“If a girl doesn't say ‘no’…”: young men,rape and claims of ‘insufficient knowledge’

Most psychological theories of rape tend to stress factors internal to both rapists and their victims in accounting for the phenomenon. Unlike such theories, social psychological and feminist accounts have drawn attention to social and cultural factors as productive of rape, and have criticized psychological accounts on the grounds that they often serve, paradoxically, to cement pre‐existing ‘common‐sense’. In this paper we examine the ways in which young Australian men draw upon widely culturally shared accounts, or interpretative repertoires, of rape to exculpate rapists. In particular, we discuss the reliance placed on a ‘lay’ version of Tannen's 1992 ‘miscommunication model’ of (acquaintance) rape and detail the use of this account—the claim that rape is a consequence of men's ‘not knowing’—as a device to accomplish exculpation. Implications of our methods for capturing young people's understanding of sexual coercion, rape and consent, and for the design of ‘rape prevention’ programmes, are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Increasing CREB in the auditory thalamus enhances memory and generalization of auditory conditioned fear

Although the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) is essential for conditioned auditory fear memory, an emerging theme is that plasticity in multiple brain regions contributes to fear memory formation. The LA receives direct projections from the auditory thalamus, specifically the medial division of the medial geniculate nucleus (MGm) and adjacent posterior intralaminar nucleus (PIN). While traditionally viewed as a simple relay structure, mounting evidence implicates the thalamus in diverse cognitive processes. We investigated the role of plasticity in the MGm/PIN in auditory fear memory. First we found that auditory fear conditioning (but not control manipulations) increased the levels of activated CREB in both the MGm and PIN. Next, using viral vectors, we showed that exogenously increasing CREB in this region specifically enhanced formation of an auditory conditioned fear memory without affecting expression of an auditory fear memory, formation of a contextual fear memory, or basic auditory processing. Interestingly, mice with increased CREB levels in the MGm/PIN also showed broad auditory fear generalization (in contrast to control mice, they exhibited fear responses to tones of other frequencies). Together, these results implicate CREB-mediated plasticity in the MGm/PIN in both the formation and generalization of conditioned auditory fear memory. Not only do these findings refine our knowledge of the circuitry underlying fear memory but they also provide novel insights into the neural substrates that govern the degree to which acquired fear of a tone generalizes to other tones.     

Of doubting Thomas: The suppressed Christian tradition: An interview with Elaine Pagels

The 1945 discovery of ancient documents at Nag Hammadi in Egypt would have great significance for New Testament scholars. But it would take decades, and one woman, to unleash their meaning to the public. In the 1960s, Elaine Pagels was part of a team at Harvard University, studying the Nag Hammadi scrolls; in 1979 her slim bookThe Gnostic Gospels put the formerly suppressed writings of early Christians into the hands of ordinary people. The letters, gospels and poems from Nag Hammadi emerged from a community that had been condemned by the church fathers. They show a different set of beliefs about Jesus than were taught by the church. This radically different view of the crucifixion relates one of the central tenets of Gnosticism, that the material world is false, and that Jesus was not a human but a purely spiritual being, who only adapted himself to human perception. The church was not only concerned about Gnostic beliefs but also about heretical Christian practices, prompting this attack by an early church father, Tertullian in about the late 2nd century. Here follows an interview with Elaine Pagels, based on her new work,Beyond Belief, the Gospel of Thomas.     

The Growing-Block: just one thing after another?

In this article, we consider two independently appealing theories—the Growing-Block view and Humean Supervenience—and argue that at least one is false. The Growing-Block view is a theory about the nature of time. It says that (a) past and present things exist, while future things do not, and (b) the passage of time consists in new things coming into existence. Humean Supervenience is a theory about the nature of entities like laws, nomological possibility, counterfactuals, dispositions, causation, and chance. It says that none of these entities are fundamental, since if they were, this would entail the existence of irreducible necessary connections between matters of fact. Instead, these entities supervene on a fundamental, non-nomological ‘Humean mosaic’ of property instances at spacetime points. We will further explain and motivate the Growing-Block view and Humean Supervenience in Sects. 2 and 3, but first, we turn to our master argument.     

Prayer spaces in schools: a subversion of policy implementation?

Based on a major evaluation project, this article presents an emerging theme from research on the activities supported by Prayer Spaces in Schools, an organisation supporting ‘pop-up’ prayer spaces in schools across the UK and internationally. Evaluating the activities primarily in terms of their possible contribution to spiritual development, a number of important issues arose relating to policy on education and religion. This article focuses on how some engage with these prayer spaces as a way of reimagining and renegotiating educational policy. Based on data gathered from interviews with staff and students (aged 7–16) across seven schools in England, questionnaire responses from 555 students across 15 schools and feedback from two prayer spaces conferences, a hermeneutic approach is used to compare the interpretations of staff with those of students and the implicit positions of policy documents. This article explores various forms of policy implementation and how staff engagement with prayer spaces can be seen as a form of subversion, with staff tactically subverting policy implementation sometimes in order to promote the very intention of those policies – a form of what we refer to as subversive obedience.     

The Personal Disturbance Scale (sAD): normative data and latent structure in a large non-clinical sample

The Personal Disturbance Scale [sAD; Bedford & Foulds (1978) Delusions–Symptoms–States Inventory State of Anxiety and Depression. Windsor: NFER-Nelson] is widely used in diverse settings and yet there are unresolved issues concerning its psychometric properties and normative data for the English speaking version are limited. The sAD was administered to a large sample of the general adult population (N=758). Demographic variables (gender, age, years of education and occupational status) had only very modest influences on sAD scores. Tables are presented for conversion of raw scores on the Anxiety, Depression and Total scales to percentiles. The sAD scales possessed adequate convergent and discriminant validity, as demonstrated by their pattern of correlations with two other measures of depression and anxiety (the DASS and the HADS). Ten competing models of the latent structure of the sAD were derived from theoretical and empirical sources. These models were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. The best fitting model (CFI=0.96) had a tripartite structure, and consisted of a general factor of psychological distress/negative affectivity (all items loaded on this factor) plus orthogonal specific factors of anxiety and depression. Correlated errors specified according to previous empirical findings were permitted. The theoretical and practical implications of this latent structure are discussed.     

Filial belief and parent-child conflict

This study examines the relation between filial belief and the frequency, origins, and solutions to parent‐child conflict using an indigenous Chinese perspective. The Dual Filial Piety model is employed to categorize the four types of filial belief: nonfilial, authoritarian, reciprocal, and absolute. Questionnaires were completed by 773 junior and senior high school students from around Taiwan for the study. Results provided support for the indigenous Chinese notion that a child's filial beliefs relate to the level of parent‐child conflict. The results go beyond this common conception to highlight that filial beliefs may have a particular role in decreasing self‐centred but not inappropriate conflict between parents and children, and that reciprocal filial beliefs may have a more important role in decreasing conflict than authoritarian filial beliefs. Clear differences were identified in the reported origins of conflict (Demands Conflict with Desire. Unreasonable Behaviour, Demand Exceeds Ability, Role Conflict, Interparental Dispute. Immoral Demands) and solutions to conflict (self‐sacrifice, compromise, refraining, ego‐centred, escape) among the four filial types. Parent demands conflicting with the child's desire was the greatest source of conflict for each of the four filial types. Nonfilial types reported significantly more conflict than absolute types for four of the six origins of conflict examined. Low incidence of conflict may explain why the filial types did not differ for the remaining two origins. Overall, the four filial types reported self‐sacrifice as their least used solution to parent‐child conflict, and nonfilials reported significantly less use of this solution than the other three filial types. Absolutes and reciprocals reported significantly more use of refraining than the other two filial types. Results of this study provide the first empirical support for the Dual Filial Piety model and constitute a foundation for continued indigenous research on parent‐child relations in Chinese culture. It is expected that an indigenous theory of parent‐child relations incorporating the Dual Filial Piety model can eventually be integrated into a global psychology.     

General and Domain-Specific Effectiveness of Cognitive Remediation after Stroke: Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis

Cognitive remediation (CR) has been shown to improve cognitive abilities following a stroke. However, an updated quantitative literature review is needed to synthesize recent research and build understanding of factors that may optimize training parameters and treatment effects. Randomized controlled trials of CR were retrieved from seven electronic databases. Studies specific to adult stroke populations were included. Treatment effects were estimated using a random effects model, with immediate and longer-term follow-up outcomes, and moderator effects, examined for both overall and domain-specific functioning. Twenty-two studies were identified yielding 1098 patients (583 in CR groups). CR produced a small overall effect (g?=?0.48, 95% CI 0.35–0.60, p?<?0.01) compared with control conditions. This effect was moderated by recovery stage (p?<?0.01), study quality (p?=?0.04), and dose (p?=?0.04), but not CR approach (p?=?0.63). Significant small to medium (g?=?0.25–0.75) post-intervention gains were evident within each individual outcome domain examined. A small overall effect (g?=?0.27, 95% CI 0.04–0.51, p?=?0.02) of CR persisted at follow-up (range 2–52 weeks). CR is effective and efficient at improving cognitive performance after stroke. The degree of efficacy varies across cognitive domains, and further high-quality research is required to enhance and sustain the immediate effects. Increased emphasis on early intervention approaches, brain-behavior relationships, and evaluation of activity and participation outcomes is also recommended.