Speaking Like a Queen in RuPaul’s Drag Race: Towards a Speech Code of American Drag Queens

Employing Speech Codes Theory (Philipsen et al. in Theorizing about intercultural communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2005) as my theoretical framework, I examine communicative practices and beliefs as to what it means to speak like a drag queen as portrayed within the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR): Season Four. Examining this particular population increases knowledge on how marginalized populations use talk to construct rules of conduct for a coherent identity. Members uphold drag queen speech codes by revealing what it means to speak like a queen. Such items include to look like a “fish,” don’t be “hungry,” be humble, resist negativity, don’t complain, and exude professionalism. These are qualities and characteristics of communication that a drag queen must perform, uphold, and repeat in order to uphold drag family values, thus fulfilling the code of sisterhood that comes with the performance of drag. These are evident within beliefs and everyday talk as portrayed within RPDR.     

Creativity and Values

ABSTRACT

Barron (1997 Barron , F. ( 1997 ). Introduction . In F. Barron , A. Montuori , & A. Barron (Eds.), Creators on creating (pp. 1 – 21 ). New York : Tarcher/Putnam . [Google Scholar]) and Helson (1990 Hall , W. B. , & MacKinnon , D. W. ( 1969 ). Personality inventory correlates of creative accomplishments . Journal of Applied Psychology , 53 , 322 – 236 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) independently have suggested that a central element in all forms of creativity is the desire or goal to be creative, implying creativity as a core value. Based on these assertions and Schwartz's (1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theory, we tested the prediction that creative individuals will hold a different values system than their less creative counterparts. University students (N = 278) completed the Schwartz Values Survey (Schwartz, 1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), as well as a behaviorally-based self-report measure of creative accomplishments. At separate occasions, 134 of these participants also devised three creative products rated by the consensual assessment method. In keeping with prediction, creative accomplishments and products correlated significantly not only with the self-direction value composite (both including and excluding the individual item creativity), but also universalism and stimulation. Accomplishments and products correlated negatively with the value composites of tradition, security, and power. These results support the view that creativity is grounded in values, and support Schwartz's model of the dynamic structure of values as a predictor of behavior.     

A Community’s Response to Suicide Through Public Art: Stakeholder Perspectives from the Finding the Light Within Project

Suicide is a preventable public health problem and a leading cause of death in the United States. Despite recognized need for community-based strategies for suicide prevention, most suicide prevention programs focus on individual-level change. This article presents seven first person accounts of Finding the Light Within, a community mobilization initiative to reduce the stigma associated with suicide through public arts participation that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2011 through 2012. The stigma associated with suicide is a major challenge to suicide prevention, erecting social barriers to effective prevention and treatment and enhancing risk factors for people struggling with suicidal ideation and recovery after losing a loved one to suicide. This project engaged a large and diverse audience and built a new community around suicide prevention through participatory public art, including community design and production of a large public mural about suicide, storytelling and art workshops, and a storytelling website. We present this project as a model for how arts participation can address suicide on multiple fronts—from raising awareness and reducing stigma, to promoting community recovery, to providing healing for people and communities in need.     

PATH: a program to build resilience and thriving in undergraduates

We developed and tested a brief three‐session program to build resilience (protection from depressive symptoms) and thriving (positive growth) in undergraduates by teaching adaptive explanatory styles. In Study 1, a pretest–posttest waiting list control experiment with 28 undergraduates found that our Program for Accelerated Thriving and Health (PATH) significantly increased optimistic and personal control explanatory styles (Attributional Style Questionnaire), resilience (Beck Depression Inventory‐II), and thriving (Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale 10). In Study 2, a placebo control experiment with 63 undergraduates found a modified version of the program to significantly increase resilience. All effects were at least moderate in size. As predicted, a personal control explanatory style significantly predicted thriving in both studies. Predictors of resilience and thriving were discussed in terms of differentiating the constructs.     

Tempo sensitivity in isochronous tone sequences: the multiple-look model revisited

Factors affecting tempo sensitivity in isochronous tone sequences were investigated in two experiments. Participants listened to tones in sequence conditions in which the number of time intervals in isochronous standard and comparison sequences was varied, and they were asked to judge the tempo of the comparison relative to the standard. When the duration of the standard interval was held constant, tempo sensitivity was affected by the number of comparison intervals, but not by the number of standard intervals. In contrast, when the duration of the standard interval was varied randomly from trial to trial, tempo sensitivity was affected by the number of intervals in both sequences. The present findings are discussed in the context of a generalized multiple-look model that posits independent contributions of both sequences to tempo sensitivity. Quantitative model fits suggest that the relative contribution of the number of the standard intervals to tempo thresholds depends on (1) the availability of a stable long-term referent for the standard tempo and (2) a priori knowledge about the number of standard intervals.     

Bibliographic processes and products, and a bibliography of the published primary-source works of B. F. Skinner

This paper introduces the nature and practice of bibliography (e.g., definition, history, and genres); it reviews the extant B. F. Skinner bibliographies (1958 to 2001); and it describes the methods used in constructing a new, comprehensive, and corrected bibliography of Skinner's primary-source published works. The bibliography includes 291 items from across 16 categories of publications (e.g., books, articles, chapters, monographs, book reviews, manuals, encyclopedia entries, letters to the editor) and lists them in chronological order (1930 to 1999). A discussion section addresses the bibliography's limitations, how it might be enlarged and expanded, its value for qualitative and quantitative historical inquiry, and the beginnings of a "Skinner industry."     

Who cares about winning?

Why do we so often care about the outcomes of games when nothing is at stake? There is a paradox here, much like the paradox of fiction, which concerns why we care about the fates and threats of merely fictional beings. I argue that the paradox threatens to overturn a great deal of what philosophers have thought about caring, severing its connection to value and undermining its moral weight. I defend a solution to the paradox that draws on Kendall Walton's solution to the paradox of fiction, developing his idea that it be extended to games. The solution takes games to involve make-believe: in particular, players and spectators make-believe that the outcome of the game matters. I also explore how the phenomenon extends beyond games. And I explore some moral implications: in particular, my view preserves the idea that we have reason not to impede others in their pursuit of what they care about.     

Information transmission with a multifinger tactual display

In this work, the tactual information transmission capabilities of a tactual display designed to provide stimulation along a continuum from kinesthetic movements to cutaneous vibrations are assessed. The display is capable of delivering arbitrary waveforms to three digits (thumb, index, and middle finger) within an amplitude range from absolute detection threshold to about 50 dB sensation level and a frequency range from dc to above 300 Hz. Stimulus sets were designed at each of three signal durations (125, 250, and 500 msec) by combining salient attributes, such as frequency (further divided into low, middle, and high regions), amplitude, direction of motion, and finger location. Estimated static information transfer (IT) was 6.5 bits at 500 mseC., 6.4 bits at 250 mseC., and 5.6 bits at 125 msec. Estimates of IT rate were derived from identification experiments in which the subject’s task was to identify the middle stimulus in a sequence of three stimuli randomly selected from a given stimulus set. On the basis of the extrapolations from these IT measurements to continuous streams, the IT rate was estimated to be about 12 bits/seC., which is roughly the same as that achieved by Tadoma users in tactual speech communication.     

Reality-Testing a Vocational Choice: Congruence Between Self,Ideal, and Occupational Percepts Among Student Nurses

A total of 168 student nurses (24 each at 7 levels of vocational experience and preparation) Q-sorted 50 self-relevant, socially neutral statements to measure self-concept, ideal self-concept, and occupational role percept. Mean r's for congruence between ideal and occupational percepts tended to exceed and to reach higher levels of significance than corresponding r's for congruence between either self and ideal or self and occupational percepts. Congruences between self, ideal, and occupational percepts reach significance at p = .01 for graduate students, who have attained “adult” professional status. However, no significant relationship appears to obtain between either pre-professional or professional nursing experience and congruence between self and ideal, self and occupational role, or ideal and occupational role percepts. Results are interpreted in terms of a self-concept theory of vocational development.