Marked Difference: Tattooing and its Association with Deviance in the United States

Despite historical associations with deviance and marginality, tattooing is practiced by a diverse population in the United States today, leading some to argue that it has grown beyond its negative associations. Drawing on a nationally representative data set (n = 500) comprised of both tattooed and non-tattooed respondents, this analysis examines the social characteristics of those who are tattooed and the associations of tattooing with deviant behavior. Findings indicate that while tattooing has developed a broad demographic appeal, there remain some strong associations with deviance, particularly criminality. Specifically, highly visible placement of tattoos appears to be most strongly associated with deviant behaviors.     

Preliminary Psychometric Evidence for Distinct Affective and Cognitive Mechanisms Mediating Contamination Aversion

Contamination aversion is implicated in a range of psychological disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and health anxiety. Despite broad implications, the core mechanisms mediating contamination aversion are mixed and have not clearly been elucidated. The present studies are psychometric investigations of the components of contamination aversion and tests of the different mechanisms that mediate the severity of these components. In Study 1, items from existing measures of contamination aversion were compiled into one measure and administered to a large sample of nonclinical participants (N?=?1,286). Exploratory factor analyses demonstrated a two-factor structure, with one factor comprised of items related to intrinsically (direct) contaminated objects and the other factor comprised of items related to extrinsically (indirect) contaminated objects. In Study 2, items were added and confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor model in another large nonclinical sample (N?=?612). In Study 3 (N?=?471), structural modeling demonstrated distinct relations between the two factors and affective and cognitive constructs. Affective constructs related more to aversions toward more directly contaminated objects and situations while cognitive constructs related more to aversions toward more indirectly contaminated objects and situations. The present studies help clarify and articulate the unique roles of cognition and affect in specific contamination aversions, and, as such, have important implications for conceptual modeling of contamination-related psychopathology.     

The Field of Science and Religion as Natural Philosophy

“Natural philosophy” is an important term from the history of science because it was used to describe the study of nature during medieval and early modern Europe. This article gives an overview of the history of natural philosophy, since the use and eventual disuse of the term helps one to understand the emergence of modern science. Following a suggestion by the historian of science Peter Dear, I argue that the term deserves to be rehabilitated because it draws attention to the complexities of scientific theorizing. The article concludes with an argument that the field of science and religion should be seen as an updated version of natural philosophy.     

The Emerging Church as Corporatization’s Line of Flight

ABSTRACT

In the United States and elsewhere, many religious organizations have adopted structures, mechanisms, and ideologies that can be understood through the concept of corporatization. More than a process, corporatization creates a schema through which social relationships are structured and particular values and beliefs are emphasized (particularly, the valorization of the consumer). The authors of the present article draw on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s conceptualization of ‘lines of flight’ to illustrate how the Emerging Church, a new religious movement, has leveraged the discontinuities within corporatization. The participants of this movement do so in order to resist institutionalizing systems that rigidify and indoctrinate participants. The authors use ethnographic field methods to demonstrate how Emerging Church participants rely on the tropes of ‘messiness’ and ‘conversation’ to embrace a radical contingency, to foster dialogue, and to avoid adopting rigid, rationalized systems of meaning.     

Dependence on Visual Feedback During Motor Skill Learning in Alzheimer's Disease

Three experiments examined the role of visual feedback on the performance of a fine motor task, namely the rotary pursuit, in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy older adults. After extensive practice tracking a fully visible target, participants in Experiments 1 and 2 were tested under restricted vision (RV) conditions. In both experiments, the two groups showed a drop in performance when vision was restricted, with AD patients showing a significantly larger decline. Tracking improved significantly in normal controls, but not AD patients across the RV trials after the initial drop. When difficulty of the rotary pursuit task was manipulated in Experiment 3 without restricting vision, AD patients and normal controls showed identical patterns of performance. Consequently, it could be concluded that AD patients in the first two experiments were relying more heavily on visual information for accurate performance of the tracking task than their healthy peers.     

A-Theory for B-Theorists

I attempt to characterize the A-theory of time in such a way as to avoid certain standard objections to it, like those derived from McTaggart's paradox. These objections often arise from conflation of the A-theory with other doctrines which are not entailed by it, but which happen to be held by individual A-theorists. In my view, the A-theory is most defensible when combined with a certain analysis of tense (which I call 'the counterfactual theory of tense'), and with realism about the past and future.     

Boosting the Potency of Resistance: Combining the Motivational Forces of Inoculation and Psychological Reactance

The efficacy of inoculation theory has been confirmed by decades of empirical research, yet optimizing its effectiveness remains a vibrant line of investigation. The present research turns to psychological reactance theory for a means of enhancing the core mechanisms of inoculation—threat and refutational preemption. Findings from a multisite study indicate reactance enhances key resistance outcomes, including: threat, anger at attack message source, negative cognitions, negative affect, anticipated threat to freedom, anticipated attack message source derogation, perceived threat to freedom, perceived attack message source derogation, and counterarguing. Most importantly, reactance‐enhanced inoculations result in lesser attitude change—the ultimate measure of resistance.     

Chewing Over In Vitro Meat: Animal Ethics,Cannibalism and Social Progress

Despite its potential for radically reducing the harm inflicted on nonhuman animals in the pursuit of food, there are a number of objections grounded in animal ethics to the development of in vitro meat. In this paper, I defend the possibility against three such concerns. I suggest that worries about reinforcing ideas of flesh as food and worries about the use of nonhuman animals in the production of in vitro meat can be overcome through appropriate safeguards and a fuller understanding of the interests that nonhuman animals actually possess. Worries about the technology reifying speciesist hierarchies of value are more troublesome, however. In response to this final challenge, I suggest that we should be open not just to the production of in vitro nonhuman flesh, but also in vitro human flesh. This leads to a consideration of the ethics of cannibalism. The paper ultimately defends the position that cannibalism simpliciter is not morally problematic, though a great many practices typically associated with it are. The consumption of in vitro human flesh, however, is able to avoid these problematic practices, and so should be considered permissible. I conclude that animal ethicists and vegans should be willing to cautiously embrace the production of in vitro flesh.     

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs in Visitor Studies: A Critical Reflection on Three Projects

Identifying causal relationships is an important aspect of research and evaluation in visitor studies, such as making claims about the learning outcomes of a program or exhibit. Experimental and quasi-experimental approaches are powerful tools for addressing these causal questions. However, these designs are arguably underused in visitor studies. In this article, we offer examples of the use of experimental and quasi-experimental designs in science museums to aide investigators interested in expanding their methods toolkit and increasing their ability to make strong causal claims about programmatic experiences or relationships among variables. Using three designs from recent research (fully randomized experiment, posttest only quasi-experimental design with comparison condition, and posttest with independent pretest design), we discuss challenges and tradeoffs related to feasibility, participant experience, alignment with research questions, and internal and external validity. We end the article with broader reflections on the role of experimental and quasi-experimental designs in visitor studies.     

Interactions of reading and semantics along the ventral visual processing stream

Converging evidence supports a distributed-plus-hub view of semantic processing, in which there are distributed modular semantic sub-systems (e.g., for shape, colour, and action) connected to an amodal semantic hub. Furthermore, object semantic processing of colour and shape, and lexical reading and identification, are processed mainly along the ventral stream, while action semantic processing occurs mainly along the dorsal stream. In Experiment 1, participants read a prime word that required imagining either the object or action referent, and then named a lexical word target. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT) with the same targets as in Experiment 1, in the presence of foils that were legal nonwords (NW; Experiment 2) or pseudohomophones (PH; Experiment 3). Semantic priming was similar in effect size regardless of prime type for naming, but was greater for object primes than action primes for the LDT with PH foils, suggesting a shared-stream advantage when the task demands focus on orthographic lexical processing. These experiments extend the distributed-plus-hub model, and provide a novel paradigm for further research.