Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study

The bilingual advantage hypothesis contends that the management of two languages in the brain is carried out through domain‐general mechanisms, and that bilinguals possess a performance advantage over monolinguals on (nonlinguistic) tasks that tap these processes. Presently, there is evidence both for and against such an advantage. Interestingly, the evidence in favor has been thought strongest in children and older adults, leading some researchers to argue that young adults might be at peak performance levels, and therefore bilingualism is unable to confer an improvement. We conducted a large‐scale review of the extant literature and found that the weight of research pointed to an absence of positive evidence for a bilingual advantage at any age. We next gave a large number of young adult participants a task designed to test the bilingual advantage hypothesis. Reasoning from the literature that young adults from an East Asian (Korean) culture would likely outperform those from a Western (British) culture, we also compared participants on this factor. We found no evidence for a bilingual advantage but did find evidence for enhanced performance in the Korean group. We interpret these results as further evidence against the bilingual advantage hypotheses.     

Motivational reserve: motivation-related occupational abilities and risk of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease

Midlife motivational abilities, that is, skills to initiate and persevere in the implementation of goals, have been related to mental and physical health, but their association with risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) has not yet been directly investigated. This relation was examined with data from the German Study on Ageing, Cognition, and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe). A total of 3,327 nondemented participants (50.3% of a randomly selected sample) aged 75-89 years were recruited in primary care and followed up twice (after 1.5 and 3 years). Motivation-related occupational abilities were estimated on the basis of the main occupation (assessed at follow-up II) using the Occupational Information Network (O* NET) database, which provides detailed information on worker characteristics and abilities. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the relative risk of developing MCI and AD in relation to motivation-related occupational abilities, adjusting for various covariates. Over the 3 years of follow-up, 15.2% participants developed MCI and 3.0% developed AD. In a fully adjusted model, motivation-related occupational abilities were found to be associated with a reduced risk of MCI (HR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.64-0.92). Motivation-related occupational abilities were associated with reduced risk of AD in ApoE ε4 carriers (HR: 0.48; CI: 0.25-0.91), but not in noncarriers (HR: 0.99; CI: 0.65-1.53). These results suggest that midlife motivational abilities are associated with reduced risk of MCI in general and with reduced risk of AD in ApoE ε4 carriers. Revealing the mechanisms underlying this association may inform novel prevention strategies for decelerating cognitive decline in old age.     

A Phenomenological Analysis of the Invisibility Syndrome

Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore 10 African American men's perceptions of invisibility. Participants perceived invisibility as an extra unwarranted burden that is accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, and anger. Participants also coped with invisibility by finding safe havens within the Black community. Implications for counselors are discussed. Se empleó el análisis interpretativo fenomenológico para explorar las percepciones de invisibilidad de 10 varones Afroamericanos. Los participantes percibían la invisibilidad como una carga extra injustificada que va acompañada de sentimientos de desesperanza, ansiedad y rabia. Los participantes también afrontaban la invisibilidad encontrando refugio entre la comunidad Negra. Se discuten las implicaciones para consejeros.     

No Right to Resist? Elise Reimarus's Freedom as a Kantian Response to the Problem of Violent Revolt

One of the greatest woman intellectuals of eighteenth‐century Germany is Elise Reimarus, whose contribution to Enlightenment political theory is rarely acknowledged today. Unlike other social contract theorists, Reimarus rejects a people's right to violent resistance or revolution in her philosophical dialogue Freedom (1791). Exploring the arguments in Freedom, this paper observes a number of similarities in the political thought of Elise Reimarus and Immanuel Kant. Both, I suggest, reject violence as an illegitimate response to perceived political injustice in a way that opposes Locke's strong voluntarism and the absolutism of Hobbes. First, they emphasize the need to maintain the legal state as a precondition for the possibility of external right. Second, they share an optimistic view of the inherently “just” nature of the tripartite republican state. And finally, Reimarus and Kant both outline an alternative, nonviolent response to political injustice that consists in the freedom of public expression and a discourse on the moral enlightenment of man.     

Domestic Abuse as Terrorism

A number of philosophers and feminist authors have recently equated domestic abuse with the ubiquitous and ill‐defined concept of “terrorism.” Claudia Card, for instance, argues that domestic abuse is a frequently ignored form of terrorism that creates and maintains “heterosexual male dominance and female dependence and service” (Card 2003). Alison Jaggar, in a recent article, also concludes that an acceptable definition of terrorism will find rape and domestic violence to be terrorist acts (Jaggar 2005). Yet there seem to be several obstacles to any simple appropriation of the term “terrorism” for cases of domestic abuse. In this paper I will address what I take to be three significant problems that might be raised with regard to any attempt to identify domestic abuse as an act of terrorism. These problems include the fact that a) definitions of terrorism usually require clear political motivations, b) definitions of terrorism normally require that the terrorist intend to create a climate of terror, and c) adopting the term terrorism for cases of domestic abuse might appear simply inappropriate or unhelpful. I will argue, however, that each of these possible objections can be answered effectively and that domestic abuse rightly falls under the rubric of terrorism.     

Counseling in the Philippines: Past,Present, and Future

The history of colonization and persistent attempts at self‐governance in the Philippines parallel the beginnings of counseling in the country, which were largely influenced by the United States. Because of the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004 and the Psychology Act of 2009, counseling is on its way to professionalization and regulation. Counseling is growing in depth and credibility, as evidenced by applications in practice that are not only indigenous but powerfully relevant.