Social Dominance and Social Identity in the United States and Israel: Ingroup Favoritism or Outgroup Derogation?

American and Israeli university students completed questionnaires in their native languages assessing ingroup identification, social dominance orientation (SDO), and ingroup and outgroup affect. The interrelationships among the variables were examined for high- and low-status groups in three intergroup contexts: whites and Latinos in the United States, Ashkenazim and Mizrachim in Israel, and Jews and Arabs in Israel. Theoretical predictions of social identity theory and social dominance theory were tested. Results indicated that for all high- and low-status groups, stronger ingroup identification was associated with more positive ingroup affect, and for nearly all groups, higher SDO was associated with more negative affect toward the low-status group. In addition, SDO was positively associated with ingroup identification for all high-status groups, and negatively associated with ingroup identification for almost all low-status groups. Explanations for cross-cultural differences in the factors driving group affect are suggested, and theoretical refinements are proposed that accommodate them.     

Testing a dual process model of prejudice: Assessment of group threat perceptions and emotions

Using American college student samples, two studies were conducted to establish the connection between perceptions of threat posed by people of the Muslim world and intergroup emotions toward this group. Study 1, a correlational study, situated these relationships within Duckitt??s (2001) dual process model. Path analyses revealed that perceptions of economic threat from Muslims were predicted by a motivation for hierarchical group relations, as manifested by social dominance orientation. Perceptions of value threat from Muslims were predicted by a motivation for social stability and security, as manifested by right-wing authoritarianism. These economic and value threat perceptions subsequently predicted the intergroup emotions of anger and disgust, respectively. Study 2, an experimental study, involved a manipulation of value threat from Muslims. Results showed that perceiving Muslims to pose a greater threat to Westerners?? values heightened feelings of disgust, which subsequently predicted behavioral inclinations to maintain traditional Western values.     

Judaism and Health: Reflections on an Emerging Scholarly Field

This paper surveys the field of Judaism and health. The authors trace the history of discourse on health and healing within Judaism, from the biblical and rabbinic eras to contemporary research and writing on Jewish bioethics, pastoral care, communal services, and aging, including congregational and community programming related to health and illness and the emergence of the Jewish healing movement. The work of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health is described, focusing on efforts to unite these various threads into a scholarly field emphasizing basic and applied research on the instrumental functions of Jewish religious life for health and well-being.     

Religion and Happiness Among Israeli Jews: Findings from the ISSP Religion III Survey

This study investigates religious predictors of happiness in a population-based sample of Israeli Jewish adults (N = 991). Using data collected in 2009–2010 as a part of the International Social Survey Programme’s Religion III Survey, analyses were conducted on a fully recursive structural model of the effects of synagogue attendance and several religious mediators on a single-item measure of happiness. Bivariately, every religious measure (synagogue attendance, prayer frequency, certainty of God beliefs, a four-item Supernatural Beliefs Scale, and subjective religiosity) is positively and significantly associated with happiness. In the structural model, 11 of 15 hypothesized paths are significant. Of these, only subjective religiosity exhibits a significant direct effect on happiness (β = 0.15, p < .01). The other four religious indicators, however, all exert indirect effects on happiness through subjective religiosity and combinations of each other. Total effects on happiness of both synagogue attendance (β = 0.10, p < .01) and the Supernatural Beliefs Scale (β = 0.12, p < .05) are statistically significant. Analyses adjust for effects of age and other sociodemographic covariates. Results build on a growing body of population-based findings supporting a salutary impact of Jewish religious observance on subjective well-being in Israel and the diaspora.     

Veterans’ Offspring’s Personality Traits and the Intergenerational Transmission of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

Following war and war captivity, many combat veterans and former prisoners of war (ex-POWs) may suffer from posttraumatic psychopathologies, and these may be transmitted to their offspring. Though there are considerable individual differences between offspring in this respect, the mechanisms underlying such differences remain unclear. The current longitudinal study examined the role that veterans’ offspring’s Big Five personality traits may play within this intergenerational transmission. One hundred and twenty-three dyads consisting of veterans (79 ex-POWs and 44 combat veterans) and their adult offspring were examined. Fathers’ posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and global psychiatric distress (GD) were assessed 30 and 35 years after the war, and offspring’s PTSS, GD, and Big Five personality traits were assessed 40 years after the war. Findings indicate that veterans’ psychopathologies were associated with those of their offspring. Furthermore, analyses revealed significant positive associations between offspring’s psychopathologies and their Neuroticism, and negative associations with their Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Finally, a mediation effect was found wherein the fathers’ PTSS and GD were related to their offspring’s Neuroticism levels, and the offspring’s Neuroticism was related to their PTSS and GD levels. These findings suggest that offspring’s personality traits may indeed play a role in the transmission of posttraumatic psychopathologies from veterans to their offspring, and may explain individual differences in this respect. Specifically, high levels of Neuroticism may place offspring at risk for secondary traumatization. Possible explanations and limitations are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.     

Learning of letter names and sounds and their contribution to word recognition

This study investigated knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, their learning, and their contributions to word recognition. Of 123 preschoolers examined on letter knowledge, 65 underwent training on both letter names and letter sounds in a counterbalanced order. Prior to training, children were more advanced in associating letters with their names than with their sounds and could provide the sound of a letter only if they could name it. However, children learned more easily to associate letters with sounds than with names. Training just on names improved performance on sounds, but the sounds produced were extended (CV) rather than phonemic. Learning sounds facilitated later learning of the same letters' names, but not vice versa. Training either on names or on sounds improved word recognition and explanation of printed words. Results are discussed with reference to cognitive and societal factors affecting letter knowledge acquisition, features of the Hebrew alphabet and orthography, and educational implications.     

On the philosophy of psi

In Naming and Necessity, Kripke argues that intuitions about what is possible play a limited, but important, role in challenging philosophical theses, counting as evidence against them only if they cannot be reconstrued as intuitions about something else, compatible with the thesis in question. But he doesn't provide clear guidelines for determining when such intuitions have been successfully reconstrued, leading some to question their status as evidence for modal claims. In this paper I focus on some worries, articulated by Michael Della Rocca, about whether modal intuitions can be evidence for claims about essential properties, and argue that there is a way of viewing the role of modal intuition in philosophical argument that can preserve their evidential force.     

Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge During Strategy Construction: A Complex Knowledge Systems Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article elaborates a new direction for studying the construction of novel strategies that enables researchers to model the conceptual underpinnings of students' observable strategic actions during episodes of mathematical problem solving. The nature of the relationship between conceptual and procedural knowledge has been persistently debated for decades. Recently, there has been mounting empirical evidence that conceptual and procedural knowledge can develop by mutual bootstrapping in a bidirectional and iterative fashion (e.g., Rittle-Johnson & Schneider, 2014 Rittle-Johnson, B., & Schneider, M. (2014). Developing conceptual and procedural knowledge of mathematics. In R. C. Kadosh & A. Dowker (Eds.), Oxford handbook of numerical cognition (pp. 1102–1118). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). However, the very constructs of conceptual and procedural knowledge (especially procedural knowledge) have been critiqued for inconsistency in definition and lack of operationalization (Star, 2007 Sherin, B. L. (1996). The symbolic basis of physical intuition A study of two symbol systems in physics instruction (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley. [Google Scholar]). The analysis in this article addresses this critique by modeling the diverse forms of conceptual and procedural knowledge needed to implement a strategy as a complex knowledge system: a strategy system. Furthermore, the strategy system model is used to elaborate processes of mutual bootstrapping between conceptual and procedural knowledge at a moment-by-moment time scale. The strategy system model builds upon the Knowledge in Pieces epistemological perspective (diSessa, 1993 diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2–3), 105–225. doi:10.1080/07370008.1985.9649008[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and coordination class theory in particular (diSessa & Wagner, 2005 diSessa, A. A., & Wagner, J. F. (2005). What coordination has to say about transfer. In J. P. Mestre (Ed.), Transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 121–154). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. [Google Scholar]). Both the theoretical notion of a strategy system and the bidirectional model of mutual bootstrapping between conceptual and procedural knowledge are illustrated using data from a case study of a pre-algebra student who iteratively refined a procedure for solving algebra word problems. The strategy system model highlights the complexity of both strategies and concepts and offers a window into what can be learned by students during strategy construction processes.     

One ‘knows’: self-rated health and telomere length among ex-prisoners of war

Abstract

Objective: Ill-health and early mortality are amongst the most significant ramifications of trauma. Furthermore, trauma alters the subjective perception and experience of the body. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which deteriorations in perceived health among traumatised individuals are associated with cellular health as manifested in telomere length.

Methods: Specifically, 88 former prisoners of war (ex-POWs) evaluated their health (self-rated health; SRH) at 18 (T1), 35 (T2) and 42 (T3) years after the war, and were assessed for telomere length at T3. Health behaviour, BMI, morbidity and PTSD were also examined at T3.

Results: The findings demonstrated that SRH was cross-sectionally correlated with telomere length. Furthermore, a significant sequential indirect effect was found, in which worse SRH in T1 was associated with shorter telomere length at T3, through worse SRH at T2 and at T3.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that long-term deteriorations in the subjective evaluations of health are implicated in actual cellular health among individuals exposed to trauma.     

BEYOND THE PALE: Jewish identity,radical politics and feminist art in the United States

Historians have not yet recognized how the cultural legacy of East European Jews helped change the status of women artists in the United States. Immigrant Jewish women in general reacted to institutionalized patriarchy with a desire for social change and the will to act to that end. Jewish women who were artists had professional reasons to embrace feminism, given women's virtual exclusion from professional notice. This article focuses on two pioneering feminist artists — Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro — and demonstrates the importance of their Jewish heritage, showing how and why they set in motion important changes in the tumultuous 1970s that continue to resonate in the art world today. An unusually large number of American feminist artists of the 1970s were Jewish. Their heritage resembles that of the Jewish feminist activist Betty Friedan, whose father emigrated from Eastern Europe. Once we examine the linked roles played by Jewish identity and leftist politics in the formation of the feminist art movement in the United States, it becomes evident that activism in the community of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and the values that they passed on to the next generations made a significant contribution to the success of this movement.