The Convergence of Virtual Reality and Social Networks: Threats to Privacy and Autonomy

The rapid evolution of information, communication and entertainment technologies will transform the lives of citizens and ultimately transform society. This paper focuses on ethical issues associated with the likely convergence of virtual realities (VR) and social networks (SNs), hereafter VRSNs. We examine a scenario in which a significant segment of the world’s population has a presence in a VRSN. Given the pace of technological development and the popularity of these new forms of social interaction, this scenario is plausible. However, it brings with it ethical problems. Two central ethical issues are addressed: those of privacy and those of autonomy. VRSNs pose threats to both privacy and autonomy. The threats to privacy can be broadly categorized as threats to informational privacy, threats to physical privacy, and threats to associational privacy. Each of these threats is further subdivided. The threats to autonomy can be broadly categorized as threats to freedom, to knowledge and to authenticity. Again, these three threats are divided into subcategories. Having categorized the main threats posed by VRSNs, a number of recommendations are provided so that policy-makers, developers, and users can make the best possible use of VRSNs.     

Suicide in rural communities

The public image of rural areas being characterized by social stability, integration, and supportive interpersonal networks has been challenged with recent evidence showing a large increase in the suicide rate in these areas. Increases have been reported for a number of European countries, including Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and Ireland. This paper reviews the evidence relating to those groups at risk of suicide. The group at most risk of committing suicide in rural areas is males between the ages of 25 and 60, who are unemployed and live alone, and who have a history of psychological disturbance. These findings are discussed in relation to the psychological implications of socio-economic changes brought about by changes in the Common Agriculture Policy of the European Community.     

Eliciting children’s and adults’ accounts of road accidents

Psychological knowledge from eye-witness research is applied here to the particular problem of reporting road accidents. Thereby the paper highlights some of the assumptions in eye-witness research. The interface between that research and the reporting of road accidents is examined by reference to existing social psychological notions. These are notions about questioning and about hypothesis testing. The paper makes special reference to the questioning of child witnesses because problems therein are particularly acute.     

Dual-route models of print to sound: Still a good horse race

Summary Dual-route models assume that pronunciations are generated along both a lexical route and a nonlexical route. The lexical route has been characterized as more automatic. Accordingly, if the naming task is paired with a concurrent task, then the nonlexical route should be more susceptible to interference than the lexical pathway. A relative slowing of the nonlexical route should eliminate the regularity effect obtained with low-frequency words while significantly enhancing the small frequency effect obtained with regular words. These predictions were confirmed. Exception words were actually named 39 ms faster under high load. The results are inconsistent with any straightforward application of single-route models.     

Race,socioeconomic status,and age: The social context of American masculinity

This article seeks to delineate the social context of American masculine attainment and identity. The effects of race, socioeconomic status, and age on masculine role perceptions are analyzed for a sample of Black middle-class men. Comparative data from previous research on a sample of Black working-class men are discussed. Comparisons are also made to the findings of a Psychology Today survey sample consisting primarily of middle-class White men. Data are analyzed to exemplify the importance of studying masculine roles within a framework that takes into account the relative social location of American men. Future research needs for the study of masculine role identity from a social structural perspective are discussed.This article was presented as a paper at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development conference on gender role research, Bethesda, Maryland, September 30–October 2, 1981. The author is grateful to Gloria Wolford for her assistance in preparing the mailing of the questionnaires and for coding the returned instruments for computer analysis. The author is also grateful to Roger Libby of the University of Massachusetts for his comments on an earlier draft of this article.     

Birth control practices and conservatism

This study examined the relationship of conservatism to reports of contraceptive usage, reasons for nonusage of a particular birth control method, and knowledge of birth control information. The never married high conservative subjects who were sexually experienced revealed that they had (a) a lower frequency of usage as well as a lower variety of contraceptive methods; (b) endorsed the beliefs that it was morally wrong and that it was unnatural to use a given birth control method significantly more often as reasons for not using contraceptive techniques; and (c) less knowledge of birth control methods than did low conservative subjects who were sexually experienced. Results were interpreted to support the notion that the fear of loss of control of one's impulses and hence the basis for conservative attitudes are determinants of contraceptive usage.     

Children’s spirituality and the practice of meditation in Irish primary schools

Abstract

This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the child’s experience of meditation in Irish primary schools and its impact on children’s spirituality. Using a phenomenological, hermeneutic, mystagogical methodology, it describes how children experience the practice of meditation, the benefits they consider they gain from it and the nature of its impact, if any, on their spirituality. Seventy children, aged 7 to 11, were interviewed. The study is original in that the interview protocol contained novel processes designed to elicit from children their experience, if any, of the transcendent in meditation and in its depth of analysis of the spiritual fruits of the practice. The study concludes that meditation does have the capacity to nourish the innate spirituality of the child. It offers a heuristic model outlining the key elements of the child’s experience of meditation, stresses the importance of personal spiritual experience and supports the introduction of meditation in primary schools.     

Meta-analysis of the relationship between risk perception and health behavior: the example of vaccination.

BACKGROUND: Risk perceptions are central to many health behavior theories. However, the relationship between risk perceptions and behavior, muddied by instances of inappropriate assessment and analysis, often looks weak. METHOD: A meta-analysis of eligible studies assessing the bivariate association between adult vaccination and perceived likelihood, susceptibility, or severity was conducted. RESULTS: Thirty-four studies met inclusion criteria (N = 15,988). Risk likelihood (pooled r = .26), susceptibility (pooled r = .24), and severity (pooled r = .16) significantly predicted vaccination behavior. The risk perception-behavior relationship was larger for studies that were prospective, had higher quality risk measures, or had unskewed risk or behavior measures. CONCLUSIONS: The consistent relationships between risk perceptions and behavior, larger than suggested by prior meta-analyses, suggest that risk perceptions are rightly placed as core concepts in theories of health behavior.