Clinical Utility of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) in the Spanish Transsexual and Nontranssexual Population

The aim of the study is to evaluate the usefulness of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974), an overall measurement of the cultural construct of masculinity and femininity, in the psychological assessment of Spanish transsexuals. Seventy male-to-female transsexuals (MF), 51 female-to-male transsexuals (FM), 77 control men, and 79 control women completed the Spanish version of the BSRI. Statistically significant differences between groups were only found on the femininity scale, on which MF transsexuals and control women scored significantly higher than FM transsexuals and control men. The results indicate that (a) only the femininity scale of the BSRI appears to be useful today for evaluating differences in the sex-role identification in Spanish controls and transsexuals; and (b) MF and FM transsexuals score as a function of their gender identity instead of their anatomical sex on the BSRI femininity scale.     

The “Non-cuttable” Space in Between: Context,Boundaries and Their Natural Fluidity

The inherent open-ended nature of socio-cultural phenomena makes it necessary to create new theoretical frameworks that enable us to understand the fluidity of the relations between different parts of the dynamic system. Recent advance in modern biology seems to provide a set of heuristic concepts useful to investigate the complexity and fluidity of the relationship between different contexts. One of these is the Rayner’s logic of natural inclusionality. According whit Rayner’s evolutionary standpoint any living system is constantly in dialogue with its natural neighbourhood on the basis of an interdependent and co-evolutive process involved both the context and the organism. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the model proposed by Rayner in light of contextual perspective in development and educational psychology arguing as the space in between is neither a cuttable and divisible presence into discrete things, nor a mere “nothing” that could be cut off our conceptualization. Rather, it’s a ground (for a figure) in which flow and counter-flow in a fluid interplay amidst a distinct bounded context takes place.The interest for the boundary conditions calls for focusing on what happened on the border. By adopting a simultaneous perspective from two standpoints we are able to constantly focus on both aspects—what happens inside and outside different social settings—we became aware that the “walls” of the context of our living are much more permeable than has been until now theorized by psychological research.     

Reorganization of functional and effective connectivity during real-time fMRI-BCI modulation of prosody processing

Mechanisms of cortical reorganization underlying the enhancement of speech processing have been poorly investigated. In the present study, we addressed changes in functional and effective connectivity induced in subjects who learned to deliberately increase activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), and improved their ability to identify emotional intonations by using a real-time fMRI Brain-Computer Interface. At the beginning of their training process, we observed a massive connectivity of the rIFG to a widespread network of frontal and temporal areas, which decreased and lateralized to the right hemisphere with practice. Volitional control of activation strengthened connectivity of this brain region to the right prefrontal cortex, whereas training increased its connectivity to bilateral precentral gyri. These findings suggest that changes of connectivity in a functionally specific manner play an important role in the enhancement of speech processing. Also, these findings support previous accounts suggesting that motor circuits play a role in the comprehension of speech.     

Bystanders’ reactions to intimate partner violence: an experimental approach

ABSTRACT

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a widespread phenomenon. Despite the prevalence of IPV in Western societies, most cases remain unnoticed or at least unreported to authorities. Social psychologists have been investigating bystanders’ reactions to IPV, to understand which factors may influence the willingness to intervene in support of a female victim of violence. We review a research programme that directly investigated personal and situational factors that make potential bystanders believe a woman victim of IPV deserves and needs (their) help and support, and what, on the contrary, makes them deny any such willingness to help. We present evidence about the situational antecedents of bystander’s reaction, the underlying mechanisms of this intervention, and an extension of such evidence to non-prototypical cases, i.e., to an IPV episode occurring within a same-sex couple. We conclude by discussing future directions, and by highlighting the theoretical and practical contributions of this programme of research to the understanding of IPV for both researchers and practitioners.     

Along the border: affective promotion or inhibition of conduct in urban spaces / A lo largo de la frontera: promoción o inhibición afectiva de la conducta en los espacios urbanos

Abstract

The concepts of borders, tensegrity and goal-oriented meaningful conduct are used to study the conditions in which affects and conducts can (or cannot) emerge in urban spaces. We assume psychological phenomena are liminal and emerge in the border zones between different individual and collective states. The main focus of the study is the process of affective meaning-making that takes place at specific locations (the border zones) in urban living. Through an example of autoethnography, we try to understand how the symbolic space is used in everyday life to produce, maintain and demolish signs that self-regulate and hetero-regulate complex atmospheres, affects and conducts.     

Between ontological hubris and epistemic humility: Collingwood,Kant and the role of transcendental arguments

ABSTRACT

This paper explores and defends a form of transcendental argument that is neither bold in its attempt to answer the sceptic, as ambitious transcendental strategies, nor epistemically humble, as modest transcendental strategies. While ambitious transcendental strategies seek (but fail) to meet the sceptical challenge, and modest transcendental strategies accept the validity of the challenge but retreat to a position of epistemic humility, this form of transcendental argument denies the assumption that undergirds the challenge, namely that truth and falsity may be legitimately predicated of the conditions of knowledge. As a result, although this form of transcendental argument is not truth-directed, it is not vulnerable to a charge that is often levelled against modest transcendental arguments, namely that they amount to the adoption of a strategy of sophisticated capitulation. This form of transcendental argument, which is implicit in Collingwood’s conception of philosophy as the search for absolute presuppositions, takes transcendental arguments in a pragmatic direction that does not leave the framework of transcendental idealism intact. It nonetheless remains true to Kant’s conception of philosophy as a second-order activity and to his goal of defending our entitlement to hold on both to the standpoint of theoretical and that of practical reason.