The Extended Body: The Social Body of Jesus according to Luke1

Abstract : Informed by body phenomenology and contemporary concepts of the social body, this article aims to interpret the particular movements and transformations of Jesus’ body as presented in the Gospel of Luke. From the outset Jesus’ body is inscribed in a Jewish genealogy. Likewise, the Gospel depicts the character of Jesus via the various landscapes he passes through as well as through the social interactions of which he is a part. While Jesus’ body is initially described as being energized by the mobile presence of the Spirit, it increasingly closes in and, at the end, simply disappears. Luke describes Jesus’ ascension and resurrection as radical transformations of Jesus’ body, by which Jesus’ body‐and‐mind (Leib) extends into a social body, at home in God as well as among his followers. This social body also crosses the genetic and cultural boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Only through this extensiveness can Jesus’ body become accessible worldwide.     

Measuring the Outcome of Structured Spousal Violence Risk Assessments Using the B-SAFER: Risk in Relation to Recidivism and Intervention

In this study, 216 risk assessments conducted by law enforcement officers in a suburb of Stockholm using the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER) were followed up and correlated to both recidivism and type of protective actions implemented by the police. The results showed high recidivism rates across all risk categories, except in the highest risk group, where the recidivism rate was significantly lower. This finding suggests a poor, and even negative, predictive power of the police risk assessments: the higher the police-assessed risk, the lower the recidivism rate. However, it was clear that the police did very little, or nothing, in cases not assessed as high risk. All resources appear to have been directed to the high-risk cases, which seems to have had a preventive effect. Our results point to the importance of studying the nature and extent of protective actions taken in response to risk assessment, before drawing conclusions about the predictive validity of risk assessment instruments. Copyright ? 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereotypes of Norwegian social groups

We present a pilot study and two main studies that address the nature of stereotypes of social groups in Norway within the framework of the Stereotype Content Model (SCM). The first study focused on stereotypes of a wide range of groups across categories such as gender, age, religious conviction, socioeconomic and health status. The second study focused on stereotypes of immigrant groups. Participants (n = 244 and n = 63, respectively) rated the groups on perceived warmth, competence, status, and competition. Results from both studies support the applicability of the SCM in Norway and provides a unique insight into stereotypes of Norwegian social groups.     

Resilience as a Unifying Concept

In sustainability research and elsewhere, the notion of resilience is attracting growing interest and causing heated debate. Those focusing on resilience often emphasize its potential to bridge, integrate, and unify disciplines. This article attempts to evaluate these claims. Resilience is investigated as it appears in several fields, including materials science, psychology, ecology, and sustainability science. It is argued that two different concepts of resilience are in play: one local, the other global. The former refers to the ability to return to some reference state after a disturbance, the latter the maintenance of some property during a disturbance. An implication of this analysis is that the various uses of the resilience concept are more closely related than has been previously been suggested. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a preference towards using highly abstract versions of the concept. This explains the apparent context insensitivity of the concept, but presents a problem for those hoping to establish a research programme based on it.     

PROSPECTS FOR THE FIELD OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION: AN OCTOPUS VIEW

The organic unity between the head and the vital arms of the octopus is proposed as a metaphor for science and religion as an academic field. While the specific object of the field is to pursue second‐order reflections on existing and possible relations between sciences and religions, it is argued that several aspects of realism and normativity are constitutive to the field. The vital arms of the field are related to engagements with distinctive scientific theories, specialized philosophy of science, representative theological proposals, and the input from the study of world religions.     

A New Measure to Assess Psychopathic Personality in Children: The Child Problematic Traits Inventory

Understanding the development of psychopathic personality from childhood to adulthood is crucial for understanding the development and stability of severe and long-lasting conduct problems and criminal behavior. This paper describes the development of a new teacher rated instrument to assess psychopathic personality from age three to 12, the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI). The reliability and validity of the CPTI was tested in a Swedish general population sample of 2,056 3- to 5-year-olds (mean age?=?3.86; SD?=?.86; 53 % boys). The CPTI items loaded distinctively on three theoretically proposed factors: a Grandiose-Deceitful Factor, a Callous-Unemotional factor, and an Impulsive-Need for Stimulation factor. The three CPTI factors showed reliability in internal consistency and external validity, in terms of expected correlations with theoretically relevant constructs (e.g., fearlessness). The interaction between the three CPTI factors was a stronger predictor of concurrent conduct problems than any of the three individual CPTI factors, showing that it is important to assess all three factors of the psychopathic personality construct in early childhood. In conclusion, the CPTI seems to reliably and validly assess a constellation of traits that is similar to psychopathic personality as manifested in adolescence and adulthood.     

Ways of probing situated concepts

Two ways of eliciting conceptual content have been to instruct participants to list the intrinsic properties that concept exemplars possess or to report any thoughts that come to mind about the concept. It has been argued that the open, unconstrained probe is better able to elicit the situational information that concepts contain. We evaluated this proposal in two experiments comparing the two probes with regard to the content that they yield for object concepts at the superordinate and basic levels. The results showed that the open probe was better able to elicit situated conceptual knowledge and point out differences in the representations of superordinate and basic concepts.