The retrieval of ‘liveness’ in William James's Will to Believe

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Left anterior lobectomy and category-specific naming

Damasio and colleagues (1996) have proposed that the left anterior temporal region supports knowledge pertaining to living objects, whereas more posterior temporal regions play a critical role in naming nonliving things. Accordingly, one might expect that left-sided anterior temporal lobectomy should have a more profound effect on the naming of living as opposed to nonliving things. As part of a multicenter collaborative project, seventy-nine patients (all left-hemisphere speech dominant) were tested pre- and post-left-temporal lobectomy on a task that required naming of living and nonliving items equated for name frequency, familiarity, and visual complexity. Consistent with the proposals of Damasio et al. (1996), left temporal lobectomy impaired naming ability, particularly for living things. When individual outcomes were considered, twice as many patients showed a relative decline in naming living as opposed to nonliving things.     

A bibliographic sampler

The author presents a critical survey of recent books in or related to pastoral care. A review of books that may be considered of immediate benefit to the pastor and practitioner is followed by comments on several books of a more specialized and theoretical nature. A final section describes several recent publications that reflect psychosocial critiques of contemporary society and the place of psychology in it.Dr. Hunter is the Book Review Editor ofPastoral Psychology. He serves as Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322.     

Class,housework, and happiness: Women's work and life satisfaction

Large-sample surveys often fail to find a difference in self-reported satisfaction between housewives and employed women. Several explanations that have been offered for this failure are explored here in greater detail. The suggestion that the ease of housewives' lives is experienced as a benefit compensating for fewer satisfactions in other areas is rejected; greater time pressure is associated with greater satisfaction for housewives. The suggestion that working-class women are happier at home, while middle-class women prefer careers is also not supported; working-class women appear to be less satisfied with their lives and no more satisfied with their work whether the comparison group is working-class women with jobs or middle-class housewives. Social desirability, on the other hand, is found to be a major factor predicting the self-reported happiness of housewives, and the general issue of the role of social expectations in evaluating satisfaction is raised.     

Long-term effects of parental wartime captivity on children: Children of POW and MIA servicemen

The question asked by this study was: Are there possible second-generational effects, not only for children of prisoners of war and hostages, but also for children of parents who were/are missing in action? This report, reviewing the literature on prolonged parental wartime captivity in relation to longterm effects on children, with a specific focus on the Center for POW Studies of Vietnam era families, illustrates the strong relationship between mothers' and children's abilities to cope with their highly stressful and ambiguous situation.     

Differential thresholds for limb movement measured using adaptive techniques.

Differential thresholds for limb movement were measured in 10 subjects, using the transformed up-down procedure. Subjects were required to indicate which of two random displacement perturbations delivered to their forearms had the larger standard deviation (SD). The SD of the reference signal was fixed for each experimental condition at one of seven values ranging from 0.05 to 3.2 mm. THe SD of the other signal varied depending on the subject's response. Using this procedure, the differential threshold for limb movement was calculated to be 8%, which is very similar to the thresholds estimated previously for changes in limb position (9%) and force (7%). The sensitivity of the human proprioceptive system to changes in limb displacement was much greater than anticipated, with subjects being able to resolve a 5-microns difference between two perturbations delivered to their arms.     

The women's movement in the working class

Working-class women's reactions to the women's movement are frequently discussed, but there is little empirical research on the issue. The present study examines the dimensions of support in two planes: the particular issues that engender favorable or unfavorable reactions, and the characteristics of women who are generally supportive or hostile to the movement. Supporters are found to emphasize the movement's contributions to their sense of self-esteem and entitlement; opponents emphasize sexual morality and the social segregation of the sexes. The mildly sympathetic or tolerant, who comprise the majority of the sample, see the relevance of the movement primarily in terms of future generations. In a discriminant function analysis, work experience and personal satisfaction are found to significantly distinguish between these three attitudinal groups.