What Does Successful Aging Sound Like? Profiling Communication About Aging

We draw on the recently developed communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) to examine how adults communicate about aging and how these communication patterns relate to experiences of successful aging. Using latent class analysis across 2 datasets collected in New Zealand and the United States, we identify 3 distinct classes of agers (disengaged, engaged, and bantering) defined by different profiles of communication behavior. Across samples, an engaged profile was generally associated with the most positive experiences of aging, whereas a disengaged profile was associated with the least positive experiences, although these differences were surprisingly small. Our results highlight the diverse ways in which individuals communicatively engage with the process of aging and experience aging as positive and successful.     

The Role of Attachment Styles and Interpersonal Problems in Suicide‐Related Behaviors

The relationships among adult attachment styles, interpersonal problems, and categories of suicide‐related behaviors (i.e., self‐harm, suicide attempts, and their co‐occurrence) were examined in a predominantly psychiatric sample (N = 406). Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles were associated with interpersonal problems. In turn, specific interpersonal problems differentially mediated the relations between attachment style and type of suicide‐related behaviors. These findings suggest the importance of distinguishing between these groups of behaviors in terms of etiological pathways, maintenance processes, and treatment interventions.     

Second-personal reasons: why we need something like them,but why there are actually no such things

Abstract

Stephen Darwall, in his book The Second-Person Standpoint (2006), has argued for an account of morality grounded in what he calls second-personal reasons. My first aim in this paper is to demonstrate the value of an account like Darwall’s; as I read it, it responds to the need for an account of morality as ‘intrinsic’ to the person. However, I go on to argue, as my second aim in this paper, that Darwall’s account is ultimately unsuccessful. I hope to achieve these aims by contrasting Darwall’s second-personal account with two other accounts, Hobbes’ and the neo-Kantians’. In the first case, I aim to show that Darwall’s account meets a need that the other accounts don’t in virtue of its differences from the other accounts; and in the second case, I aim to show that Darwall’s account ultimately fails in virtue of its residual similarities to at least one of them.     

The socialization of the gifts of tongues and healing in Mexican Pentecostalism

Mexican Pentecostalism emphasizes both speaking in tongues and faith healing as religious manifestations which believers should have. Although they are considered to be given by the Holy Spirit, these practices imply a socialization with the collective of followers. The analysis of pentecostal groups in the urban environment of Mexico City and in the rural Totonac Indian communities shows that these religious practices and beliefs are very similar in the two areas mentioned. It is necessary for the pentecostal believer to learn the ‘proper’ way to speak in tongues and to heal the sick, in order to separate followers from other religions which compete with pentecostalism by offering ritual possession and alternative forms of curing human suffering. In Mexico, popular spiritualism, the Catholic charismatic movement and traditional Indian curers all offer direct competition for pentecostalism. The religious mobility further complicates this situation. The important role of public discourse and testimony is also dealt with here.     

Creativity in the Age of Technology: Measuring the Digital Creativity of Millennials

Digital technology and its many uses form an emerging domain of creative expression for adolescents and young adults. To date, measures of self-reported creative behavior cover more traditional forms of creativity, including visual art, music, or writing, but do not include creativity in the digital domain. This article introduces a new measure, the Creative Behavior Questionnaire: Digital (CBQD), which assesses self-reported creative behavior in the digital domain. High school students (N = 230) completed the CBQD, as well as several other measures of creativity and personality. Factor analysis revealed 3 factors: digital creativity achievement, school-based everyday creativity, and self-expressive digital creativity. Factor-based scales showed expected correlations with other creativity measures, as well as Big-Five personality traits and Unconventionality, supporting construct validity. Results indicate that the CBQD can be used as an independent or a supplemental measure of creative behavior.     

Precocious quantitative cognition in monkeys

Basic quantitative abilities are thought to have an innate basis in humans partly because the ability to discriminate quantities emerges early in child development. If humans and nonhuman primates share this developmentally primitive foundation of quantitative reasoning, then this ability should be present early in development across species and should emerge earlier in monkeys than in humans because monkeys mature faster than humans. We report that monkeys spontaneously make accurate quantity choices by 1 year of age in a task that human children begin to perform only at 2.5 to 3 years of age. Additionally, we report that the quantitative sensitivity of infant monkeys is equal to that of the adult animals in their group and that rates of learning do not differ between infant and adult animals. This novel evidence of precocious quantitative reasoning in infant monkeys suggests that human quantitative reasoning shares its early developing foundation with other primates. The data further suggest that early developing components of primate quantitative reasoning are constrained by maturational factors related to genetic development as opposed to learning experience alone.