British,Asian and Hindu: identity,self‐narration and the ethnographic interview

This article, based on a longitudinal study of young British Hindus’ perceptions of their religious tradition, explores their understandings of themselves as ‘British’, ‘Asian’ and Hindu’ [1] [1] The Longitudinal Study of Young British Hindus’ Perceptions of their Religious Tradition was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and directed by Professor Robert Jackson in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, University of Warwick 1995‐97. Earlier ethnographic study of these young people is reported in Jackson and Nesbitt (1993). View all notes. A theoretical framework is provided by psychologists’ and philosophers’ acknowledgement of the processual, interactive, integrative nature of identity and the conceptualisation of it as both narrative and interpretative. The young people's narratives of identity are contextualised by the ‘between two cultures’ debate, and by Jacobson's (1997) recent analysis of the factors in young British Pakistanis’ increasing preference for an Islamic rather than Asian or Pakistani identity. It is suggested that a binary model is over simple and that ‘Hindu’ emerges as a transgenerational, core identity, but with significant differences from the young South Asian Muslims’ preferred Islamic identity.

     

HIV/AIDS and the family: a review of research in the first decade

Most studies of the psychosocial implications of HIV/AIDS have been focused on the individual. This paper reviews the small but growing body of research into the impact of HIV/AIDS on the family system. Special reference is made to definitions of the family, same-sex relationships and the African family. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the family is discussed in terms of social stigma, isolation and secrecy, stress and coping, social support, communication and disclosure, responses to illness, and changing structure and roles in families. It is anticipated that in the 1990s, the study of the family will become a dominant topic in HIV/AIDS-related research.     

Is Wisdom in the Brain?

Book reviewed in this article:
James H. Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness     

Relationships Among Adolescent Girls' Eating Behaviors and Their Parents' Weight-Related Attitudes and Behaviors

This article examines adolescent girls' weightloss behaviors and possible parent influences related toweight and shape. Questionnaires were completed by 369grade 10 girls and their parents. Findings suggested that parent encouragement to loseweight was a more significant predictor of daughterdietary restraint than parents' own dietary restraintlevels. Mother influence variables added significantly to a regression equation after fatherinfluences had been entered, but the reverse was not thecase. Parents' food abstaining behaviors, such asfasting and skipping meals, predicted food abstaining in daughters. Most findings were replicated whendaughter body size was controlled for. Implications formodels of the transmission of diet and weight-relatedvalues from parent to child are discussed.     

Effects of Word Processing and Short-term Memory Deficits on Verbal Learning: Evidence from Aphasia

We report two experiments that investigate the abilities of aphasic subjects with lexical and short-term memory impairments to learn supraspan lists of 10 words. We examined effects of stimulus factors (characteristics of words and lists to be learned) and subject factors (verbal and nonverbal STM span, nature of language impairment). Learning ability was influenced by the imageability and frequency of the words to be learned (Experiment 1) and by the linguistic relationship among words in a list (Experiment 2). Additionally, learning ability was affected by the nature of a subject's word processing deficit (whether it involved semantic and/or phonological processes). Phonological ability was positively associated with learning in both experiments, and semantic ability was associated with learning when words in a list were high in both frequency and imageability (Experiment 1) or were contextually related to one another (Experiment 2). Finally, verbal STM span was positively related to learning performance, but the effect was more pronounced for word span than digit span. These relationships among word processing ability, verbal STM span, and learning ability are discussed with reference to learning in aphasia and to models of learning more generally.     

Hobbes's Theory of Rights – A Modern Interest Theory

The received view in Thomas Hobbes scholarship is that theindividual rights described by Hobbes in his political writings andspecifically in Leviathan are simple freedoms or libertyrights, that is, rights that are not correlated with duties orobligations on the part of others. In other words, it is usually arguedthat there are no claim rights for individuals in Hobbes's politicaltheory. This paper argues, against that view, that Hobbes does describeclaim rights, that they come into being when individuals conform to thesecond law of nature and that they are genuine moral claim rights, thatis, rights that are the ground of the obligations of others to forebearfrom interfering with their exercise. This argument is defended againstboth Jean Hampton's and Howard Warrender's interpretations of rights inHobbes's theory. The paper concludes that the theory of rightsunderlying Hobbes's writing is not taken from Natural Law but isprobably closer to a modern interest theory of rights.     

The roles of emotion management and perspective taking in individuals’ conflict management styles and disposition to forgive

This study aimed to link two fields of research: conflict management and forgiveness. Adult participants (n = 122) and a validating sample of significant others (n = 122) completed measures of disposition to forgive, conflict style, emotion management, and perspective taking; and multi-dimensional models of their relationships were tested. Disposition to forgive was most consistently associated with problem solving and yielding conflict styles. Greater perspective taking was associated with greater forgiveness, and greater problem solving and yielding conflict styles, as well as with lesser fighting style; and perspective taking fully or partially mediated the relationship between ability to repair emotions and dispositions to forgive and problem solve during conflict. Significant other reports confirmed most of the findings based on self-report.     

Internet-Delivered Targeted Group Intervention for Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in Adolescent Girls: A randomized controlled trial

This study evaluated a targeted intervention designed to alleviate body image and eating problems in adolescent girls that was delivered over the internet so as to increase access to the program. The program consisted of six, 90-minute weekly small group, synchronous on-line sessions and was facilitated by a therapist and manual. Participants were 73 girls (mean age=14.4 years, SD=1.48) who self-identified as having body image or eating problems and were randomly assigned to an intervention group (n=36) (assessed at baseline, post-intervention and at 2- and 6-months follow-up) or a delayed treatment control group (n=37) (assessed at baseline and 6–7 weeks later). Clinically significant improvements in body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and depression were observed at post-intervention and maintained at follow-up. Internet delivery was enthusiastically endorsed. The program offers a promising approach to improve body image and eating problems that also addresses geographic access problems.