The Cosmopolitan Imperative: Global Justice Through Accountable Integration

Cosmopolitan political theorists hold that our obligations to distribute resources to others do not halt at state borders, but most do not advocate a restructuring of the global system to achieve their distributive aims. This article argues that promoting democratically accountable economic and political integration between states would be the most effective way to enable cosmopolitan, or routine, tax-financed, trans-state distributions. Movement toward a more integrated global system should encourage the view that larger sets of persons have interests in common that should be protected and promoted in common. Democratically accountable integration also should enable those within less-affluent states to more vigorously press trans-state distributive claims. The still-evolving E.U. is examined as a partial model for the integrated alternative in other geographic regions, as well as, in the much longer term, for some form of democratic global government capable of ensuring that any person born anywhere would have access to adequate resources and life opportunities.A version of this paper was presented at the global justice mini-conference at the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) annual meeting, Pasadena, California, 26–29 March 2004. Some of the arguments in this article were introduced in Luis Cabrera, Political Theory of Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Case for the World State (London: Routledge, 2004), Chapter 4. They have been revised and further developed for this article. I would like to thank for their generous comments Jamie Mayerfeld, James A. Caporaso and Mika LaVaque-Manty.     

Neurobiological and endocrine correlates of individual differences in spatial learning ability

The polysialylated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) has been implicated in activity-dependent synaptic remodeling and memory formation. Here, we questioned whether training-induced modulation of PSA-NCAM expression might be related to individual differences in spatial learning abilities. At 12 h posttraining, immunohistochemical analyses revealed a learning-induced up-regulation of PSA-NCAM in the hippocampal dentate gyrus that was related to the spatial learning abilities displayed by rats during training. Specifically, a positive correlation was found between latency to find the platform and subsequent activated PSA levels, indicating that greater induction of polysialylation was observed in rats with the slower acquisition curve. At posttraining times when no learning-associated activation of PSA was observed, no such correlation was found. Further experiments revealed that performance in the massed water maze training is related to a pattern of spatial learning and memory abilities, and to learning-related glucocorticoid responsiveness. Taken together, our findings suggest that the learning-related neural circuits of fast learners are better suited to solving the water maze task than those of slow learners, the latter relying more on structural reorganization to form memory, rather than the relatively economic mechanism of altering synaptic efficacy that is likely used by the former.     

The legitimizing role of accent on discrimination against immigrants

This article analyses the influence of accent on discrimination against immigrants by examining the hypothesis that accent leads to discrimination only in more prejudiced individuals, merely because people speaking with a native accent are perceived to be better qualified than those whose accent is non‐standard. In Study 1 (N = 71), we found that only prejudiced individuals use accent to discriminate against immigrants. In Study 2 (N = 124), we replicated this effect and found that the influence of accent on discrimination is mediated by the perceived quality of the accent. Study 3 (N = 105) replicated the previous results even after controlling for the effect of stereotyping. These results are the first experimental illustration of the hypothesis that accent triggers intergroup discrimination only among prejudiced individuals because they evaluate native accents as being qualitatively better than accents of immigrants, thereby legitimizing ingroup bias.     

The Relationship Between Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury and Suicidal Ideation

This correlational study was conducted with 403 undergraduate college students from 2 universities. The authors used path analysis and bootstrap regression to analyze the relationships between variables. Locus of control and family connectedness related to current nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) engagement. However, when entered into the same regression, the variables current NSSI engagement and current NSSI number of methods used mediated all other relationships with suicidal ideation. Implications to current theories and clinical practice are provided.     

The developmental turnpoint of orthographic consistency effects in speech recognition

The influence of orthography on children's online auditory word recognition was studied from the end of Grade 4 to the end of Grade 9 by examining the orthographic consistency effect in auditory lexical decision. Fourth-graders showed evidence of a widespread influence of orthography in their spoken word recognition system; words with rimes that can be spelled in two different ways (inconsistent) produced longer auditory lexical decision times and more errors than did consistent words. A similar consistency effect was also observed on pseudowords. With adult listeners, on exactly the same material, we replicated the usual pattern of an orthographic consistency effect restricted to words in lexical decision. From Grade 6 onward, this adult pattern of orthographic effect on spoken recognition is already observable.     

The activation of representative emotional verbal contexts interacts with vertical spatial axis

Several experimental studies have shown that there exists an association between emotion words and the vertical spatial axis. However, the specific conditions under which this conceptual–physical interaction emerges are still unknown, and no study has been devised to test whether longer linguistic units than words can lead to a mapping of emotions on vertical space. In Experiment 1, Spanish and Colombian participants performed a representative verbal emotional contexts production task (RVEC task) requiring participants to produce RVEC for the emotions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust. The results showed gender and cultural differences regarding the average number of RVEC produced. The most representative contexts of joy and sadness obtained in Experiment 1 were used in Experiment 2 in a novel spatial–emotional congruency verification task (SECV task). After reading a sentence, the participants had to judge whether a probe word, displayed in either a high or low position on the screen, was congruent or incongruent with the previous sentence. The question was whether the emotion induced by the sentence could modulate the responses to the probes as a function of their position in a vertical axis by means of a metaphorical conceptual–spatial association. Overall, the results indicate that a mapping of emotions on vertical space can occur for linguistic units larger than words, but only when the task demands an explicit affective evaluation of the target.     

Risk and protective factors in adolescents' drug use, and differences by age and sex

Adolescents' drug use has huge social and personal implications, so it is essential to identify risk and protective factors. In this research, the CTCYS was used with 2440 adolescents to detect risk and protective factors for drug use in the community, family, school and peers/individual; differences in risk and protective factors by age and sex; and relationships between risk and protective factors and substance use. Protective factors are high. Risk factors are high in the community, the school and the individual. Older adolescents have more risks and less protection than the youngest; and there are sex differences, because males have less protection and more risks. The risk factors more closely related to drug use are availability of drugs in the community, family attitudes favourable to drug use, family history of antisocial behaviour, early start and use of drugs by friends, perceived risk and attitudes favourable to drug use. In the protective factors, the role played by social skills for alcohol use is important.     

Antecedents of risk-taking behaviour among South African adolescents

This study aimed to investigate contextual predisposition to risk-taking behaviour among South African adolescents. Participants included 194 black adolescents from central South Africa (female = 50.5% between the ages of 16 and 19 years). The adolescents completed a youth risk behaviour survey as well as a questionnaire on their parental, peer, school, and community relationships. Data were analysed by means of multivariate analyses of variance and standard multiple regression analyses in order to predict risk-taking behaviour (violence, substance use, and risky sexual behaviour) from various relationship contexts (parents, peers, school, and community). Irrespective of relationship context, males portray a higher risk for all types of risky behaviour, and the more time adolescents spend with their peers, the higher their risk for engagement in risk-taking behaviour. Parental monitoring predicted a lower risk for portraying risky behaviour.     

学以成人:非洲文化的贡献

引言亚里士多德认为人是天生的政治动物(《政治学》第一卷第二章).人要与其同类在社会中生活.城邦是人的一种本质要求.人的目的不在于生活,而在于好好生活.但是,在社会中生活的人应该遵守社会规范.人作为理性生物,应该学会充分利用智性能力来改善生存状况并实现个人发展.关于这一点,笛卡尔说:方法可以正确引导人的理性(2000:12).没有方法的研究无异于勾画一种无章法的理论.