Local News Media Cultivation of Host Receptivity in Plainstown

This message‐system and cultivation analysis investigated the influence of local news on the host receptivity of native‐born “Plainstown” residents toward immigrants. The message‐system analysis revealed that regional television and newspaper immigration coverage was more pessimistic, while local newspaper immigration coverage was more optimistic. A cultivation analysis confirmed that attention to pessimistic coverage interacted with conversations about immigration to reduce host receptivity. This research contributes to the study of cross‐cultural adaptation by constructing and validating a measure of Y. Y. Kim's (2001) concept of host receptivity. By demonstrating that second‐order cultivation is the product of on‐line cognitive processes, this research provided additional validation of Shrum's (2004) online model of second‐order cultivation. Findings suggest that optimistic immigration news frames may facilitate host receptivity.     

Why does a girl become an unmarried mother?

Pastoral Psychology -     

Breathwork as a Therapeutic Modality: An Overview for Counselors

Using the breath as a vehicle for accessing psychological material is a topic rarely discussed in the counseling literature, despite the use of conscious engagement with the breath by many spiritual traditions for the purpose of personal transformation. This article describes 3 types of conscious breathing (circular breathing, conscious connected breathing, and fast and full breathing) and the use of therapeutic breathwork within the counseling process. The authors describe the many facets of the breathwork experience, provide a case study, and address clinical considerations when engaging in breathwork with clients.     

The visual control of aimed hand movements to stationary and moving targets.

The present study attempted to determine if during short-duration movements visual feedback can be processed in order to make adjustments to changes in the environment. The effect that varying the importance of monitoring target position has on the relative importance of vision of hand and vision of target (Carlton 1981a; Whiting and Cockerill 1974) was also examined. Subjects performed short- (150 ms) and longer-duration (330 ms) aimed hand movements under four visual feedback conditions (lights-on/lights-off by target-on/target-off) to stationary and moving targets. For the lights-off and target-off conditions, the lights and target, respectively, were extinguished 50 ms after movement initiation. For all moving-target conditions, the target started to move as the movement was initiated. Subjects were able to process visual information in 165 ms, as movement endpoints were biased in the direction of target motion for movements of this duration. Removing visual feedback 50 ms after movement initiation did not alter this finding. Subjects performed equally well with target and lights on or off, independent of whether the target remained stationary or moved. Presumably, during the first 50 ms of the movement subjects received sufficient visual information to aid in movement control.     

RELATIVISM AND ANTI-REALISM

I characterise a relativist account of truth as one according to which the truth value of a sentence can vary without its meaning changing. Relativism is to be contrasted with absolutism, which states that the truth values of sentences cannot change, so long as their meanings remain constant. I argue that absolutism follows from the realist account of meaning and truth conditions. According to realism, the meaning of a sentence consists in objective truth conditions and sentences are true if and only if certain objective conditions obtain. Relativism is a consequence of anti-realism. Anti-realists believe that the meanings of sentences consist in recognisable conditions and that sentences are true if and only if certain recognisable conditions obtain. I contrast the sorts of relativism which results from partial, empiricism-based anti-realisms, and global anti-realism, which is linked to a coherence theory of knowledge. I offer a few remarks on how global anti-realists can restrict the scope of their relativism.     

The Well-being of Salvadoran Refugees

Recently arrived and settled Salvadoran refugees and Anglo-Canadians in London, Ontario were compared with respect to psychological distress, quality of life, and life satisfaction. A matched sample of 60 participants in each group completed a demographic questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Inventory, a shortened version of the Quality of Life Questionnaire, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale in either English or Spanish. Significant group differences were obtained on measures of quality of life and life satisfaction, but not of psychological distress. The results are discussed in relation to findings with other refugee groups.