Rereading the Kripkean Intuition on Reference

Saul Kripke's thought experiments on the reference of proper names target the theory that the properties which identify a term's referent are the subject of an implicit agreement. Recently, survey versions of the experiments have been thought to show that intuitions about reference are culturally contingent. Proposing a revisionary interpretation, this article argues, first, that Kripke's Cicero/Feynman experiment reveals that every name user knows enough to be capable of identifying the same individual as the name's most informed users. Second, the article shows that Kripke's presentation of the Gödel/Jonah experiment is ambiguous with respect to the properties attributed to the referent. Disambiguated, the experiment fails to reveal that name users may be mistaken in every unique property they attribute. Since the experiment's ambiguity is replicated in survey presentations, cross‐cultural variation in survey response fails to show that intuitions about reference are culturally contingent.     

“My iPhone Changed My Life”: How Digital Technologies Can Enable Women’s Consumption of Online Sexually Explicit Materials

Digital technologies continue to change the ways women can access and consume sexual materials online, including pornography. Yet, limited research has considered the possibilities of digital technologies to enhance women’s access and consumption of online pornographic materials. In this paper, we use a cyberfeminist lens to examine women’s experiences consuming online sexually explicit materials, which most women defined as pornography including videos and images. In particular, we consider the ways women who identify as porn consumers can use digital technologies to enable and enhance their consumption of these pornographic materials. Drawing on qualitative, in-depth interviews with 11 women, our findings illustrate the ways women can use digital technologies to consume pornography online in ways that help them to fulfill their sexual needs, embrace and explore their sexual selves, connect in sexual relationships, and normalize their sexual desires.     

Reasons for Pornography Consumption: Associations with Gender,Psychological and Physical Sexual Satisfaction,and Attitudinal Impacts

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the associations among gender and reasons for pornography consumption as well as attitudinal impacts. One hundred and forty-three participants, ranging in age from 18 to 48 (M = 21.22), participated in an online study at a large, southwestern university. Seventy-six of these participants identified as current consumers of pornography and are the primary focus of the analyses. Findings indicate that regardless of gender, pornography is preferably consumed in a solitary fashion for masturbatory purposes with a perceived positive physical, but not psychological, sexual satisfying impact for the self as well as for the consuming partner. Further, regarding attitudinal impacts, current male consumers of pornography report significantly higher adversarial sexual beliefs, rape myth acceptance and sexual conservatism than do current female consumers of pornography. Discussion and future directions follow.     

West African Immigrant Perspectives on Female Genital Cutting: Experiences,Attitudes, and Implications for Mental Health Service Providers

This small pilot study analyzed the experiences of female genital cutting (FGC) among West African immigrants in New York City from three West African countries (the Gambia, Guinea, and Mali) with FGC prevalence rates of 76, 97, and 89%, respectively, among girls and women aged 15 to 49 years. Nine women participated in two focus group sessions. In the first group, five female participants ranged in age from18–20, and in the second, four participants ranged in age from 31 to 44. Focus group data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Despite the small sample size, the findings of this exploratory study highlight important aspects of immigrant women’s experiences regarding FGC and indicate the need for further exploration. Participants drew from personal experiences to discuss FGC and their views of the practice. Salient themes that emerged included the secretive and violent nature of the practice, the primacy of matriarchal decision-makers, the fear among immigrant mothers that their children would be subjected to FGC without their consent, and health care encounters in the USA. The findings of this study are considered in light of their implications for research, service provision, and policy.     

Validity of Adolescent and Parent Reports on the Six-Item ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-6) in Clinical Assessments of Adolescent Social Anxiety

Adolescents experiencing social anxiety often experience co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Yet, assessing for social anxiety poses challenges given the already time-consuming task of distinguishing social anxiety from other commonly co-occurring internalizing conditions (e.g., generalized anxiety, major depression). Assessors need short screening devices to identify socially anxious adolescents in need of intensive ADHD assessments. A six-item version of the ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-6) was originally developed to identify adults who likely meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD, but its psychometric properties have yet to be examined among adolescents. We tested the psychometric properties of the ASRS-6 when administered in clinical assessments for adolescent social anxiety. Eighty-nine 14–15 year old adolescents and their parents (67.4% female; 62.1% African American; 30 Clinic-Referred; 59 Community Control) completed the ASRS-6, measures of adolescent social anxiety and depressive symptoms, and parent-adolescent conflict. Adolescent self-reported and parent-reported ASRS-6 positively related with scores from established measures of social anxiety, depressive symptoms, and parent-adolescent conflict. Further, adolescent self-reported (but not parent-reported) ASRS-6 scores significantly discriminated adolescents on referral status. Adolescent self-reported (but not parent-reported) ASRS-6 scores incrementally predicted social anxiety over-and-above depressive symptoms, which commonly co-occur with social anxiety. Conversely, parent-reported (but not adolescent self-reported) ASRS-6 scores incrementally predicted parent-adolescent conflict over-and-above depressive symptoms, which commonly co-occur with conflict. When assessing adolescent ADHD symptoms, adolescents’ and parents’ reports meaningfully vary in their links to validity indicators. As such, among adolescents assessed for social anxiety, clinical assessments of adolescent ADHD symptoms should include both parent reports and adolescent self-reports.     

A comparison of procedures for unpairing conditioned reflexive motivating operations

This study compared the effectiveness of two procedures to reduce behavior evoked by a reflexive conditioned motivating operation (CMO‐R). Task demands were shown to evoke escape‐maintained problem behavior for 4 students with disabilities. Alternative communication responses were taught as an appropriate method to request escape and this treatment combined with extinction for problem behavior led to decreases in problem behavior for all students. A beeping timer was then arranged to temporally precede the task demand to create a CMO‐R that evoked communication responses. When data showed that the sound of the timer was functioning as a CMO‐R, two methods to reduce behavior evoked by a CMO‐R—extinction unpairing and noncontingent unpairing—were evaluated. Results indicated that noncontingent unpairing was an effective method to reduce the evocative effects of the CMO‐R. Extinction produced unsystematic effects across participants. Results are discussed in terms of abolishing CMOs and the implications of CMOs.