A Model of Racialized Sexual Harassment of Women in the UK Workplace

This paper examines Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) women’s experiences of sexual harassment in the UK workplace from the perspective of frequency and types of sexual harassment and characteristics of the harasser; ethnic and cultural influences; power, fear of reprisals, and reporting behavior. Using a snowballing technique, in depth interviews with 17 BAME women who had experienced or witnessed BAME sexual harassment reported that they were frequently sexually harassed by men from the same ethnic background. The fear of job loss, reprisals from male family members and negative organizational consequences resulted in over three quarters of the women not reporting incidents. Key questions regarding the factors and influences that are inherent in racialized sexual harassment are integrated into a model.     

Involvement,attributions, and consumer responses to rebates

This paper examines effects of both purchasing involvement and product involvement on consumers' responses to rebates. In Part One, the study examines the effects of involvement on consumer responses to a rebate price promotion. Specifically, the study reports that consumers with high levels of purchasing involvement and consumers with high levels of product involvement are more likely to experience satisfaction with a shopping experience involving a rebate and, subsequently, are more likely to express intentions to engage in repeat purchase behavior and word-of-mouth communication about the product. High purchasing involved (but not high product involved) customers are also more likely to use rebates. In Part Two, the study examines effects of involvement on consumer attributions for satisfaction with the price deal and reports that high purchasing involvement is significantly related to a tendency to make internal, rather than external, attributions for satisfaction with a rebate shopping experience. Results of hierarchical moderated regression suggest that consumer responses to the rebate price promotion are moderated by these internal attributions. Implications of the findings for a theoretical understanding of involvement effects on attributions and for the effectiveness of price promotion strategies in the marketplace are discussed.     

The ‘Toronto blessing’: A rumour of angels?

The charismatic renewal movement has long been identified with expressions of ecstatic and esoteric religion; speaking in tongues, prophecies and healings. Since 1994 the manifestations associated with the movement appeared to have grown in intensity as part of the phenomenon that has come to be known as the ‘Toronto Blessing’. The explanations offered for the ‘Blessing’ vary considerably. This article suggests that it can best be accounted for by the psychological pressures built up by the prolonged hope for revival within an eschatological framework. Secondly, that it can be explained by the increasing social marginalization of the movement in the marketplace of new religions. Thirdly, a key variable in understanding developments is the role played by John Wimber's Vineyard Fellowship which offers a unique response to the process of secidarisation by carrying both fundamentalist and modernist tendencies.     

A review of research on smoking among United States Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (2006–2016)

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders diagnosed in U.S. veterans. PTSD is associated with high smoking prevalences and difficulty quitting in the general U.S. population. The current study reviewed research on smoking and PTSD in U.S. veteran samples to summarize past research and identify areas in need of additional inquiry. MEDLINE and PsycINFO searches identified papers on smoking in samples of U.S. veterans with PTSD published from January 2006 through December 2016. Thirty-four articles met all of the inclusion criteria: (a) part of the sample consisted of U.S. veterans with PTSD or PTSD symptoms, and (b) the study examined some aspect of smoking behavior. U.S. veterans with PTSD were more likely to report smoking, heavy smoking, nicotine dependence, and late-onset smoking compared to veterans without PTSD. Smoking behaviors (e.g., current smoking, heavy smoking, smoking expectancies) differed by PTSD symptoms and by combat exposure. Smoking cessation feasibility studies examined the integration of smoking treatment into PTSD clinics and found favorable outcomes. Future research on veterans with PTSD would benefit from extending topics beyond rates of smoking to better understand the treatment needs of veterans. Research on smoking-related behaviors can help identify areas to target for interventions.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Æternus Est:</Emphasis> Divinity as a Conceptual Necessity in the Principle of Causation

The modern belief that mindless forces can be ultimate efficient causes of natural events is a conceptual impossibility. The logically ultimate cause of any change, the something that is ultimately making it occur in the present moment, is either a mind or not. More specifically, the cause either chooses to act or it does not. By choice here, I mean an act of free will in the libertarian sense. Where there is choosing in this sense there must be a mind. And when we say that an agent acts thus freely, we mean that it acts without being causally determined to act by anything beyond itself. However, this is conceptually indistinguishable from the idea of an ultimate efficient cause. To say that an agent is the ultimate cause in a causal chain is, by definition, to say that it acts without being caused to act by anything beyond itself. It is the head of the causal chain. It is, therefore, a matter of conceptual necessity that ultimate causes be minds, a fact that we have been blind to since the Scientific Revolution on the bad analogy of machines. Thus, every force ultimately governing the universe must be a mind corresponding either to the polytheist’s or the monotheist’s generic definition of divinity, and monotheism’s eternal mind will always be the most complete and justifiable explanation for the existence of the universe as a whole, even for the existence of the gods themselves.     

Fitting prepositional gratitude to god is metaphysically impossible

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - It is argued that God cannot be a fitting target of prepositional gratitude. The first premise is that if someone cannot be benefited, then they...     

A reexamination of the role of imagery in learning and memory

Five experiments were conducted to examine whether the superior recall of concrete over abstract words might be better accounted for in terms of relative differences in the processing of relational and distinctive information rather than redundant verbal and imaginal memory codes. Concrete and abstract word pairs were presented in the standard paired-associated learning task or under conditions intended to affect the nature and extent of relational processing between pair members. Concreteness effects were attenuated or eliminated when relational processing was prevented at encoding (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) or when the use of encoded relations within pairs was prevented at recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). The results indicated the viability of an account of concreteness effects in paired-associate learning based on the joint functions of distinctive and relational information. They also remove theoretical constraints imposed on imagery theories by the incorrect assumption of a uniform presence of concreteness effects in memory for word lists.     

Childbirth as Initiation: Dar a Luz

Childbirth is an important female initiation experience. Most anthropologists of birth rely on Arnold van Gennep’s three-stage understanding of initiation rituals—separation, liminality, and return. Giving birth within the technology-oriented, medical model is a very different experience than within the age-old, relational midwifery model. Although a dual midwifery–medical birth approach is the norm in most of the world, the medical model dominates birth in the U. S. Personal birth stories illustrate the felt differences in these models, from (1) purely medical births and (2) natural, medical births in the U. S. to (3) natural, midwife-attended births in Chile. Midwifery was dramatically repressed in the U. S. by the early 1900s through the use of racist and misogynist propaganda. Current research on dramatically rising rates of maternal mortality in the U. S., even as these rates are dropping in most developed countries, cites racism as a primary cause but fails to also acknowledge the loss of midwifery practices as another contributing factor. The author concludes with small steps that psychotherapists can take to help mend birth trauma.