Zhuangzi and relativistic scepticism

Chad Hansen is one of the strongest proponents of the view that the important second chapter of Zhuangzi's Inner Chapters (The Qi Wu Lun) reveals Zhuangzi to be a relativistic sceptidst. Hansen argues that Zhuangzi is a sceptic because he is first and foremost a relativist. Hansen's argument is essentially that Zhuangzi's perspectivism, his belief that one's linguistic and conceptual perspective determines what one claims to know, makes him a thorough going relativist and sceptic. I agree that Zhuangzi is a perspectivist, but disagree with Hansen's portrayal of him as a relativistic sceptic. I first show that there is an important ambiguity in Hansen's argument. I then proceed to argue that important passages in the Qi Wu Lun (in particular the butterfly dream passage,) reveal serious problems with Hansen's interpretation of Zhuangzi's philosophical stance, I maintain that Zhuangzi is neither a sceptic nor a perspectival relativist. He is rather a perspectival realist.     

Towards an Interactive Acculturation Model: A Social Psychological Approach

The first part of this paper proposes a continuum of ideological premises that seeks to account for the broad range of immigrant integration policies adopted by Western democratic states. In the second part, a review of Social Psychological models of immigrant acculturation strategies demonstrates the need to explain more clearly the interactive nature of immigrant and host community relations. The Interactive Acculturation Model (IAM) presented next proposes that relational outcomes are the product of the acculturation orientations of both the host majority and immigrant groups as influenced by state integration policies. The model makes predictions regarding the acculturation combinations most likely to produce consensual, problematic, and conflictual relational outcomes between immigrants and members of the host community. Social psychological research is needed to test the validity of the IAM model empirically.     

Spiritual journeys in aging: A buddhist view

The spiritual journey of a Buddhist devotee is a continual exploration of the truth of interdependence which Siddhartha Gautama realized to become the Buddha, “the Enlightened One.” On the morning of the enlightenment, the Buddha apprehended the truth that all things and all beings are interconnected and mutually dependent in time and space. One measure of the spiritual maturity of the Buddhist devotee is his or her appreciation for the profound responsibilities and gratitude we share for all things. To illustrate the significance of interdependence in our lives, the author turns to the wisdom contained inVital Involvement in Old Age by Erik and Joan Erikson and Helen Q. Kivnick.     

ADULTS LISTEN SELECTIVELY; INFANTS DO NOT

Abstract— Infants' auditory detection thresholds are higher than adult thresh olds. Since adults listen selectively for an expected test tone frequency, and selective listening improves their detection performance, one hypothesis about why infant thresholds are high is that infants do not listen selectively. This hypothesis was tested by obtaining listening bands from adults and from 7- to 9-month-old infants. The results replicate earlier findings that adults listen selectively but indicate that infants do not. Lack of selective listening likely contributes to infants' high thresholds. Further, the finding that infants and adults have different listening strategies has implications for infants' auditory perception in general.     

The temporal selectivity of additive factor effects on the reaction process revealed in ERP component latencies

An experiment was conducted to relate individual components of the event-related brain potential to specific stages of information processing in a two-choice reaction time (RT) task in a group of undergraduate students. Specifically, the latency of the P300 component and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) were studied as a function of variations in stimulus degradation and response complexity. It was hypothesized that degrading the stimulus would delay the P300 and LRP to the same extent as RT, and that increasing response complexity would affect RT but not P300 latency. The extant literature did not permit any hypothesis regarding the effect of response complexity on LRP latency. The two task variables were found to have additive effects on RT. As predicted, variations in stimulus degradation influenced the latencies of both components, whereas alterations in response complexity had no effect on P300 latency. A significant new finding was that the onset latency of the LRP remained unchanged across levels of response complexity. The overall pattern of results supports the notion of temporal selectivity of stage manipulations that is derived from discrete stage models of human information processing. Furthermore, these results refine the functional interpretation of the LRP by indicating that within the conceptual framework of a stage model the processes this component indexes succeed the start of response choice but precede the start of motor programming.     

Victim-Blaming and Society-Blaming Scales for Social Problems

Until now, no general scales have been available for measuring victim or society blaming. This constraint has been an impediment to policymaking with regard to those who are affected by social problems. Four scales were constructed: stable victim-blaming scale, unstable victim-blaming scale, stable society-blaming scale, and unstable society-blaming scale. Based on the results of the preliminary exploratory factor analysis and the reliability coefficients, the unstable society-blaming scale was deleted from further analysis. Then, a confirmatory factor analysis using the LISREL 7 program was conducted to evaluate the parameter estimates of the scale items and examine the construct validity of the 3 scales. The scales were judged to have construct validity with satisfactory reliability.     

The Career Satisfaction of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Members

Members of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision completed a questionnaire on career satisfaction. A majority reported being quite satisfied with their careers. Most experienced only occasional burnout, and over half perceived their career stress as no greater than moderate.     

The retention of nouns,adjectives, and verbs of sentences

This research compared the retention of nouns, adjectives and verbs of sentences. A model of the structure underlying the retention of sentences and in which deep structure constituent propositions are hierarchically related, was used to make predictions concerning the retention of these word classes. The model was not supported by the data and it was determined that latencies to recognize the words of a previously presented sentence were the same for all classes of words. This result indicated that for recognition (but not necessarily for other memory tasks), each word of a sentence is seperately or equally accessible (as long as inter-word imagery is the same). However, a further experiment showed that, although word class is not a variable, the image-arousing capacity of a word is. Latencies and error rates were much lower for high-imagery words than for low-imagery ones. The findings on error rates in recognizing words were interesting and pointed to a different model where the meaning representations and syntatic functions of words have an active role in sentence retention.