Sensitizing Questions: A Method to Facilitate Analyzing the Meaning of an Utterance

Much social science research entails interpreting the meaning of utterances, that is, phrases spoken, written or gestured. But how should researchers interpret the meaning of such utterances? A recent surge of research, informed by dialogism, emphasizes the contextual, social and unfinished nature of meaning. The present article operationalizes dialogism theory into six ‘sensitizing questions’ which can guide analysis. The questions are: (1) What is the context? (2) What is the speaker doing? (3) Who is being addressed? (4) Who is doing the talking? (5) What future is constituted? (6) What are the responses? Each question (and 16 sub-questions) is illustrated by analyzing the potential meanings of a single utterance. The article is a contribution to the development of new forms of ‘method’ for interpretative qualitative research. These methods aid the ‘human instrument’ to become a sensitive, theoretically-informed, and accountable analyst.     

Significance of Rorschach Response Modified by Responses to Other Projective Tests

Suggestions are offered for distinguishing those instances in which a disturbed Rorschach may indicate a need for psychotherapy from those in which psychotherapy is not indicated. Two contrasting cases are presented. The difference lies not so much in the quality of the Rorschach per se as in the quality of supporting and supplementary test results. The Kinetic Family Drawing, the Lowenfeld Mosaic, the level and balance of verbal and performance IQ scores, and the nature of visual and perceptual problems are used.     

On Debt and Redemption: Friedrich Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence

In this essay, I argue that the notion of monetary debt does not displace but merely conceals our deeper, ontological debt to the sources of our being and way of life. I suggest that first Christianity and then modern science attempted to find a means of redemption that could free us from debt, but that both were unable to reconcile the ideas of freedom and indebtedness. I then examine the way in which Friedrich Nietzsche tried to resolve the apparent contradiction of our debt to the past and our freedom to shape the future by developing a new form of redemption rooted in his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.     

Exchanging social positions: Enhancing perspective taking within a cooperative problem solving task

When people occupy different social positions within a cooperative task they experience discrepant role and situation demands and thus have divergent perspectives. The reported research predicts that exchanging social positions within a cooperative task can overcome divergences of perspective. This prediction was tested in two experiments using the Communication Conflict Situation. The first experiment (n = 88) found that position exchange increased the ability of dyads to solve a communication conflict arising through discrepant perspectives. The second experiment (n = 120) found that the effect of position exchange exceeds that of purely cognitive perspective taking, thus suggesting that it cannot be reduced to a purely cognitive process. Exchanging social positions is a newly identified and powerful social mechanism through which perspective taking, within a cooperative task, can be enhanced. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions

This study empirically examined implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. We examined two ethnic cues, accent and name, as sources of bias that may trigger prejudicial attitudes and decisions. As predicted, there was an interaction between the applicant name and accent that affected participants’ favorable judgments of applicant characteristics. The applicant with the ethnic name, speaking with an accent, was viewed less positively by interviewers than the ethnic named applicant without an accent and non-ethnic named applicants with and without an accent. Furthermore, modern ethnicity bias had a negative association with the favorable judgments of the applicants, which, in turn, affected hiring decisions. Implications of the results, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Making Choices: Ethical Decisions in a Global Context

The changing milieu of research—increasingly global, interdisciplinary and collaborative—prompts greater emphasis on cultural context and upon partnership with international scholars and diverse community groups. Ethics training, however, tends to ignore the cross-cultural challenges of making ethical choices. This paper confronts those challenges by presenting a new curricular model developed by an international team. It examines ethics across a very broad range of situations, using case studies and employing the perspectives of social science, humanities and the sciences. The course has been developed and taught in a highly collaborative way, involving researchers and students at Zhejiang University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Brown University. The article presents the curricular modules of the course, learning outcomes, an assessment framework developed for the project, and a discussion of evaluation findings.