The Relation between Formal and Informal Logic

The issue of the relationship between formal and informal logic depends strongly on how one understands these two designations. While there is very little disagreement about the nature of formal logic, the same is not true regarding informal logic, which is understood in various (often incompatible) ways by various thinkers. After reviewing some of the more prominent conceptions of informal logic, I will present my own, defend it and then show how informal logic, so understood, is complementary to formal logic.     

Family and Contextual Predictors of Depressive Symptoms in Inner-City African American Youth

Family and contextual predictors of depression in inner-city, African American youth have rarely been examined. In this study we explore the contribution of current and historical life events, family conflict, perceived social support from mother, maternal depression, and maternal explanatory style to the depressive symptoms of inner-city African American school-age (M = 10.7 years) children. Home interviews were conducted with 89 mother and child dyads living in moderate- to high-violent areas of a southeastern city. Regression analyses revealed that the children in this sample with higher levels of depressive symptoms had higher levels of child-reported everyday stress, were more likely to have been abused at some point in their past, came from homes with mothers who were less well educated, and had mothers who reported higher levels of depression, a past history of domestic abuse, as well as a less pessimistic explanatory style. Implications for interventions with inner-city African American families are discussed.     

Benchmark Memories in Adulthood: Central Domains and Predictors of Their Frequency

This study extended earlier research on the reminiscence bump phenomenon in autobiographical memory by examining the central domains and predictors of benchmark memories from a life history timeline and from three selected significant events. Memories elicited by these methods demonstrated the reminiscence bump as occurring in early adulthood. The central domains representing this era involved events with family and relationships followed by those related to education and work. Individual differences in socio-emotional variables associated with self and identity formations (i.e., family climate, defensive style, self-complexity, and adult attachment) were associated with the reminiscence bump. These findings support the self-narrative hypothesis that the reminiscence phenomenon is related to the process of identity formation in late adolescence and early adulthood.     

Counseling Older Adults with Dementia: A Survey of Therapists in Massachusetts

Although much has been written about therapeutic interventions with caregivers, little is known about the counseling services that are available for victims of dementia. The present study was designed to explore community mental health center (CMHC) services and therapists' experiences in providing psychotherapy to this population in Massachusetts. Only 27 of the 36 CMHCs in the state reported providing mental health services to older adults with a dementing illness. A survey of therapists who specialized in working with older adults found that the percentage of older adult clients estimated to have dementia averaged about half of their caseload. Older persons in the early phase of a dementing illness were most frequently referred for depression and anxiety, whereas those with moderate decline were most frequently referred for management of disruptive behavior. The most common services provided to clients with dementia consisted of assessment and individual counseling. The latter finding indicates a discrepancy between what is practiced and the professional literature. Most of the psychotherapy described in the literature concerns group interventions, which were rarely provided by the mental health centers in Massachusetts. The centers tended to offer individual counseling; however, little information on how to provide this form of treatment can be found.     

Familiarity and pronounceability of nouns and names

Ratings of familiarity and pronounceability were obtained from a random sample of 199 surnames (selected from over 80,000 entries in the Purdue University phone book) and 199 nouns (from the Ku?era-Francis, 1967, word database). The distributions of ratings for nouns versus names are substantially different: Nouns were rated as more familiar and easier to pronounce than surnames. Frequency and familiarity were more closely related in the proper name pool than the word pool, although both correlations were modest. Ratings of familiarity and pronounceability were highly related for both groups. A production experiment showed that rated pronounceability was highly related to the time taken to produce a name. These data confirm the common belief that there are differences in the statistical and distributional properties of words as compared to proper names. The value of using frequency and the ratings of familiarity and pronounceability for predicting variations in actual pronunciations of words and names are discussed.     

Three perspectives on addiction

Three perspectives on addiction promulgated during the 1990s are reviewed, along with many earlier contributions to the understanding of addictive illness. It is suggested that these distinct yet overlapping formulations of the dynamics of addiction form a hierarchy for each patient suffering from an addiction. Assessment of a patient's ego strength, and of the relative importance of addictive behaviors in overall character structure, allows referral to various types of treatment, including psychoanalytic therapy. Case examples are presented, including material from the psychoanalysis of a woman addicted to heroin, methadone, cocaine, amphetamines, nicotine, alcohol, and shopping.     

Adolescent substance use disorders: findings from a 14-year follow-up of speech/language-impaired and control children.

Intervening on the development of adolescent addiction requires an understanding of the role of precursors. In a community sample of youth with and without early childhood speech/language (S/L) impairments, 12.7% of participants had a substance use disorder (SUD). Among these participants, 42.0% met criteria for more than 1 SUD. Interestingly, rates of SUDs did not differ by S/L status. However, S/L-impaired participants did show greater psychiatric comorbidity and poorer functioning. A total of 80% of S/L participants with SUDs had a concurrent diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, compared with 43.8% of SUDs controls. In a logistic regression analysis, we found age 5 mother-rated problem behavior scores and an interaction between S/L status and teacher-rated conduct problem scores were predictive of SUDs. High conduct scores were predictive of SUDs development among control participants but not among S/L-impaired participants. First substance use and initial SUDs symptoms suggest that a window of opportunity exists to reach these troubled young people before they spiral into addiction.     

Facilitation and impairment of event memory produced by photograph review

Selectively reviewing some items from a larger set of previously learned items increases memory for the items that are reviewed but may also be accompanied by a cost: Memory for the nonreviewed items may be impaired relative to cases where no review occurs at all. This cost to nonreviewed items has primarily been shown in contexts of verbal list learning and in situations where the reviewed and nonreviewed items are categorically or semantically related. Using a more naturalistic impetus to selective review--photographs relating to previously experienced events--we assessed whether the memory of older and younger adults for unrelated complex activities that they themselves had performed was also impaired due to nonreview. Both younger and older adults showed impaired memory for nonreviewed activities when tested with free recall (Experiment 1), but not when tested with recognition or cued recall (Experiment 2). If mitigating retrieval cues are unavailable, selective review may impair memory for nonreviewed everyday events.     

Social support and the course of bipolar disorder

The current study prospectively examined the impact of social support on symptom severity and recovery from episodes in bipolar disorder, both as a direct influence and as a buffer of life events. Fifty-nine individuals with Bipolar I disorder were followed longitudinally with monthly symptom severity interviews. Social support was measured by the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List and the Interview Schedule for Social Interaction, and life events were assessed using the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. Individuals with low social support took longer to recover from episodes and were more symptomatic across a 6-month follow-up. Results suggest a polarity-specific effect, in that social support influences depression but not mania. Discussion focuses on theoretical implications of a series of polarity-specific findings within the field.     

Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo (eds.), Religion. Trans. by David Webb and others

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -