and impact helping behavior.     

A comparison of sniff bottle staircase and olfactometer-based threshold tests

Olfactometers have been gaining popularity as research tools, but they have yet to replace established testing procedures in a variety of laboratory and clinical settings, including absolute threshold tests. In this research, we designed and operated a simple olfactometer with which to assess threshold. To do this, we used a method-of-adjustment test that was compared to the three-alternative forced choice ascending sniff bottle staircase method, which is currently a standard threshold test procedure. We found that the olfactometer threshold test correlated highly with the staircase method, and that it possessed suitable test–retest reliability. The advantages of the olfactometer threshold test include faster test time and reduced cleaning and reassembly demands. Future use of the olfactometer in olfactory identification and/or detection thresholds amongst odors is also outlined.     

Detecting and identifying offset gaze

A number of experiments have demonstrated that observers can accurately identify stimuli that they fail to detect (Rollman and Nachmias, 1972; Harris and Fahle, 1995; Allik et al. 1982, 2014). Using a 2x2AFC double judgements procedure, we demonstrated an analogous pattern of performance in making judgements about the direction of eye gaze. Participants were shown two faces in succession: one with direct gaze and one with gaze offset to the left or right. We found that they could identify the direction of gaze offset (left/right) better than they could detect which face contained the offset gaze. A simple Thurstonian model, under which the detection judgement is shown to be more computationally complex, was found to explain the empirical data. A further experiment incorporated metacognitive ratings into the double judgements procedure to measure observers’ metacognitive awareness (Meta-d’) across the two judgements and to assess whether observers were aware of the evidence for offset gaze when detection performance was at and below threshold. Results suggest that metacognitive awareness is tied to performance, with approximately equal Meta-d’ across the two judgements, when sensitivity is taken into account. These results show that both performance and metacognitive awareness rely not only on the strength of sensory evidence but also on the computational complexity of the decision, which determines the relative distance of that evidence from the decision axes.     

Search asymmetry, sustained attention, and response inhibition

In the present experiment, we used search asymmetry to test whether the sustained attention to response task is a better measure of response inhibition or sustained attention. Participants performed feature present and feature absent target detection tasks using either a sustained attention to response task (SART; high Go low No-Go) or a traditionally formatted task (TFT; high No-Go low Go) response format. In addition to performance, we employed functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure lateral cerebral oxygenation levels and self-reports of Tense Arousal, Energetic Arousal, task related and unrelated thoughts occurring during the tasks. Detections were lower and reaction times longer in the feature absent search than the feature present search regardless of response format. Detections were lower, but reaction times shorter in the SART than the TFT regardless of feature search. Greater right than left frontal hemisphere activation occurred in the SART than the TFT. In addition, the SART was more fatiguing based on self-reports than the TFT, but there were no differences in Task-Unrelated Thoughts across task conditions. Overall, the results suggest the SART places high response inhibition, not necessarily sustained attention, demands on participants.     

How School Counselors Can Help Prevent Online Victimization

Although the Internet is a beneficial tool, some youth are at risk for being victimized by Internet predators. School counselors are in a unique position to assist in efforts to prevent online victimizations because of their continual interaction with students, parents, and other school faculty. This article provides school counselors with information about youth Internet use; risk factors associated with online victimizations; and recommendations to assist youth, parents, and families in improving Internet safety practices.     

A comparison of video and static photo lineups with child and adolescent witnesses

In the UK video parades are the preferred method of identification employed in criminal cases. This policy implementation has been employed with little or no evidence concerning its validity. The reported research examines the effect of new video technology on children's identification evidence. The study compared 7–9 and 13–15‐year olds' ability to make identifications from either video or static photo lineups. Two hundred and fifteen participants witnessed a live event and then after a delay of 2–3 days viewed a target present (TP), or target absent (TA) video or photo lineup. For video and photo TP lineups, correct responses did not differ as a function of age. Video lineups produced lower rates of false identifications for the TA lineups, but only for adolescent witnesses. It is concluded that there is nothing contra‐indicated in the use of video identification procedures with children, and possibly certain benefits can accrue from its use. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.