Potential performance theory (PPT): a general theory of task performance applied to morality

People can use a variety of different strategies to perform tasks and these strategies all have two characteristics in common. First, they can be evaluated in comparison with either an absolute or a relative standard. Second, they can be used at varying levels of consistency. In the present article, the authors develop a general theory of task performance called potential performance theory (PPT) that distinguishes between observed scores and true scores that are corrected for inconsistency (i.e., potential scores). In addition, they argue that any kind of improvement to task performance, whatever it may be, works by influencing either task strategies, which comprise all nonrandom components that are relevant to the task, or the consistency with which strategies are used. In the current study, PPT is used to demonstrate how task strategies and the consistencies with which they are used impact actual performance in the domain of morality. These conclusions are extended to other domains of task performance.     

全球生命伦理学:共识的瓦解(上)——对全球性道德的探求:生命伦理学,文化战争和道德多样性

探究道德差异的核心问题以及哪种道德意见被我们采纳,比如为了建立医疗保健伦理模式与决策方法比较传统与后传统、家族本位与个人本位之间的关系。考虑到以道德多元化定义当代人类处境,关于卫生保健政策和生命法则的反思是明智的。这个反思强调了俗世伦理学的道德多元化和为对自由和责任进行俗世化思考的结论之间分歧的意义。     

The book of Job as a resource for counseling

The book of Job is commonly considered an exemplary study in the dynamics of suffering and the problem of theodicy. This article considers the book of Job for its insights into the challenge of providing pastoral care to persons in spiritual pain. The dialog between Job and his friends illustrates how spiritual distress challenges the theological assumptions of both sufferer and caregiver. In an effort to maintain one's own spiritual equilibrium, and no doubt out of good faith efforts to comfort the afflicted, the pastoral caregiver may be tempted to cling to theological formulas and religious perspectives which disallow the sufferer's experience of anger and despair. The story of Job affirms the value of authenticity over piety, speaks of the transformative power of suffering, and provides the counselor/pastoral caregiver insights into the pitfalls and promise of caring for persons in spiritual pain.     

A critical review of postfeminist sensibility

This paper critically reviews how feminist academic psychologists, social scientists, and media scholars have developed Rosalind Gill's generative construct “postfeminist sensibility.” We describe the key themes of postfeminist sensibility, a noncoherent set of ideas about femininity, embodiment, and empowerment circulating across a range of media. Ideas that inform women's sense of self, making postfeminist sensibility an important object for psychological study. We then consider research that drew on postfeminist sensibility, focusing on new sexual subjectivities, which developed analysis of agency, empowerment, and the possibilities and limitations in taking up new subjectivities associated with postfeminism, as well as who could take up these subjectivities. We show how such work identified complexities and contradictions in postfeminist sensibility and offer suggestions for how this work might be further developed, particularly by intersectionality‐informed research. In the final section, we address contemporary debates surrounding postfeminism. We consider challenges and counterarguments to postfeminist sensibility as a useful term for describing contemporary patterns of sense‐making on gender, making the case for continuing research on postfeminist sensibility in the areas of digital cultures, a transformative imperative that includes the mind as well as the body, transnational postfeminism, and new forms of feminist activism. We conclude that such work would benefit from considering the ways that different technologies mediate the ideas and practices associated with postfeminist sensibility.     

Ethnophaulisms and exclusion: the behavioral consequences of cognitive representation of ethnic immigrant groups

Ethnophaulisms are the words used as slurs to refer to ethnic immigrant outgroups. This article explores the effects of these cognitive representations of ethnic immigrant groups on exclusion behavior directed toward these immigrant groups. Using archival data spanning a 150-year period of American history, the results of these analyses provide a sobering picture of the effects of the cognitive representation of immigrants: a century and a half of thinking about ethnic immigrant groups in a simplistic and negative manner and a corresponding tendency to exclude those immigrant groups from the receiving society. The implications of these results for theoretical approaches to intergroup relations are considered.     

Beyond "healthy eating" and "healthy weights": harassment and the health curriculum in middle schools

In this paper we use data from interviews conducted with grades 7 and 8 girls to explore connections between body-based harassment and girls’ body modification practices. We discuss how the elementary health curricula fail to consider harassment and other cultural factors that influence the body modification practices and eating patterns of diverse girls. More specifically, we argue that the “healthy eating, healthy weights” approach of the grades 7 and 8 Ontario health curriculum has five limitations: (1) it sends contradictory messages; (2) it increases anxieties about body weight; (3) it ignores the multiple causes of eating problems; (4) it marginalizes issues most relevant to racialized girls; and (5) it ignores dilemmas associated with physical development. We conclude with suggestions for developing a curriculum on body dissatisfaction and eating disorders prevention that considers the various socio-cultural factors influencing the range of body monitoring and modifying practices taken up by girls.     

Distinguishing intellectual humility and general humility

Two studies provide evidence for distinguishing intellectual humility (IH) from general humility (GH). Humility involves (a) an Accurate View of Self and (b) the ability to regulate egotism and cultivate an other-oriented stance; IH is a subdomain of humility that involves (a) having an accurate view of one’s intellectual strengths and limitations and (b) the ability to negotiate ideas in a fair and inoffensive manner. First, we present a theoretical framework for distinguishing these constructs. In Study 1, with a sample of undergraduate students (N = 1097), we used confirmatory factor analysis to provide empirical evidence for this distinction. We also found that IH predicted unique variance in openness to experience relative to GH. In Study 2, we examined additional evidence of discriminant validity with another sample of college students (N = 355). IH also predicted unique variance in need for cognition, objectivism, and religious ethnocentrism relative to GH.