Franklian treatment with Vietnam veteran couples

In this article, the Franklian treatment method of existential reflection is described as it can be used in marital therapy with Vietnam veterans. The author also provides information about treatment results with twenty-three Vietnam veteran couples from 1974 to 1987.     

Against ‘Against Slagle's Reading’

Serdal Tümkaya has argued that my critique of eliminative materialism makes several missteps. He argues that eliminativism should be taken as a methodology not a settled conclusion, and the final product may well retain some folk psychology concepts. I respond that methodological eliminativism does avoid self-defeat but does not pose a problem for the folk psychologist. Plus, insofar as eliminativism is not eliminating the propositional attitudes but accomodating or translating them, it is not distinct from other, less extreme forms of materialism.     

“Keep them out to save our inside:” discourses on immigration by the Spanish far right

Vox is a far-right, Spanish political party that has steadily grown to become the third main party in the national congress. Immigration is a major presence in Vox's political agenda. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyze the party's public speeches and Twitter communications on immigration in the last 3 years, from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to the Ukraine-Russia war in 2022. These contexts have provided a fertile ground for Vox's concerns with the protection of national borders, the criminalization of African and irregular immigrants, and the Spanish Government's ineffectiveness to protect the Spaniards' homes. Vox's main discursive strategies entail constructions of migrants and migration based on dichotomous binaries, culture clash, exclusionary discourses of domopolitics, and fears of imminent social and cultural changes. These constructions are based on the unproblematized belief on essential and unchangeable values that forge the identity of the homeland, which is implicitly threatened by immigrants. Against the migratory invasion, Vox constitutes itself as the ethical protector of the Spanish society and nation, “out of care for the insiders and not out of hatred for outsiders.”     

The distribution of infant attention during object examination

The distribution of attention during toy play was studied in 6‐, 9‐ and 12‐month‐old infants. Heart rate and behavior measures of attention were collected as the infants interacted with objects. There was a large deceleration of heart rate at the beginning of behaviorally defined focused attention, but little heart rate change for looks that only had behaviorally defined casual attention. Heart‐rate‐defined sustained attention occurred more frequently at the transition from the first instance of casual attention within a look to focused attention and during the cycling between subsequent epochs of casual and focused attention. These results show that heart rate and behavioral measures of attention are closely related in young infants at the beginning and end of object interaction but are inconsistently related within a single look at an object.     

The positive and negative framing of affirmative action: a group dominance perspective

Using a sample of 328 White, Latino, and Black Los Angeles County adults, the authors examined the tendency to employ various affirmative action "frames" (e.g., affirmative action as a "tie-breaking" device or as a quota-based policy). All three groups agreed about which frames cast affirmative action in a positive light and which cast it in a negative light. Although minorities had a tendency to frame affirmative action in terms that most people find morally acceptable, Whites had a tendency to frame affirmative action in terms most people find unacceptable. In addition, compared to minorities, Whites were less supportive of affirmative action regardless of how it was framed. LISREL modeling also was employed to test two competing models regarding predictors of the tendency to use frames that one personally finds to be relatively negative versus positive. Consistent with the expectations of social dominance theory and a motivated cognition perspective, the authors found that social dominance orientation (SDO) had significant net direct and indirect effects on one's framing of affirmative action.     

Binocular summation of chromatic changes as measured by visual reaction time

We determined visual reaction times to monocular and binocular changes in the luminance of isochromatic stimuli and to monocular and binocular changes in the color of isoluminant stimuli. Two isoluminant color changes were tested: chromatic variations along the red-green axis of Boynton's (1986) two-stage color vision model and chromatic variations along the yellow-blue axis of the same model. The results indicate a greater degree of binocular summation for luminance change than for color change. This result was largely independent of the motor component of reaction time.     

US patriotism and ideologies of group dominance: a tale of asymmetry

Using a random sample (N = 405) of White and Latino Americans from Los Angeles County, the authors explored whether there is an asymmetrical relationship between U.S. patriotism and two different dimensions of social dominance orientation: group antiegalitarianism and group dominance. Although there was no evidence of asymmetry in the relationship between U.S. patriotism and group antiegalitarianism, there was evidence of consistent asymmetry in the relationship between U.S. patriotism and group dominance. Among Whites (the dominant North American ethnic group) and depending on demographic variables such as age, education, income, and gender, the greater the respondents' tendency to subordinate "inferior groups," the greater their level of U.S. patriotism. In contrast, among Latino Americans (the major subordinate group in Southern California), the opposite trend was found. Here, higher levels of group dominance orientation were associated with lower levels of U.S. patriotism. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Characterizing the ADHD phenotype for genetic studies

The genetic study of ADHD has made considerable progress. Further developments in the field will be reliant in part on identifying the most appropriate phenotypes for genetic analysis. The use of both categorical and dimensional measures of symptoms related to ADHD has been productive. The use of multiple reporters is a valuable feature of the characterization of psychopathology in children. It is argued that the use of aggregated measures to characterize the ADHD phenotype, particularly to establish its pervasiveness, is desirable. The recognition of the multiple comorbidities of ADHD can help to isolate more specific genetic influences. In relation to both reading disability and conduct disorder there is evidence that genes may be involved in the comorbid condition that are different from pure ADHD. To date, progress with the investigation of endophenotypes for ADHD has been disappointing. It is suggested that extending such studies beyond cognitive underpinnings to include physiological and metabolic markers might facilitate progress.