Something Covered with an Old Blanket”: Nancy and Other Dead Mothers in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oliver Twist</Emphasis>

In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva outlines her theory of abjection as a simultaneous fascination and horror stemming from sensorial reminders of the subject’s primal, psychological relation to the mother. In this essay, I show how these psychological perspectives can potentially result in acts of physical violence, which I call the “abject response.” Applied to literature, a study of the abject response explains why sexually active female characters, such as Nancy, the prostitute, in Oliver Twist, suffer extreme acts of physical violence: not simply because they are sexual, as critics of Victorian domestic ideology most often argue, but rather because their particularly female bodies give them an agency which threatens to destroy the mastery of women on which Victorian male identity is based. Reading Oliver Twist through the lens of Kristeva reveals the ways in which Sikes, Nancy’s murderer, psychically links her sexuality to the fatal potential he perceives in her body. This threatening construction of women’s sexuality derives from an imbalanced focus in the male psyche on the repulsion aspect of abjection, a focus socially inscribed as a threatening power, which is used to justify violent usurpations of the feminine in masculine constructions of gender.     

Task switching across the life span: effects of age on general and specific switch costs

The authors investigated age-related changes in executive control using an Internet-based task-switching experiment with 5,271 participants between the ages of 10 and 66 years. Speeded face categorization was required on the basis of gender (G) or emotion (E) in single task blocks (GGG... and EEE...) or switching blocks (GGEEGGEE...). General switch costs, the difference between switching block and single task block performance, decreased during development and then increased approximately linearly from age 18. In contrast, specific switch costs, the difference between switch trial and nonswitch trial performance in the switching block, were more stable across the same age range. These results demonstrate differential age effects in task-switching performance and provide a fine-grained analysis of switch costs from puberty to retirement.     

From vulnerability to resilience: learning orientations buffer contingent self-esteem from failure

An experiment examined the buffering effects of a learning orientation following failure in a domain of contingent self-worth. Participants' academic contingencies of self-worth (CSW) and priming with theories of intelligence interacted to affect vulnerability of self-esteem to failure. Participants who had high academic CSW and were primed with an entity theory of intelligence experienced lower self-esteem and higher negative affect following failure than following success on an academic test, but these effects were eliminated when participants with high academic CSW were primed with an incremental theory of intelligence. This study shows that endorsing a learning orientation is an effective way to minimize threat to self-esteem among students whose self-worth is highly contingent on academics and may allow them to persist in the face of challenges and to learn from failure.     

Depression proneness in treatment-seeking smokers: a taxometric analysis

Using taxometric procedures, we examined latent distribution of depression proneness and the construct validity of the Depression Proneness Inventory (DPI) within a group of 439 non-depressed smokers participating in a smoking cessation trial. Three taxometric procedures MAMBAC, MAXEIG, and L-MODE, supported the presence of a distinct subgroup of depression prone smokers. A set of indicators including cognitive vulnerabilities, self-reported tendencies to feel inadequate and experience depressive symptoms, as well as recent experiences of depressive symptoms prior to anticipated cessation treatment behaved taxonically suggesting a shared relationship with an underlying taxonic causal factor. The DPI was found to be an efficient index of taxon membership and a strong predictor of depression history. The DPI identifies a subgroup of smokers seeking cessation treatment that carry affective risk factors known to impede successful smoking cessation and might benefit from interventions targeting depression and negative mood.     

Does previewing one stimulus feature help conjunction search?

We examined the effects of previewing one aspect of a search display, in order to determine what subset of display information is most useful as a prelude to a search task. Observers were asked to indicate the presence or absence of a known target, in a conjunction search where the target was defined by the combination of colour and orientation (a yellow horizontal line presented among yellow vertical and pink horizontal distractors). In the colour preview condition of experiment 1, observers were first shown a 1 s preview of the locations and colours of the search items before the actual search set was presented. That is, search items first appeared as yellow and pink squares for 1 s, which each then turned into yellow and pink oriented lines (in the same locations) which comprised the display to be searched. In the orientation preview condition, observers were first shown a 1 s preview of the locations and orientations of the search items before the actual search display was presented. These two conditions were compared to a control condition consisting of standard conjunction search without any preview display. There was no effect of colour preview; there was a marginal effect of orientation preview, but in the opposite direction from what was expected reaction time increased for orientation preview searches. In experiment 2 these previews were compared to two spatial cueing conditions; in this experiment the colour preview did provide a small amount of help. Finally, in experiment 3 both previews were presented in succession, and increased facilitation was found, in particular when the colour preview preceded the orientation preview. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature, in particular the Guided Search model (Wolfe et al 1989 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 15 419-433; Wolfe 1994 Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 1 202-238).     

Patients' Knowledge of Cystic Fibrosis: Genetic Determinism and Implications for Treatment

This paper uses the self-regulation model of illness perceptions (Leventhal et al. , 1984) to consider the implications of different ways of thinking about the causes of illness. The relationship between anxiety/depression and knowledge or denial of illness is also considered. These issues are explored using adherence to treatment in cystic fibrosis (CF) as an example. Twenty-six CF patients took part in semistructured interviews and completed a standardized anxiety and depression scale (HAD, Zigmond and Snaith, 1983). Interview data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Chapman and Smith, 2002). HAD data were analyzed using SPSS. The respondents displayed widely differing levels of knowledge of their condition. Some deterministic comments were also reported. Findings are discussed in relation to the information that physicians might provide to patients and families in the light of increasing knowledge about genetics in society and the genotyping of individuals with genetic conditions specifically. Any important gaps in patient knowledge could usefully be discussed at transition from pediatric to adult care and issues relating to control and genetic determinism discussed with the patients individually.     

Intellectual Safety, Moral Atmosphere, and Epistemology in College Classrooms

Students report feeling safe to express and challenge their beliefs and assumptions in some classrooms and interactions but not in others. This paper proposes a definition of intellectual safety derived from student responses to their experience of safety or threat in college classrooms, and explores students' experience of intellectual safety in relation to epistemological development. Intellectual safety defined here has two components: epistemic fit or lack of fit between student and professor's epistemology, and moral climate. Students can be challenged in their world-views and feel either threatened, unsafe, and uncomfortable, or supported and safe despite possible discomfort. Experiencing an intellectually safe moral climate may create conditions and opportunities for epistemological reflection and change. Using concepts from moral theory, including moral type and moral perspectives of justice and care, I describe features of an intellectually safe moral climate during the cognitively and emotionally difficult time of epistemological development.     

New phenomenon of abnormal auditory perception associated with emotional and head trauma: pathological confirmation by SPECT scan

We report the case of an immigrant who suffered from death threats and head trauma while a prisoner of war in Kuwait. Two months later, he began to hear conversations that had taken place previously. These perceptions occurred spontaneously or were induced by the patient's effortful concentration. The single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) scan performed during this abnormal perceptual experience indicated an increase in regional cerebral blood flow in the left temporal lobe and in the brainstem.     

Childhood maltreatment associated with adult personality disorders: findings from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study

Adverse childhood experiences such as abuse and neglect are frequently implicated in the development of personality disorders (PDs); however, research on the childhood histories of most PD groups remains limited. In this multisite investigation, we assessed self-reported history of abuse and neglect experiences among 600 patients diagnosed with either a PD (borderline, schizotypal, avoidant, or obsessive-compulsive) or major depressive disorder without PD. Results indicate that rates of childhood maltreatment among individuals with PDs are generally high (73% reporting abuse; 82% reporting neglect). As expected, borderline PD was more consistently associated with childhood abuse and neglect than other PD diagnoses. However, even when controlling for the effect of borderline PD, other PD diagnoses were associated with specific types of maltreatment.