‘Something That Unites Us All’: Understandings of St. Patrick's Day Parades as Representing the Irish National Group

The present study investigates how attendees at national celebratory crowd events—specifically St. Patrick's Day parades—understand the role of such events in representing and uniting the national community. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with people who attended St. Patrick's Day parades in either Dublin or Belfast. In year 1, full‐length interviews were conducted before and after the events (N = 17), and in years 1 and 2, shorter interviews were conducted during the events (year 1 N = 170; year 2 N = 142). Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis, allowing the identification of three broad themes. Participants reported that (i) the events extend the boundary of the national group, using participation to define who counts as Irish; (ii) the events strategically represent the nature of the national group, maximising positive images and managing stereotypical representations; and (iii) symbolism serves to unify the group but can also disrupt already fragile unity and so must be managed. Overall, this points to a strategic identity dimension to these crowd events. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research in terms of the role of large‐scale celebratory events in the strategic representation of everyday social identities. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Man's Heaviest Burden: A Review of Contemporary Paradigms and New Directions for Understanding and Preventing Masculine Aggression

Given evidence that men's and women's aggression meaningfully differ in terms of motivations, methods, and consequences, behavior scientists increasingly recognize the importance of integrating gender socialization and masculine‐relevant processes into models for understanding and preventing men's violence. As such, the Gender Role Strain Paradigm, a contemporary framework for conceptualizing the psychological and physical problems common to men, has been widely utilized in aggression research. However, translation of this paradigm into effective violence prevention and intervention efforts remains stalled by controversy over measurement and methodology. After a brief review of the Gender Role Strain Paradigm and its contributions to aggression research, the current paper details recent methodological advancements in the measurement of masculine discrepancy stress/strain, a form of distress arising from perceived failures to conform to socially‐prescribed masculine gender role norms. The validity of masculine discrepancy stress is described in terms of its predictive utility and its ability to address longstanding critiques of the Gender Role Strain Paradigm. Finally, masculine discrepancy stress is discussed in terms of its violence prevention and intervention implications.     

The effect of prenatal adversity on externalizing behaviors at 24 months of age in a high-risk sample: Maternal sensitivity as a moderator

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of maternal sensitivity on the association between prenatal adversity and externalizing behaviors at 24 months of age in a diverse, high-risk sample. We hypothesized that among children with higher prenatal adversity, high maternal sensitivity would serve as a protective factor. Participants were 247 primarily low-income, diverse dyads. Results indicated a significant interaction effect of maternal sensitivity and prenatal adversity on externalizing problems. The association between prenatal adversity and externalizing behaviors was significant only among children who experienced low prenatal adversity, with higher maternal sensitivity associated with lower externalizing behaviors. These findings indicate that, in the absence of high prenatal risk, responsive and sensitive parenting can buffer children in an otherwise high-risk sample from the development of externalizing behaviors.     

Infants’ intentionally communicative vocalizations elicit responses from caregivers and are the best predictors of the transition to language: A longitudinal investigation of infants’ vocalizations,gestures and word production

What aspects of infants’ prelinguistic communication are most valuable for learning to speak, and why? We test whether early vocalizations and gestures drive the transition to word use because, in addition to indicating motoric readiness, they (a) are early instances of intentional communication and (b) elicit verbal responses from caregivers. In study 1, 11 month olds (N = 134) were observed to coordinate vocalizations and gestures with gaze to their caregiver's face at above chance rates, indicating that they are plausibly intentionally communicative. Study 2 tested whether those infant communicative acts that were gaze‐coordinated best predicted later expressive vocabulary. We report a novel procedure for predicting vocabulary via multi‐model inference over a comprehensive set of infant behaviours produced at 11 and 12 months (n = 58). This makes it possible to establish the relative predictive value of different behaviours that are hierarchically organized by level of granularity. Gaze‐coordinated vocalizations were the most valuable predictors of expressive vocabulary size up to 24 months. Study 3 established that caregivers were more likely to respond to gaze‐coordinated behaviours. Moreover, the dyadic combination of infant gaze‐coordinated vocalization and caregiver response was by far the best predictor of later vocabulary size. We conclude that practice with prelinguistic intentional communication facilitates the leap to symbol use. Learning is optimized when caregivers respond to intentional vocalizations with appropriate language.     

Empirical Knowledge: Kantian Themes and Sellarsian Variations

Philosophical Studies -     

Do individuals with autism and Asperger’s syndrome utilize prior knowledge when pairing stimuli?

While several studies suggest that individuals with autism use prior knowledge appropriately, others have found that this may be a particular area of weakness. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether individuals with autism and Asperger’s syndrome utilize prior knowledge when pairing objects with colours. Participants were presented with cards illustrating common objects and asked to pair them with one of two colour patches. Some target objects were coloured inappropriately (e.g. blue banana), allowing a participant to pair it either with blue or yellow. Results indicated that a majority of participants chose the associated in preference to the surface colour. This suggests that prior knowledge governed pairing in many individuals with autism and Asperger’s syndrome as it did in comparison groups, except in typically developing children aged 5 years. However, those with autism and moderate learning difficulties were less affected by prior knowledge than some of the other groups.     

La relation entre les conflits conjugaux,la satisfaction conjugale des mères et la qualité de la communication mère‐adolescente

A sample comprising 41 couples and their adolescent daughters participated in a study on the association between marital conflicts and mother‐daughter communication. Observational measurements and questionnaires were used to evaluate the level of the quality of communication between the couple, the marital satisfaction of the parents and the quality of the communication between mother and adolescent daughters. The results show that: (a) conflicts observed between the parents are positively associated with the level of confrontation observed between the mother and the daughter and (b) the marital satisfaction of the mothers plays a mediatory role between the conflicts in the couple and the level of mother‐daughter confrontation. The marital satisfaction of the mothers would be the link in the process of propagation of the affects and the negative behaviour of the couple and the mother‐adolescent daughter relationship.     

Nous avons l''art pour vivre dans la vérité Hannah Arendt, lectrice de Kant: indications pour une méditation de l''art

The paper aims at sketching the outline of a phenomenology of the artwork on the basis of the short analyses devoted to the topic by Hannah Arendt in a few texts. In order to overcome the mostly allusive and even superficial character of these texts, the paper refers to Kant's teaching in theCritique of Judgment and to Arendt's interpretation of it in several essays.We have tried to pursue as far as possible, in the direction of a philosophy of art, the path opened by her political interpretation of the thirdCritique. We have also endeavoured to develop, beyond what she writes explicitly but in an attempt to make her thought as consistent as possible, the marginal suggestions provided by the book onThinking about the relations between judgment and thought and the theses stated byThe Human Condition about the work of art as a reified thought.Accordingly, the artwork appears to be, in the realm of artefacts, what is the best, appropriated to provide to a human world its stability; since the artwork is the most enduring product of thehomo faber, while escaping the means-end categories as well as any usefulness. Hence the artwork is able to display within the realm of human artefacts the meaning of a human world; namely, a home on the earth, a dwelling to be shared in their being-together. While being useless and merely appearing in the world, the work is also what calls for a judgment of taste such as Kant describes it. This means a judgment of common sense based upon a sharing of the world by fellowpeople, and aiming at a standard which is the sensus communis as the very condition of possibility of such a sharing. Moreover, the artwork is a thought made into a thing. Again, as a thought which appears in the world, it calls for judging; for a judgment is a thought which renouncing solitude comes back to the human community. Therefore it turns out that the artwork unifies the human community in its sharing of a common world. Indeed, by requesting that we judge it, the artwork appeals in ourselves to asensus communis through which our thought takes into account the point of view of the others. Moreover, as a thought embodied in a hand-made thing, the artwork makes meaning present and publicly appearing in the sensible world.

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Republished; incomplete in preceding issue.     

Study-time of sentences as a function of their specificity and of semantic exploration

In self-paced learning conditions the study-time of sentences is supposed to depend jointly upon the information content of the material and upon its exploration by the subject in the course of learning. In exp. 1 informative content was varied by using sentences constituted either of general or of specific words; study-time was found to be significantly longer for the latter sentences than for the former and the recall performance to be equal. Differential semantic exploration and storage were instigated by presenting in the series either pairs of similar, and thereby contrasted sentences, or isolated sentences. In exp. 2, study-time of the sentences was longer than that of the latter; but the first recall performance recorded with the constrasted sentences was also higher. The divergent effects of the nature of the material and of the activity of the subject upon study-time and recall performance were emphasized.