Towards a socially situated rumouring: Historical and critical perspectives of rumour transmission

Rumours are an ubiquitous feature of people's social life and one of the oldest topics in social psychology. Rumours, which tend to spread during crisis situations, allow people to mitigate unpleasant feelings and construct a meaning of the surrounding world. Rumour transmission has been associated with a number of specific individual (e.g., anxiety, personal involvement) and situational (e.g., ambiguity, uncertainty) characteristics and studied with the serial reproduction paradigm (Allport & Postman, 1947) in laboratory settings. The main criticism of rumour research has been its focus on primarily individual‐level analyses in an attempt to explain a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the classic serial reproduction paradigm tends to omit the essential properties of interpersonal interactions and communication processes. Despite the recent and rapidly growing trend of social network methods in social and behavioural sciences, rumour research could also include a finer analysis of individuals' social characteristics and the related complexity of real‐life communication processes. Therefore, the integration of a socially situated approach to rumour transmission might be especially relevant for rumour research and promising for the study of other social phenomena by extension.     

A procedure for evaluating sensitivity to within-person change: can mood measures in diary studies detect change reliably?

The recent growth in diary and experience sampling research has increased research attention on how people change over time in natural settings. Often however, the measures in these studies were originally developed for studying between-person differences, and their sensitivity to within-person changes is usually unknown. Using a Generalizability Theory framework, the authors illustrate a procedure for developing reliable measures of change using a version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1992) shortened for diary studies. Analyzing two data sets, one composed of 35 daily reports from 68 persons experiencing a stressful examination and another composed of daily reports from 164 persons over a typical 28-day period, we demonstrate that three-item measures of anxious mood, depressed mood, anger, fatigue, and vigor have appropriate reliability to detect within-person change processes.     

Relation of study strategies to the academic performance of Hong Kong university students

A revised version of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory was used to examine the relation of study strategies with academic performance of 100 Hong Kong university students. Analysis indicated the high academic-achieving group differed significantly from the low academic-achieving group in terms of intrinsic disposition factors of motivation, scheduling, concentration, and selecting main ideas.     

Grouping has a negative effect on both subjective contours and perceived occlusion at T-junctions

Perceived occlusion of aligned T-junctions and subjective contours at implicit T-junctions are often assumed to be related but are rarely examined with respect to common mechanisms. Using the method of paired comparison, we measured the strength of perceived occlusion at explicit T-junctions and the strength of subjective contours at implicit T-junctions (using different subjects) along the aligned edges of eight sets of inducer shapes. Sets varied in the similarity of component shapes with respect to orientation, height, width, and color. With increasing shape similarity, there was a striking decrease in both the strength of subjective contours and the strength of perceived occlusion; the correlation between these two kinds of judgments was .97. We conclude that common mechanisms underlie these two percepts and that edge alignment is a much stronger indicator of occlusion for poorly grouped than for strongly grouped inducers.     

Celebrating 50 Years of Service: A Conversation With Mary Thomas Burke

Mary Thomas Burke, known affectionately to many in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the surrounding communities as “Sister,” has devoted over 50 of the past years of her life to service. In this interview, she explores the paths that her service endeavors have followed, the influences and turning points in her life, and shares her insights on achieving balance in service and in life.     

Antiaggressive and motor effects of the DA release inhibitor CGS 10746B

In the present study the effects of a wide range of doses of the dopamine release inhibitor CGS 10746B were evaluated in spontaneous activity and in aggressive behaviour using the paradigm of isolation‐induced aggression. The two higher doses (8 and 16 mg/kg) produced a decrease in spontaneous motor activity. Antiaggressive effects were observed after administration of doses from 4 mg/kg upwards. At this dose, CGS 10746B diminished threat and attack, and although an increase in immobility was observed, no impairment of other motor behaviours was presented. With higher doses, aggression was practically abolished but with a concomitant effect on many other behaviours. When animals were separated depending on their latency of attack, those that showed a long attack latency (LAL) presented a stronger response to 4 mg/kg than those that had a short attack latency (SAL), which were not affected in their aggression by this dose. We can conclude that presynaptic dopamine function is necessary for the normal expression of aggressive behaviours, since CGS 10746B reduces aggression at doses that do not affect spontaneous motor activity. Aggr. Behav. 27:382–390, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Mastery or mystery? Therapeutic writing: A review of the literature

Recent developments in online support and counselling suggest that the users of chat rooms, for example, or the Samaritans' e-mail 'listening' service, have already discovered the power of writing as a self-help vehicle. Developments in computer-mediated counselling and therapy are essentially text-based and client-driven. The therapeutic use of expressive and reflective writing is not widely recognised in British counselling and therapy circles. The empirical foundations for the therapeutic uses of the literary arts are, however, well established. This review aims to map the use of 'writing therapy' by drawing together cross-disciplinary research and practitioner reports which might support the place of writing as a creative therapy in its own right, whether as an adjunct to face-to-face counselling or as a self-help tool.     

The resilience of gesture in talk: gesture in blind speakers and listeners

Spontaneous gesture frequently accompanies speech. The question is why. In these studies, we tested two non‐mutually exclusive possibilities. First, speakers may gesture simply because they see others gesture and learn from this model to move their hands as they talk. We tested this hypothesis by examining spontaneous communication in congenitally blind children and adolescents. Second, speakers may gesture because they recognize that gestures can be useful to the listener. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether speakers gesture even when communicating with a blind listener who is unable to profit from the information that the hands convey. We found that congenitally blind speakers, who had never seen gestures, nevertheless gestured as they spoke, conveying the same information and producing the same range of gesture forms as sighted speakers. Moreover, blind speakers gestured even when interacting with another blind individual who could not have benefited from the information contained in those gestures. These findings underscore the robustness of gesture in talk and suggest that the gestures that co‐occur with speech may serve a function for the speaker as well as for the listener.     

Critical Encounters with Rabbinic Doctrines of Creation: The Teacher as Source of Authority or as Partner in Dialogue

This is a case study based upon my experience of teaching an introduction to rabbinic thought to a group of Orthodox Jewish students. The study of one particular midrashic pericope allowed for major tensions between academic and religious approaches to the text to surface. The tension revolved around the apparent contradiction between the rabbinic mythical perception of creation as proceeding from primary negative matter and later philosophical belief in creatio ex nihilo. This contradiction touches upon issues of authority and of interpretation. The article explores various strategies dealing with issues of authority in general and of the meaning of the individual text in particular. Following a presentation of these strategies I offer my reflections upon my role as a teacher in this context. Dialogue emerges as an important element in the teaching process, creating a common ground between teachers and students and making them partners in a common quest for the truth of the text. Traditional dialogical modes of Jewish learning serve as the basis for the introduction of the academic agenda. This agenda is introduced as an extension of classical religious concerns rather than as an alternative to them.