“Dependency, subordination, and recognition: On Judith Butler's theory of subjection”

Judith Butler's recent work expands the Foucaultian notion of subjection to encompass an analysis of the ways in which subordinated individuals becomes passionately attached to, and thus come to be psychically invested in, their own subordination. I argue that Butler's psychoanalytically grounded account of subjection offers a compelling diagnosis of how and why an attachment to oppressive norms – of femininity, for example – can persist in the face of rational critique of those norms. However, I also argue that her account of individual and collective resistance to subjection is plagued by familiar problems concerning the normative criteria and motivation for resistance that emerge in her recent work in new and arguably more intractable forms, and by new concerns about her conceptions of dependency, subordination and recognition.     

Cultural expression and black students' attitudes toward high achievers

The authors of the present study have extended research by D. Marryshow that investigated African American students' attitudes toward 4 high achievers who differed in their approach to high achievement. D. Marryshow (1992) assessed students' social attitudes and perceptions of 4 high achievers with culturally distinct achievement orientations. In the present research, the authors assessed students' academic attitudes and perceptions of the same 4 high achievers. In addition, the present study includes Black children's predictions of their parents' and peers' attitudes toward these high achieving students. The results generally supported the authors' hypothesis that African American children would report a preference for students who achieve via attitudes and behaviors congruent with African American cultural values. The children also predicted that their parents and their Black peers would prefer these same African American culturally oriented high achievers. The findings suggest that Black children who prefer African American cultural modes of achievement may find themselves at odds with classroom demands geared toward learning in the mainstream cultural mode and thus may be at increased risk of academic failure.     

The Impact of Case Characteristics and Prior Jury Experience on Jury Verdicts1

An archival analysis of records from 206 criminal cases was used to evaluate the impact of personal and situational factors on jury verdicts. In particular, we evaluated whether repeated jury service produced bias in jurors that was sufficient to affect jury decisions. A variety of case characteristics and indices of prior jury experience was examined for their relative impact on trial outcomes. Several of the case characteristics were related to verdicts, but the personal characteristics were not. Although more than half of the juries contained experienced jurors, juror experience had little influence on verdicts in either major or subsidiary analyses. However, there was a slight tendency for small juries with large proportions of experienced jurors to convict. This result is consistent with data from Kentucky; a meta-analysis across the two data sets indicates that it is a reliable finding. The results have implications for the determination of jury size. We suggest that future research examine the possibility that increasing jury size may reduce the influence of an individual's bias by providing a balance of other jurors with no or offsetting biases.     

Resistance can be good or bad: how theories of resistance and dissonance affect attitude certainty

This research investigated how lay theories about resisting persuasion can affect attitude certainty. Specifically, people who believed that resistance was negative (i.e., implies close-mindedness) showed different levels of attitude certainty after resisting persuasive messages than people who believed resistance was positive (i.e., implies intelligence). When people held positive lay theories of resistance and overcame ostensibly strong arguments, they showed increased attitude certainty (compared to those who overcame ostensibly weak arguments). However, individuals who believed that resistance was negative did not show increases in attitude certainty when overcoming strong arguments. Experiment 2 suggests that the effect of lay theories and perceived argument strength on attitude certainty was due to dissonance created by believing that resistance is undesirable but nonetheless resisting persuasion.     

Training metric accuracy in distance estimation skill: pictures versus words

Training metric accuracy in distance estimation skill for distances up to 300 m was done using three different feedback methods: Direct verbal feedback in the field, indirect visual feedback consisting of presentation of labelled markers in the field, and indirect visual feedback consisting of presentation of labelled markers in pictorial depictions of the field. Results from Experiment 1 showed that all three feedback methods resulted in rapid acquisition of skill in estimating perceived distance from a stationary viewpoint and that the skill transferred to a new field setting. Results from Experiment 2 replicated these results for the estimation of traversed distance along routes. These findings have important implications for the use of pictorial presentations, including virtual reality technology, to train generalizable spatial skills. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender and the ritual of the door

A field experiment was conducted on a large university campus to determine whether the gender roles traditionally associated with door-opening are still in force, despite students' consciousness of their patriarchal implications. A total of 396 observations, made by 22 student—observers, indicated that the traditional roles are still viable. Men were twice as likely as women to hold the door open for a stranger, but both male and female subjects were more likely to ignore than to hold the door open for a man. Women were four times as likely as men to have the door held open for them, and six times as likely if they were wearing feminine clothing. Men and women handicapped by a load of books or papers were about twice as likely as others to have the door held open, provided the subject was of the opposite sex, but subjects' behavior was affected much more by the gender of both parties than by whatever humanitarian values may have been evoked in an encounter with someone too encumbered to open the door for herself or himself.     

An internal consistency check for scale values determined by the method of successive intervals

The method of successive intervals is a psychological scaling procedure in which stimuli are classified into successive intervals according to the degree of some defined attribute which they are judged to possess. A psychological continuum is defined and the scale values are then taken as the medians of the distributions of judgments on the psychological continuum. It is assumed that the distributions of judgments for each stimulus are normal on the psychological continuum as defined.An internal consistency check indicates that the cumulative distributions of empirical judgments for the various stimuli can be reproduced by means of a limited number of parameters with an average error that compares favorably with that usually reported for paired comparison data. Furthermore, the scale values obtained by successive interval scaling, for the data reported, are shown to be linearly related to those obtained by the method of paired comparisons.This paper was written while the first author was a post-doctoral Research Training Fellow of the Social Science Research Council studying at the University of Chicago. It reports research undertaken in cooperation with the Quartermaster Food and Container Institute for the Armed Forces. The views or conclusions contained in this report are those of the authors. They are not to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views or endorsement of the Department of Defense.     

Active (not passive) spatial imagery primes temporal judgements

In order to identify the cognitive processes associated with target tracking, a dual-task experiment was carried out in which participants undertook a dynamic multiple-object tracking task first alone and then again, concurrently with one of several secondary tasks, in order to investigate the cognitive processes involved. The research suggests that after designated targets within the visual field have attracted preattentive indexes that point to their locations in space, conscious processes, vulnerable to secondary visual and spatial task interference, form deliberate strategies beneficial to the tracking task, before tracking commences. Target tracking itself is realized by central executive processes, which are sensitive to any other cognitive demands. The findings are discussed in the context of integrating dynamic spatial cognition within a working memory framework.     

The Art of Nature: Hegel and the Critique of Judgment

This essay examines the reasons for Hegel's frequently professed claim that Kant's Critique of Judgment simultaneously reveals the internal limits of critical philosophy and opens the door to his own system of speculative idealism. It evaluates Hegel's contention that the conceptions of aesthetic experience, organic purposiveness, and the intuitive intellect developed in the third Critique together conspire to undermine the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the theories of nature and freedom advanced in the first and second Critiques . Finally it explains how Hegel understands his logic and real philosophy as a realist and quasi-naturalistic alternative to Kant's subjective idealism, one that purports to generate a system of categories adequate not only to dead matter but also to organic life and free self-conscious spirit.