Cultural differences in body dissatisfaction: Japanese adolescents compared with adolescents from China,Malaysia, Australia,Tonga, and Fiji

Cultural influences on the body image of 133 female and 99 male Japanese adolescents aged 12–18 years (M = 15.9, SD = 1.2) were compared to those of a databank of 1233 female and 1149 male adolescents also aged 12–18 years (M = 14.9, SD = 1.5) from five cultures – Chinese, Malaysian, Australian, Tongan, and indigenous Fijian – surveyed previously using identical body image measures (Fuller‐Tyszkiewicz et al., 2012). Japanese adolescents reported the highest levels of body dissatisfaction despite possessing among the lowest body mass index (BMI) and also reported among the highest levels of media influence on their body image. Subsequent path analyses revealed that for Japanese adolescents cultural identification with modern Japanese values were associated with increased body dissatisfaction, and that this association was mediated by level of media influence. These results highlight the importance of cultural influences, as well as individual differences in cultural values, in shaping Japanese adolescents' body image.     

The Psychometric Equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for Normally Functioning and Homeostatically Defeated Australian Adults

Understanding subjective wellbeing (SWB) at the population level has major implications for governments and policy makers concerned with enhancing the life quality of citizens. The Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) is a measure of SWB with theoretical and empirical credentials. Homeostasis theory offers an explanation for the nature of SWB data, including the distribution of scores, maintenance and change over time. According to this theory, under normal conditions, the dominant constituent of SWB is Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood), which is held within a genetically determined range of values around a set-point. However, in extreme circumstances (e.g., financial hardship, chronic illness), HPMood may dissociate from SWB, as cognitive/emotional reactions to the cause of homeostatic challenge assume control over SWB. This study investigates two groups as people scoring in the positive range for SWB and people who are likely to be experiencing homeostatic defeat/challenge. We test whether the reduced influence of HPMood on SWB due to homeostatic defeat has implications for the validity of SWB measurement. Participants were 45,192 adults (52 % female), with a mean age of 48.88 years (SD = 17.35 years), who participated in the first 23 surveys of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index over the years 2001–2010. Multiple regression analysis, multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, and Rasch modelling techniques were used to evaluate the psychometric performance of the PWI across the two groups. Results show that while the PWI functioned as intended for the normal group, SWB in the challenged group was lower across all PWI domains, more variable, and the domain scores lacked the strength of inter-correlation observed in the normal, comparison group. These changes are consistent with predictions based on homeostasis theory and one major implication of the findings is that SWB measures may not function equivalently across the entire spectrum of possible domain satisfaction scores.     

Empathic concern: Distinguishing between tenderness and sympathy

The present research proposes that empathic concern, as assessed by six items of the ERQ, consists of two separate emotions, i.e., tenderness and sympathy. To test this assumption, nine studies were conducted among, in total, 1,273 participants. In these studies participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario of someone in need, after which empathic concern was assessed. Factor analyses showed that, indeed, the ERQ items that assess empathic concern can be split up in two factors, that is, one reflecting sympathy and one reflecting tenderness. In addition, in line with previous studies, our research showed that, in response to a need-situation that reflects current needs, individuals scored higher on the ERQ factor reflecting sympathy than on the ERQ factor reflecting tenderness. Findings are discussed in terms of the practical and theoretical implications of distinguishing between sympathy and tenderness.     

Burdened Societies and Transitional Justice

Following John Rawls, nonideal theory is typically divided into: (1) “partial-compliance theory” and (2) “transitional theory." The former is concerned with those circumstances in which individuals and political regimes do not fully comply with the requirements of justice, such as when people break the law or some individuals do not do their fair share within a distributive scheme. The latter is concerned with circumstances in which background institutions may be unjust or may not exist at all. This paper focuses on issues arising in transitional theory. In particular, I am concerned with what Rawls’ has called “burdened societies," that is, those societies that find themselves in unfavorable conditions, such that their historical, social or economic circumstances make it difficult to establish just institutions. The paper investigates exactly how such burdened societies should proceed towards a more just condition in an acceptable fashion. Rawls himself tells us very little, except to suggest that societies in this condition should look for policies and courses of action that are morally permissible, politically possible and likely to be effective. In this paper I first try to anticipate what a Rawlsian might say about the best way for burdened societies to handle transitional problems and so move towards the ideal of justice. Next, I construct a model of transitional justice for burdened societies. Ultimately, I argue for a model of transitional justice that makes use of a nonideal version of Rawls’ notion of the worst-off representative person.     

Posture-movement responses to stance perturbations and upper limb fatigue during a repetitive pointing task

Localized muscle fatigue and postural perturbation have separately been shown to alter whole-body movement but little is known about how humans respond when subjected to both factors combined. Here we sought to quantify the kinematics of postural control and repetitive upper limb movement during standing surface perturbations and in the presence of fatigue. Subjects stood on a motion-based platform and repetitively reached between two shoulder-height targets until noticeably fatigued (rating of perceived exertion = 8/10). Every minute, subjects experienced a posterior and an anterior platform translation while reaching to the distal target. Outcomes were compared prior to and with fatigue (first vs. final minute data). When fatigued, regardless of the perturbation condition, subjects decreased their shoulder abduction and increased contralateral trunk flexion, a strategy that may relieve the load on the fatiguing upper limb musculature. During perturbations, kinematic adaptations emerged across the trunk and arm to preserve task performance. In contrast to our expectation, the kinematic response to the perturbations did not alter in the presence of fatigue. Kinematic adaptations in response to the perturbation predominantly occurred in the direction of the reach whereas fatigue adaptations occurred orthogonal to the reach. These findings suggest that during repetitive reaching, fatigue and postural perturbation compensations organize so as to minimize interaction with each other and preserve the global task characteristics of endpoint motion.     

Book Review

This research reviews and analyzes case law related to private-school employment contracts. The cases deal with the validity of contracts and termination of employment in which the courts have been called upon to settle a variety of disputes between nonpublic schools and their employees. School administrators must be knowledgeable of the basic principals of contract law.     

Hereditary Differences in Trainability of Purebred Dogs

The Wolpe-Lazarus Fear Survey Schedule was administered to a sample of 553 girls and 559 boys ranging in age between 12 and 18 years, and their responses were factor analyzed. The most prominent factors to emerge were those loading on items in the Social stimuli and Tissue damage categories. An analysis of frequency of response to schedule items indicated that this prominence was not a problem of item distribution in the schedule. The findings are discussed in relation to theoretical accounts of fears, and the author concludes that no one particular theoretical position can adequately account for the major findings.     

Deviant interdisciplinarity as philosophical practice: prolegomena to deep intellectual history

Philosophy may relate to interdisciplinarity in two distinct ways On the one hand, philosophy may play an auxiliary role in the process of interdisciplinarity, typically through conceptual analysis, in the understanding that the disciplines themselves are the main epistemic players. This version of the relationship I characterise as ‘normal’ because it captures the more common pattern of the relationship, which in turn reflects an acceptance of the division of organized inquiry into disciplines. On the other hand, philosophy may be itself the site for the production of interdisciplinary knowledge, understood as a kind of second-order understanding of reality that transcends the sort of knowledge that the disciplines provide, left to their own devices. This is my own position, which I dub ‘deviant’ and to which most of this article is devoted. I begin by relating the two types of interdisciplinarity to the organization of inquiry, especially their respective attitudes to the history of science. Underlying the two types are contrasting notions of what constitutes the ‘efficient’ pursuit of knowledge. This difference is further explored in terms of the organization of the university. The normal/deviant distinction was already marked in the institution’s medieval origins in terms of the difference between Doctors and Masters, respectively, an artefact of which remains in the postgraduate/undergraduate degree distinction. In the context of the history of the university, the prospects for deviant interdisciplinarity were greatest from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century—the period called ‘early modern’ in the philosophy curriculum. Towards the end of that period, due to Kant and the generation of idealists who followed him, philosophy was briefly the privileged site for deviant interdisciplinarity. After Hegel’s death, the mantle of deviant interdisciplinarity increasingly passed to some version of ‘biology’. I explore the ‘Natur-’ and ‘Geisteswissenschaft’ versions of that post-philosophical vision, which continue to co-exist within today’s biological science. I then briefly examine the chequered reputation of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, someone who exemplified the promise and perils of deviant interdisciplinarity over the past 200 years. I conclude with an Epilogue that considers contemporary efforts to engage philosophy in interdisciplinary work, invoking William James as an exemplar.     

Sources of Cognitive Inflexibility in Set-Shifting Tasks: Insights Into Developmental Theories From Adult Data

Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal dimension (e.g., shape). The experiments showed performance of the FIST involves suppression of the representation of the ignored dimension; response times for selecting a target object in an oddity task immediately following were slower when the oddity target was the previously ignored stimulus of the FIST. However, proactive interference from the previously relevant stimulus dimension also impaired responding. The results are discussed with respect to two prominent theories of the source of difficulty for children and adults on dimensional shifting tasks: attentional inertia and negative priming. In contrast to prior work emphasizing one process over the other, the findings indicate that difficulty in the FIST, and by extension other set-shifting tasks, can be attributed to both the need to shift away from the previously attended representation (attentional inertia) and the need to shift to the previously ignored representation (negative priming). Results are discussed in relation to theoretical explanations for cognitive inflexibility in adults and children.