Classification of situations specific to field and behaviour: The context of aggressive interactions in schools

Based on a social psychological concept of aggression, in which the processes of definition and judgement of acts of behaviour are credited with central meaning, the situational context of aggressive interactions was systematized for a specific field (school). It is assumed that the particular circumstances of a situation provide information for the interpretation of a particular action, and that this interpretation varies depending on these circumstances. In the following study, norm deviation, intent and injury, are used as central criteria for judging on action as aggressive in order to establish a taxonomy of social situations, presented as verbal scenarios, that is both field-and behaviour-specific. 686 school children aged between 13 and 19 years participated in this study. By using a multivariate analysis procedure, groups of situations were identified in which similar judgements of a particular action emerged. Both typical judgement patterns and corresponding situation characteristics were used in the interpretation of the resulting situation taxonomy.     

Social-consensual conceptions concerning the progress of aggressive interactions

The present study investigated social consensual conceptions concerning the appropriateness relation between an initiative aggressive action and the reaction to it. To this end subjects were asked to choose between four configurations of mediatory information between B's initial act and A's reaction (i.e. ‘A's offence at B's behaviour’, ‘inappropriateness of B's behaviour’, ‘A's personal standards’, ‘A's fear of negative consequences’), so as to combine identical initial acts with incompatible reactions (i.e. ‘escalation’, ‘breaking’ of, and ‘compensation’) into meaningful episodes. The statistical procedure used, configural frequency analysis, shows that as compared with the number of theoretically possible configurations, very few were selected by subjects (with a high degree of unanimaty) as being specific to a particular type of reaction. Apparently subjects have definite and uniform conceptions about the appropriateness of incompatible reactions to certain aggressive actions in interpersonal conflicts.     

Dreaming,religion, and health

Summary Dreaming has been presented as a universal human phenomenon. Ancient as contrasted with modern peoples have viewed the dream as a mysterious, powerful, yet comprehensible experience within the context of their theological world view. After hypothesizing that our contemporary state of alienation and fragmentation is related to our tendency to dichotomize experience into real and unreal, I reviewed psychoanalytic and depth psychological approaches to dreaming, concluding that an ego-analytic-depth approach is most compatible with theological perspectives. Following a review of empirical dream research supporting the hypothesis that dream process is related to health, I presented a structural model linking six ego and theologically analogous constructs: integration-creation, synthesis-dependence, selection-choice, cognitionincarnation, regulation-redemption, and anticipation-eschatology. Finally, I presented a patient's dream, suggesting how the model might be applied for a more comprehensive view of the dreaming process.This article is a revised version of a series of lectures presented as part of a Nursing Education Workshop on Using Dreams with Patients at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976–1977.     

Toward an understanding of the obese person

Attitudes, feelings, and family backgrounds of seven very obese women were studied by means of a religious history questionnaire. Some comments are made about this research tool. Three very prominent characteristics of these women were feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, a craving for love, and strong guilt feelings. A possible psychogenic factor in morbid obestity was observed in the backgrounds of five women; pertinent information on the other two was lacking. This factor is a dual dynamic of harshness and indulgence. The onset of obesity seemed to occur when indulgence became the dominating influence over harshness.     

The usefulness of economic analyses for policy support in health care

In the Netherlands economic analysis of medical technologies is increasingly recognized and used as an instrument for policy-making on different policy-levels in health care. This is mainly due to the introduction of a specific kind of medical technology assessment research, the so-called “investigative medicine.” In this type of health-care research the consequences (medical and quality of life) and the costs of a certain medical technology are usually simultaneously evaluated. Two characteristics of investigative medicine are discussed in the paper: the principle that research grants in this field are assigned to grant holders at University Hospitals and that the evaluation is often executed by means of economic analyses such as costeffectiveness analysis. He was engaged in forecasting research, manpower research and is currently involved in evaluative economic research in the field of health care. At the moment his main research activities concentrate on (computer) support of organizational change.     

Sin,Evil and Job: Monotheism as a psychological and pastoral problem

The Book of Job, as interpreted by Jung and Capps, reveals that evil exists in creation and has its source in God. Evil is the inevitable result of God choosing to be subject to logical norms in order to avoid a chaotic world. However, according to religious tradition, the good in God outweighs the evil, which is why believers in God go to God for help even when God seems to inflict suffering upon them.This paper arose from the course Personal Sin and Social Evil taught by Donald Capps and Richard K. Fenn at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1992.     

Editorial Introduction

I survey some important semantical and axiomatic theories of self-referential truth. Kripke's fixed-point theory, the revision theory of truth and appraoches involving fuzzy logic are the main examples of semantical theories. I look at axiomatic theories devised by Cantini, Feferman, Freidman and Sheard. Finally some applications of the theory of self-referential truth are considered.     

Inhibiting Facial Expressions: Limitations to the Voluntary Control of Facial Expressions of Emotion

Recently, A. J. Fridlund (e.g., 1994) and others suggested that facial expressions of emotion are not linked to emotion and can be completely accounted for by social motivation. To clarify the influence of social motivation on the production of facial displays, we created an explicit motivation by using facial inhibition instructions. While facial electromyographic activity was recorded at three sites, participants saw humorous video stimuli in two conditions (inhibition, spontaneous) and neutral stimuli in a spontaneous condition. Participants showed significantly more EMG activity in the cheek region and less EMG activity in the brow region when they tried to completely inhibit amused expressions as compared with the neutral control task. Our results suggest that explicit motivation in the sense of voluntary control is not sufficient to mask the effects of spontaneous facial activation linked to humorous stimuli.