Coping with peer stressors and associated dysphoria: Acculturation differences among Chinese-American children

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of acculturation in coping with stress among 264 Chinese-American children. The results confirmed that the subjects used a variety of coping strategies including diversion, suppression, problem solving, minimization, and retaliation and that certain coping strategies influenced the dysphoria experienced as a result of peer stress. High acculturated children used retaliation significantly more often than their low acculturated counterparts and retaliation was found to be associated with less dysphoria for the high acculturated group. In contrast, low acculturated children who utilized suppression tended to report less dysphoria. Contrary to the hypothesis that general self worth would reduce the relationship between peer stressors and dysphoria, it had no bearing on the association for either acculturated group. The hypothesis that greater perceived social competence would lessen the association between peer stressors and dysphoria also failed to be supported by the data. In fact, for the high acculturation group higher social competence was actually associated with more reported dysphoria. In general, the results suggested that the adaptiveness of particular coping strategies may be influenced by acculturation level and that social competence plays a complicated role in the stress and coping process. Implications for counsellors are discussed.     

Blame,desert and compatibilist capacity: a diachronic account of moderateness in regards to reasons-responsiveness

This paper argues that John Fischer and Mark Ravizza's compatibilist theory of moral responsibility cannot justify reactive attitudes like blame and desert-based practices like retributive punishment. The problem with their account, I argue, is that their analysis of moderateness in regards to reasons-responsiveness has the wrong normative features. However, I propose an alternative account of what it means for a mechanism to be moderately reasons-responsive which addresses this deficiency. In a nut shell, while Fischer and Ravizza test for moderate reasons-responsiveness by checking how a mechanism behaves in a given time slice across other possible worlds, on my account we should ask how that mechanism behaves in this world over a span of time – specifically, whether it responds to reasons sufficiently often. My diachronic account is intended as a drop-in replacement for Fischer and Ravizza's synchronic account.     

Peat Bogs,Sperm, and Family Values: Teaching Naturalism Charitably

Introductory courses dealing with sex, gender and sexuality often assign excerpts from Thomas Aquinas as an exemplar of the naturalist view. Given that most novice students tend to side against such naturalism uncritically, they need to be exposed to a more charitable account of the biological considerations motivating a stance like Aquinas.’ With that in mind, this article presents accessible arguments aimed at restoring deliberative balance in the classroom.     

On Adjoint and Brain Functors

There is some consensus among orthodox category theorists that the concept of adjoint functors is the most important concept contributed to mathematics by category theory. We give a heterodox treatment of adjoints using heteromorphisms (object-to-object morphisms between objects of different categories) that parses an adjunction into two separate parts (left and right representations of heteromorphisms). Then these separate parts can be recombined in a new way to define a cognate concept, the brain functor, to abstractly model the functions of perception and action of a brain. The treatment uses relatively simple category theory and is focused on the interpretation and application of the mathematical concepts.