Cultural differences in the relationship between parenting and children's behavior

Parent and teacher data for 14,990 children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth were used in multilevel analyses to examine the relationship between ethnicity, children's aggression and emotional problems, and parenting. Using parent and teacher report, relationships between ethnicity and child behavior were present but modest. The association between parental harshness and child aggression differed between ethnic groups and across informants. Using teacher report of outcomes, parental harshness was positively related to child aggression in European Canadian families but negatively related in South Asian Canadian families. For all ethnic groups, parental harshness was positively related to children's aggression when parent report of outcomes was used, but relationships varied in strength across ethnic groups. The relationship of parental harshness with child emotional problems did not differ across groups, irrespective of informant. The results are discussed within the context of an ecological model of parenting.     

Backwards explanation

We discuss explanation of an earlier event by a later event, and argue that prima facie cases of backwards event explanation are ubiquitous. Some examples: (1) I am tidying my flat because my brother is coming to visit tomorrow. (2) The scarlet pimpernels are closing because it is about to rain. (3) The volcano is smoking because it is going to erupt soon. We then look at various ways people might attempt to explain away these prima facie cases by arguing that in each case the ‘real’ explanation is something else. We argue that none of the explaining-away strategies are successful, and so any plausible account of explanation should either make room for backwards explanation, or have a good story to tell about why it doesn’t have to.

Age and culture modulate object processing and object—scene binding in the ventral visual area

Behavioral differences in the visual processing of objects and backgrounds as a function of cultural group are well documented. Recent neuroimaging evidence also points to cultural differences in neural activation patterns. Compared with East Asians, Westerners’ visual processing is more object focused, and they activate neural structures that reflect this bias for objects. In a recent adaptation study, East Asian older adults showed an absence of an object-processing area but normal adaptation for background areas. In the present study, 75 young and old adults (half East Asian and half Western) were tested in an fMR-adaptation study to examine differences in object and background processing as well as object—background binding. We found equivalent background processing in the parahippocampal gyrus in all four groups, diminished binding processes in the hippocampus in elderly East Asians and Westerners, and diminished object processing in elderly versus young adults in the lateral occipital complex. Moreover, elderly East Asians showed significantly less adaptation response in the object areas than did elderly Westerners. These findings demonstrate the malleability of perceptual processes as a result of differences in cohort-specific experiences or in cultural exposure over time.     

A bottleneck in face identification: repetition priming from flanker images

There is evidence that face processing is capacity-limited in distractor interference tasks and in tasks requiring overt recognition memory. We examined whether capacity limits for faces can be observed with a more sensitive measure of visual processing, by measuring repetition priming of flanker faces that were presented alongside a face or a nonface target. In Experiment 1, we found identity priming for face flankers, by measuring repetition priming across a change in image, during task-relevant nonface processing, but not during the processing of a concurrently-presented face target. Experiment 2 showed perceptual priming of the flanker faces, across identical images at prime and test, when they were presented alongside a face target. In a third Experiment, all of these effects were replicated by measuring identity priming and perceptual priming within the same task. Overall, these results imply that face processing is capacity limited, such that only a single face can be identified at one time. Merely attending to a target face appears sufficient to trigger these capacity limits, thereby extinguishing identification of a second face in the display, although our results demonstrate that the additional face remains at least subject to superficial image processing.     

Anti-realism and Epistemic Accessibility

I argue that Fitch’s ‘paradox of knowability’ presents no special problem for the epistemic anti-realist who believes that reality is epistemically accessible to us. For the claim which is the target of the argument (If p then it is possible to know p) is not a commitment of anti-realism. The epistemic anti-realist’s commitment is (or should be) to the recognizability of the states of affairs which render true propositions true, not to the knowability of the propositions themselves. A formal apparatus for discussing the recognizability of states of affairs is offered, and other prima facie similar approaches to the paradox argument are reviewed.     

Toward Theory Development and Measure Evolution for Studying Women's Relationships and HIV Infection

This commentary reviews and integrates selected empirical findings from this special issue of Sex Roles on Gender, Power, and Women's Relationships: Implications for HIV. Then the effects of current definitions of certain social science practices on theory development in these areas are considered. These practices especially hamper cross-cultural theory and measure development. New directions are proposed, centering on the relations between theory development, measurement, and application in the context of cultural variations. I conclude with a proposed strategy for local culture theory development. This strategy localizes measurement of theoretical constructs to adapt the theory to local cultural conditions, then localizes theory by indicating needed adjustments to the structure of theoretical linkages.     

Introduction to Focus Issue on Laudato Si'

The encyclical Laudato si’ can be read as a religious ethic in several different ways. Contributors to this focus issue read it as magisterial teaching, as environmental thought, as Global South criticism, as Latinx theology, and as philosophy of religion. Foregrounding South American and Latinx receptions, the cumulative argument of this focus issue is that LS represents a cultural event that invites interpretations from contexts and disciplines beyond North Atlantic theological ethics.