Contributors

The ‘imagined community’ (famously defined by Benedict Anderson) could not be created out of nothing. It built upon previously existing identities. And though nineteenth-century nationalism is often seen as essentially secular, the most powerful of these identities were frequently religious. Indeed the clergy often played a major role in promoting a national consciousness. While a ‘national church’ readily saw itself as the embodiment of the nation’s past history, present identity and future aspirations, religious minorities usually had a more ambivalent relationship with a nationalism that was always in some degree exclusive. And even in the case of a ‘national church’, the interests of politicians and ecclesiastics were not always the same. Moreover some nineteenth-century nationalisms were defined in ways to which religion was largely irrelevant, or were in explicit opposition to the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, in ways that varied in kind and degree from country to country, nationalism and Christianity came to be intertwined in nineteenth-century Europe. National identities were to an important degree defined by reference to specific Christian traditions, their history, their forms of worship, and their heroic figures. At the same time nationalism often came to be seen as an integral part of Christianity. Readiness to die for the motherland was presented as a Christian duty and, in particular, Christian preachers of this era were strongly influenced by the concept of a God-given national mission, which justified nationalist claims and might sometimes justify war.     

What Animated Cartoons Tell Viewers About Assault

Relying upon a content analysis of one specific type of medium to which young people are exposed beginning at an early age, on a regular basis, and for many years (i.e., animated cartoons), the present study examines what types of messages are provided about violence that takes the form of simple assault. Results indicate that assault is fairly prevalent in cartoons and that this prevalence has diminished over time. Most of the time, cartoons show assaults to “land” on their intended victims, but having done so, to cause few if any adverse effects. Moreover, assaults rarely backfire on the perpetrators. Anger, revenge, and inherent mean-spiritedness are the most common reasons implied for why characters commit acts of violent assault.     

Serial attention within working memory

It is proposed that people are limited to attending to just one “object” in working memory (WM) at any one time. Consequently, many cognitive tasks, and much of everyday thought, necessitate switches between WM items. The research to be presented measured the time involved in switching attention between objects in WM and sought to elaborate the processes underlying such switches. Two experiments required subjects to maintain two running counts; the order in which the counts were updated necessitated frequent switches between them. Even after intensive practice, a time cost was incurred when subjects updated the two counts in succession, relative to updating the same count twice. This time cost was interpreted as being due to a distinct switching mechanism that controls an internal focus of attention large enough for just one object (count) at a time. This internal focus of attention is a subset of WM (Cowan, 1988). Alternative visual and conceptual repetition-priming and memory retrieval explanations for the cost involved in switching between items in WM are addressed.     

Identifying barriers to help-seeking: a qualitative analysis of students' preparedness to seek help from tutors

A qualitative study based on the first-hand accounts of students in higher education was conducted Participants were encouraged to explain, in their own terms, their own help-seeking behaviour. The focus for their explanations was 'help-seeking from academic staff'. The aim of the study was to construct a culturally sensitive account of barriers to help-seeking in a student population. The discussion focuses on how studies of this kind might complement and extend what is already known about help-seeking m the extant literature.     

Looking as a Measure of Attraction1

Byrne's reinforcement theory of attraction is almost exclusively based upon studies that use the Interpersonal Judgment Scale (IJS) as their measure of attraction. The present study used Byrne's general experimental procedure but employed an unobtrusive “looking” measure of attraction as well as the more familiar IJS measure. The degree of attitude similarity between women subjects and a female stranger was not significantly related to the IJS measure of attraction but was significantly related to the proportion of looking time measure (p < .01). This was true for both subjects who verbalized and did not verbalize awareness of the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent measures of the study.     

Coping styles in adults with cystic fibrosis: implications for emotional and social quality of life

As life expectancy increases, interest has grown surrounding the factors that may influence quality of life (QOL) for people with cystic fibrosis (CF). The aim of the current study was to examine which specific coping styles were positively or negatively associated with social and emotional QOL in a CF sample. One hundred and twenty-two respondents aged 18 and over were recruited through an online support group. Respondents completed the ‘CF Questionnaire-Revised (CFQ-R)’ and the ‘Brief COPE’. The CFQ-R is a disease-specific instrument designed to measure the impact of CF on nine QOL domains and the Brief COPE is a 28 item questionnaire which assesses 14 coping scales. A multivariate regression model revealed that higher substance abuse and disengagement was associated with lower emotional QOL whereas greater use of religion, instrumental coping and acceptance was positively associated with emotional QOL. Active coping was linked to better social QOL and a negative association was reported between distraction coping with both emotional and social domains. Given the burden of CF, ascertaining which factors enhance or diminish emotion and social well-being is now an integral component of QOL research. The current findings may therefore have value in informing clinical interventions which aim to cater for the psychological needs of individuals with CF.     

The Empirical Argument Against Virtue

The virtues are under fire. Several decades’ worth of social psychological findings establish a correlation between human behavior and the situation moral agents inhabit, from which a cadre of moral philosophers concludes that most moral agents lack the virtues. Mark Alfano and Christian Miller introduce novel versions of this argument, but they are subject to a fatal dilemma. Alfano and Miller wrongly assume that their requirements for virtue apply universally to moral agents, who vary radically in their psychological, physiological, and personal situations; I call this the ‘content problem.’ More troubling, however, the content problem leads to what I call the ‘structural problem:’ Alfano and Miller each structure their argument against the virtues as a modus tollens argument and, owing to the breadth of the content problem, each must constrain their argument with a ceteris paribus clause. But the ceteris paribus clause precludes each argument’s validity. More important, however, the resulting conception of virtue implicitly endorsed by Alfano and Miller holds that virtues are idealized models; but since idealized models do not even purport accurately to describe (much of) the world, neither novel version of EAV gains any empirical traction against the virtues. The upshot is an old story whose moral has yet, within the empirical study of the virtues, adequately to be internalized: it is imperative that the empirical observation of character traits proceed via longitudinal studies.     

Predicting Cognitive and Social Consequences of Emotional Episodes: The Contribution of Emotional Intensity, the Five Factor Model, and Alexithymia

Emotional events are followed by recurrent thoughts (rumination) and talking about the event (social sharing of emotion). Factors that can account for variations in these consequences were examined (emotional intensity, the Five Factor Model, and two factors of alexithymia). In two samples, participants reported the most negative emotional event of recent months and in one sample also reported the most positive one. Results indicated that emotional intensity predicted social sharing and rumination, while neuroticism was positively related to intrusive thoughts about negative events and extraversion to rumination and social sharing about positive events. Difficulty describing feelings was negatively related to social sharing for negative events and reduced fantasy to rumination for positive events.