The danger of Durkheim: Ambiguity in the theory of social effervescence

The purpose of this article is to shed light on an ambiguity in Émile Durkheim's theory of social effervescence. Durkheim's failure to distinguish two kinds of effervescence at the heart of the religious rite has left a dangerous legacy in the study of religion. If his work is read, however, in light of René Girard's theory of the violent origins of religion, his analysis of la société can retain the distinction between the effervescence of the crowd in scapegoating and the effervescence of protecting the victims of scapegoating. This thesis is tested by briefly comparing some contemporary essays on Durkheim.     

What's so funny about not having money? The effects of power on laughter

Two studies tested the hypothesis that occupying a position of low power increases the likelihood of laughter, presumably as a means of gaining friends and supporters. In Study 1, participants laughed more at an interviewer's jokes when the interviewer controlled their cash rewards than in the absence of monetary contingencies. Study 2 found that low-power participants (manipulated again by expecting that someone else would decide their cash rewards) laughed more than high-power participants even when they were alone. Low power also increased laughing at a fellow low-power coworker. These findings suggest that low power motivates interest in making friends and hence increases behaviors that promote social bonding.     

Process philosophy of religion

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Effects of depression on expectancy in sustained attention

The effects of expectancies generated during a pretest on the subsequent vigilance performance of depressed and nondepressed observers were assessed. Among the nondepressed, those who were exposed to a high signal probability during the pretest detected more signals in the main watch than those exposed to a low pretest probability, regardless of the signal probability in the vigil itself (high or low). This expectancy effect was not evident among the depressed. The vigilance decrement in both subject categories was steeper under conditions of low as compared to high test probability. These results indicate that depressed monitors do not demonstrate a deficit in attentional capacity. It is suggested that the nonperseveration of pretest expectancies among the depressed may stem from a lack of motivation to effortfully process information in the same manner as nondepressed observers.The authors would like to thank Mark Scerbo and Tom Lanzetta for their technical assistance.     

A comparative study of the impact of education vs. process groups for families of patients with affective disorders

This clinical project compares the relative impact of two types of multiple family groups on psychiatric inpatients and their families. Forty patients with a diagnosis of affective disorder, and their family members, were randomly assigned to a traditional multiple family group with a process orientation that emphasized support, destigmatization, and self-help about common problems; or to a psychoeducational multiple family group that emphasized the provision of information about the patient's illness and methods of coping with it effectively. Both groups, which met for four hours on a Saturday afternoon, were an integral part of an ongoing inpatient program specializing in the treatment of affective disorders. Pre- and post-measures were obtained regarding family and patient knowledge about affective disorders, level of personal distress, attitudes about the illness, and dyadic adjustment. In addition, both patients and family members were asked to rate their satisfaction with the group experience. A number of differences in knowledge, attitude and dyadic adjustment were found in the participants of both groups immediately following their respective group sessions, but there were only a few statistically significant differences between the two groups. Those who attended the psychoeducational session, however, reported significantly more satisfaction with the experience.     

Prosodic Effects in Minimal Attachment

This experiment explores the role of prosodic cues in resolving temporary morphosyntactic ambiguities in spoken language comprehension. Using a cross-modal naming task, we find that prosodic cues are as effective as overt lexical cues in controlling how the listener resolves attachment ambiguities. This suggests that prosodic factors can affect the early stages of parsing and interpretation.