Social cohesion predicts COVID-19 vaccination intentions and uptake

COVID-19 vaccination is widely regarded as an individual decision, resting upon individual characteristics and demographic factors. In this research, we provide evidence that psychological group membership, and more precisely, social cohesion—a multidimensional concept that encompasses one's sense of connectedness to, and interrelations within, a group—can help us understand COVID-19 vaccination intentions (Study 1) and uptake (Study 2). Study 1 is a repeated-measures study with a representative sample of 3026 Australians. We found evidence that social cohesion can be conceptualised as a multidimensional structure; moreover, social cohesion at Wave 1 (early in the COVID-19) predicted greater vaccination intention and lower perceived risk of vaccination at Wave 2 (4 months later). In Study 2 (a cross-sectional study, N = 499), the multidimensional structure of social cohesion was associated with greater uptake of vaccine doses (in addition to willingness to receive further doses and perceived risk of the vaccine). These relations were found after controlling for a series of demographic (i.e., sex, age, income), health-related factors (i.e., subjective health; perceived risk; having been diagnosed with COVID-19), and individual differences (political orientation, social dominance orientation, individualism). These results demonstrate the need to go beyond individual factors when it comes to behaviours that protect groups, and particularly when examining COVID-19 vaccination—one of the most important ways of slowing the spread of the virus.     

The organization of motivated and conditional reflex processes

Recent observations on the plasticity of brain and behavior relationships indicate that the temporary connections between environmental and neuroanatomical substrates have tremendous specificity but at the same time are very plastic. Establishment of a conditional reflex by stimulation of the hippocampal pyramidal layer and/or the mesencephalic reticular formation did not interfere with the differential stimulation of very near points in the same structures. These correlations between brain and behavior confirmed the earlier belief that the development of temporary connections between environment and brain is an elementary process of the central nervous system. Complex behavioral functions are organized through both neuronal and humoral afferentation. Data accumulated recently indicate that the descending forebrain influence is inhibitory in the brain stem and diencephalon and controls the sensory input in a somatomotor-specific and situation-specific manner. Humoral factors affecting thresholds can change the dynamic equilibrium existing between ascending excitatory and descending inhibitory systems; these alterations always follow the rule of situation and somatomotor specificity.     

Rachunek zdań, w którym wyrażenia tracą sens

Allatum est 3 Aprilis 1965     

A near-death experience among the Mapuche people

This paper describes a possible near-death experience (NDE) among the Mapuche people of Chile. The individual reporting the experience was in a cataleptic-like state for two days, the experience itself occurring at the end of this period. Some common features of NDEs, such as encounters with deceased people and being sent back, are present, together with clear evidence that past and present cultural environment shape in part the content of mental experiences.This work was funded in part by the University of Chile (DTI Project Q-3064).The author thanks Editorial Andrés Bello for permissionto translate the near death account into English.     

Psychotherapy with families of psychosomatic patients

Paradigmatic complexes in family psychotherapy have been indicating a revolutionary change and the creation of new paradigms for the past thirty years. Starting with the application of the general systems theory and the development of those concepts that have been emerging regarding psychosomatic illnesses we discuss the epistemological confusion created, the methodological problems and the dissociation between theory and practice. We suggest a double process of investigation of the family structure using a knowledge of the basic attitudes and the development of a psychotherapy programme within the family of the psychosomatic patient.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.