The Strategic Practice of “Fiesta” in a Latino Protestant Church: Religious Racialization and the Performance of Ethnic Identity

Founded and led by a U.S.-born white pastor, Amor Poderoso is a nondenominational, evangelical megachurch in El Paso, Texas, almost entirely composed of Mexican-Americans, recent Mexican immigrants, and current Mexican citizens. Ethnographic fieldwork from 2014 to 2017, supplemented with interviews with pastors, worship leaders, and attendees, reveal that much of congregational life orients around intentionally showcasing “Mexican” culture through sounds, images, and artifacts that appropriate an array of idealized ethnic references (e.g., food, dress, mannerisms, clichés) from Northern Mexico. Ongoing ethnic displays do not originate spontaneously or impromptu from membership but rather serve as a form of tactical authenticity derived from U.S. racial schemas mobilized by congregational leaders as a distinctive religious resource. Weekly worship services featuring dialect-inflected Spanish preaching and singing project ethnic signals that elicit connections to both a common ancestral heritage and a common religious identity. In short, church leaders at this southern border Latino church deliberately deploy sounds, images, and artifacts to assert racialized performances of being “Mexican” for distinctly religious purposes, especially evangelization. In the process, the distinctive practices of religious racialization effectively structure church members’ ethnic and religious identities around racial tropes to buttress a cogent corporate identity for enacting institutionalized evangelical narratives and legitimating charismatic authority.     

Aging Affects the Ability to Process the Optic Flow Stimulations: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectrometry Study

Abstract

Optic flow (OF) has been utilized to investigate the sensory integration of visual stimuli during postural control. It is little known how the OF speed affects the aging brain during the sensory integration process of postural control. This study was to examine the effect of OF speeds on the brain activation using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and postural sway between younger and older adults. Eleven healthy younger adults (5M/6F, age 22?±?1-year-old) and ten healthy older adults (4M/6F, age 71?±?5-year-old) participated in this study. A virtual reality headset was used to provide the OF stimulus at different speeds. A forceplate was used to record the center-of-pressure to compute the amplitude of postural sway (peak-to-peak). Compared with younger adults, older adults showed significantly increased activation in the OF speed of 10?m/s and decreased activation in the OF speed of 20?m/s in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Older adults also showed decreased activation in the left temporoparietal region (VEST) in the OF speed of 20?m/s. A significant difference in peak-to-peak was found between groups. Our results indicated that age might be associated with the ability to process fast OF stimulation.     

Moore’s proof,theory-ladenness of perception,and many proofs

Philosophical Studies - I argue that if we allow that Moore’s Method, which involves taking an ordinary knowledge claim to support a substantive metaphysical conclusion, can be used to...     

The use of strategies and messages to alter aggressive interactions

Male and female college students were instigated to aggression by a confederate's shocks during a preliminary task. The confederate informed half of the treatment subjects of the response strategy which he intended to adopt. The other half received an irrelevant message. All subjects then competed against the confederate, who employed one of the following five response consequence strategies: a) set a maximum shock on all trials; b) set a minimum shock on all trials; c) set shocks identical to the subject's response on the preceding trial; d) set shocks two settings below the subject's response; or e) set shocks two settings above the subject's. The subject's latency to setting a shock, the intensities of the shocks set, the durations of the shock settings, and the subject's reaction times were recorded. When an irrelevant message was delivered, passive responses, well below those of the opponent, resulted in the lowest level of retaliation. In the presence of a relevant message, the match-same strategy emerged as an effective deterrent to aggressive behavior. The results were found to be consistent with predictions derived from an application of the norm of reciprocity and research demonstrating the enhancing effects achieved through the communication of existing contingencies.     

Right-Wing Ideology as a Predictor of Collective Action: A Test Across Four Political Issue Domains

Despite a vast literature documenting motivations for collective action, the role of sociopolitical ideologies, including right-wing ideologies, in predicting collective action is underresearched. Literature on right-wing ideological beliefs suggests that those higher in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) or social dominance orientation (SDO) hold specific attitudes or endorse specific policies, in part, because of factors such as perceived fear-based threat or empathy. In the present research, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run on pooled data from a diverse Canadian university sample and two American adult samples (total N = 1,469). Participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, fear-based threat, empathy, and domain-specific collective action. Results showed that RWA and SDO both related positively to collective action targeting societal moral breakdown but negatively to collective action aimed at equalizing race relations or fighting climate change. Whereas the indirect effects of right-wing ideologies via fear-based threat or empathy were significant in all four domains for SDO, the indirect effect of RWA was only significant in the climate change domain. Implications are discussed.     

The link between maternal and child verbal abilities: An indirect effect through maternal responsiveness

Language abilities in early childhood show stability over time and play an important role in the development of other cognitive processes. Identifying modifiable environmental risk factors is important to informing prevention and early intervention efforts. Maternal verbal ability has been previously linked to child verbal ability. The current study examined whether maternal and child verbal abilities were linked indirectly through early childhood maternal responsiveness. Data come from a longitudinal birth cohort study. Participants included 133 mothers and their children recruited from maternity wards shortly after birth. Maternal verbal ability was measured using the Vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (child age 8 months). Child verbal ability was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (36 months). A latent maternal responsiveness variable was estimated using three developmentally sensitive indicators; one during infancy (child age 8 months) and two when children were 36 months. Results of a structural equation model indicated a significant indirect effect from maternal verbal abilities to child verbal abilities through maternal responsiveness. This indirect path was significant even after inclusion of another indirect path from maternal executive functioning to child verbal ability through maternal responsiveness (which was not significant). Future studies will benefit from experimental, genetically sensitive and/or cross‐lagged designs to allow for conclusions related to directionality and causality. This body of research has implications for the study of the intergenerational transmission of verbal abilities and associated skills, behaviours and adaptive outcomes.     

Differences between students' estimated and attained grades in a first-year introductory psychology course as a function of identity development

Two hundred sixty-eight first-year university students were surveyed about the state of their identity development and their perceptions regarding chances for academic success in an introductory psychology course. In general, it was found that students who had an adult identity had a more accurate assessment of their chances for success in the course and also used more efficient study strategies. Students who had not completely formed an adult identity, however, were more inaccurate in estimates of their final grades and also seemed to use less productive study strategies. It was concluded that those who have formulated an adult identity might have also developed a more complete understanding of both themselves and their situation. Implications of the findings for further research regarding the effects of identity development on university life, as well as the implications for academic intervention programs, are discussed.     

An adolescent version of the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test

Item content of the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) was modified to make it more appropriate for young persons. The resulting test was found to have lower internal consistency than the adult MAST, but the elimination of five items with comparatively poor psychometric properties yielded an acceptable alpha coefficient of .73. A unitary factor model for the adolescent MAST was not confirmed; indeed, the revised test appeared to be factorially complex. Recommendations for further revisions are discussed.