Marx,technocracy, and the corporatist ethos

Communism, in Marx' mind, did not mean simple liberation, but the economics of liberation. The realm of necessity (technē) was to become the primary field for emancipation (praxis), the latter taking form in new institutions, responsive to real socio-economic needs. In this sense, the problem of technocracy and the corporatist ethos in Marx are part of a broader discursive structure, which links the experiences of workers through the industrial revolution with the philosophies ofpraxis as they reach from Hegel through Marković.     

Logical pragmatism and dialectical materialism: The beginning of dialogue

A philosophical movement, correctly called logical pragmatism, is growing up around the philosophy of W. V. O. Quine, Soviet scholars follow this development with clear and well-grounded understanding of the origins and tenets of the system. This essay continues the dialogue between contemporary Marxism-Leninism and logical pragmatism recommended by Soviet scholars.A Russian translation of this article is being published inFilosofskie nauki (Moscow).     

Plekhanov on the role of the individual in history

This essay critically assesses Plekhanov's famous article on the role of the individual in history. Part I explicates his treatment of the problem of free will and determinism and argues that it is unsatisfactory. The whole issue, however, is held to be largely irrelevant to Marxism. Part II then turns to the question of the explanatory weight given to individual action by historical materialism. Plekhanov's discussion of this issue is more insightful, and the essay endeavors to distinguish between the strong and weak points of his analysis in order to lay the foundations for a more adequate handling of the subject.     

A longitudinal study of the psychosocial impact of stroke on primary support persons

We investigated longitudinally the effects of a stroke on the social support systems and well-being of the patient's primary support person, both acutely and as the condition stabilized. Individuals who had suffered a first stroke and a primary support person participated in two waves of data collection, carried out in 6-month intervals beginning 7 weeks after the stroke. Our data show that the prevalence of depressive symptoms is from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 times higher than rates found among representative samples of middle-aged and elderly populations. Mean level of depression did not change over time, although level of optimism declined significantly. Multiple regression analyses showed that levels of depression and perceived burden in support persons are highly related to aspects of the stroke such as its severity, and that demographic variables such as age and income play a relatively minor role in attenuating these relations in the acute adjustment phase. However, from 7 to 9 months after the stroke, well-established demographic variables such as health, income, and age were significant predictors of depression. Individuals who were older and who had good health and higher incomes were least depressed.     

Factor invariance of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory

Several factor analyses of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) have resulted in very similar solutions. Interpretation of this consistency is hampered by the fact that the 20 scales of the inventory share items. Overlapping items cause the scales to be linearly dependent and may create structure in the interscale correlation matrix which is separate from the subject response patterns. A factor analysis was performed on the matrix of item-overlap coefficients which describes the underlying artifactual structure of the instrument. Data from two new subject samples were factor analyzed and compared to previously published studies. Similarity coefficients among factors across studies were calculated.     

A content analysis of the conversational behavior of accepted and rejected children

The present study was designed to assess whether the conversational behavior of children separated into accepted, rejected, and mixed-status dyads differed along the dimensions of listening to, paying attention to, and indicating interest in their dyadic partner. Conversations of 40 third-grade dyads were analyzed as they occurred in a 2- min waiting period and a 4- min conversation period. Seventeen categories of verbal behaviors that indexed these dimensions were used as content codes. Multivariate analyses of variance performed on the observational data yielded significant main effects for status, sex, and experimental condition. Results are interpreted in terms of previous social skills research, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Many stimuli are frightening,but some are more frightening than others: The contributions of preparedness,dangerousness, and unpredictability to making a stimulus fearful

The nonrandom distribution of situational fears has been explained by evolutionary survival relevance of specific fears. Thirty-eight stimuli were taken from the literature on preparedness and were scored on fearfulness, objective dangerousness, and spatiotemporal unpredictability by three separate groups of students. The same items were scored on survival relevance by 15 biologists. Fearfulness of cues significantly correlated not only with survival relevance but also, and even more strongly, with dangerousness and unpredictability. While the fear/survival relevance association virtually disappeared when the unpredictability contribution was partialed out, the fear/unpredictability correlation was only marginally affected when controlling for survival relevance. This suggests that nonrandomness of feared stimuli may result from the spatiotemporal unpredictability that is attributed to these stimuli. The current practice of using snakes and spiders as phobia-relevant, and flowers and mushrooms as neutral, cues was not justified by the ratings of the 15 independent experts.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon, 560-268-001).