Addiction and Responsibility: A Survey of Opinions

ABSTRACT

This article reports the result of a survey about causal beliefs, normative conceptions and moral evaluations of addicts and addiction in the general population. Specifically, we focused on four issues: To what extent are the normative conceptions of addiction current in the philosophical and scientific literature reflected in laypersons' conception of addiction? How do laypersons rate addicts on perceived responsibility? Which factors influence laypersons' responsibility attributions in the context of addiction? What feelings and attitudes (anger/sympathy/help-giving intentions) do laypersons have toward addicts? We found that, although laypersons seem to assume a weakness view of addiction, their patterns of responsibility attributions vary depending on type of drugs combined with perceived severity of outcome, where the latter even overrides the attributional effects of the actor's perceived control over events. Some explanations of the data are suggested, and various consequences with respect to help-giving behavior, are discussed.     

CHALLENGES TO THE TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF HISTORY

Present knowledge of evolutionary history challenges traditional concepts of the Christian salvation history. In order to overcome these challenges, theology needs to articulate a wider, more open and more universal approach to the understanding of God's salvific action. One way of doing this is to employ the notion of “deep incarnation” suggested by Danish theologian Niels Henrik Gregersen. His suggestion may also blur the lines that mark a sharp distinction between the history of creation and the history of salvation, in a way that safeguards some of the basic tenets of classical theology.     

Walking Together,Serving Justice and Peace

As the World Council of Churches (WCC) marks its 70th anniversary, this article focuses on the challenges it faces in its commitment to work for the unity of the church and for common service and witness for justice and peace in the world. Looking back on the experiences in the Reformation year 2017, it argues that it is time for the fellowship of churches to be accountable for what it has achieved and received from ecumenical dialogue, and to grow together in mutual accountability. At the same time, the statement by the WCC's 10th Assembly at Busan that “We intend to move together” emphasizes that ecumenism is not a static reality, but dynamic, involving the cooperation of the various churches and in interaction with people of good will of other communities.     

How long does it last? Prior victimization from workplace bullying moderates the relationship between daily exposure to negative acts and subsequent depressed mood

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationships between daily exposure to negative acts and depressed mood on the same day and on the days following the exposure, and to test the hypothesis that these relationships would be stronger among those who have recently gone through a process of victimization from workplace bullying. The sample comprised 110 naval cadets participating in two different eleven-week tall ship voyages from Northern Europe to North America. Victimization from workplace bullying the last six months was measured one day prior to the voyages. Exposure to negative acts and depressed mood was measured daily during the first 33 consecutive days of the voyages. The results of multilevel modelling indicated that exposure to negative acts was related to higher levels of depressed mood on the same day as the exposure among all cadets, regardless of victimization status. However, exposure to negative acts predicted higher levels of depressed mood one and two days following the exposure among victims only. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Social and personal predictors of test anxiety among Norwegian secondary and postsecondary students

Social Psychology of Education - This study examined predictors of test anxiety in a sample of 2528 Norwegian upper-secondary and postsecondary students by means of structural equation modeling....     

Impaired auditory attention skills following middle-ear infections.

The present study investigated auditory attention skills in a sample of children with non-chronic otitis media with effusion (OME). Twenty children with repeated episodes of OME but not found in the need for myringotomy and insertion of ventilating tubes were compared to 20 control children with no known episodes of OME based on parental reports and medical records. Mean age during assessment was 9 years, and none of the children showed signs of impaired language functions and with normal general cognitive abilities. They were assessed with dichotic listening CV-syllables (DLCV-108) free recall and directed attention tasks. The control children showed the expected right ear advantage during free recall and the directed right condition, and demonstrated a shift toward a left ear advantage during the directed left. The children with a history of OME showed a predominant right ear advantage across all three tasks. Although some change in ear accuracy occurred across tasks, impaired auditory attention skills were found following a history of middle ear infections. These results replicate those reported earlier from a sample of children with persistent otitis media with effusion, and suggest that treatment with ventilating tubes does not appear to make any difference in the development of auditory attention skills, whereas occurrence of OME must be considered when testing auditory attentional skills as a part of a neuropsychological assessment.     

Confirmation and the ordinal equivalence thesis

Synthese - According to a widespread but implicit thesis in Bayesian confirmation theory, two confirmation measures are considered equivalent if they are ordinally equivalent—call this the...