Exploring everyday experiences of cultural diversity: The construction,validation, and application of the normative multiculturalism scale

The 3-factor structure of the Normative Multiculturalism Scale (NMS)—Contact with Diversity (CD), Multicultural Ideology (MI), and Multicultural Policies and Practices (MPP)—was tested and confirmed with community samples from New Zealand (N = 381) and the United States (N = 311). Correlations with criterion measures (e.g., perceived minority disadvantage and attitudes to diversity) supported the criterion validity of the subscales. NMS factors were then examined as predictors of social connectedness in a British community sample (N = 347). Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that MI predicted general trust, and MI and MPP predicted national attachment. While MPP was associated with greater perceived threat, this relationship was dampened by the joint influences of MI and CD. The research presents a novel perspective on multiculturalism by adopting a normative approach and examining the main and interaction effects of contact with diversity, multicultural ideology, and multicultural policies on interpersonal and intergroup outcomes.     

Relations between dynamics of parent-infant interactions and baseline EEG functional connectivity

Parent-infant interactions are one of the most critical and enduring aspects of infants’ experience. Qualities of parent-infant interactions are related to social-emotional and cognitive developmental outcomes, yet how parent-infant interactions shape the functional organization of the brain is only beginning to be understood. Functional connectivity provides information about how brain regions communicate. Patterns of functional connectivity, thus far understudied in infants, have emerged as markers of abnormalities in the organization of the brain in at-risk infants as well as individuals with neurodevelopmetnal and neurodegenerative disorders. The current study sought to inform our understanding of relations between qualities of parent-infant interactions and functional connectivity. We report relations between responsiveness, reciprocity, and emotional tone and functional connectivity in theta, alpha, beta, and gamma in infants ranging from 6 to 11 month of age (N = 51). Results showed frontal-posterior connectivity in theta was inversely related to all three dimensions of parent-infant interactions. Gamma and alpha connectivity were positively associated with responsiveness and emotional tone, respectively. Results are discussed in the context of the experience-dependent nature of brain development, emphasizing how parent-infant interactions might be leveraged to structure early organization of the brain to foster healthy social-emotional and cognitive developmental outcomes.     

Deliberative Discourse Idealized and Realized: Accountable Talk in the Classroom and in Civic Life

Classroom discussion practices that can lead to reasoned participation by all students are presented and described by the authors. Their research emphasizes the careful orchestration of talk and tasks in academic learning. Parallels are drawn to the philosophical work on deliberative discourse and the fundamental goal of equipping all students to participate in academically productive talk. These practices, termed Accountable Talk^SM, emphasize the forms and norms of discourse that support and promote equity and access to rigorous academic learning. They have been shown to result in academic achievement for diverse populations of students. The authors outline Accountable Talk as encompassing three broad dimensions: one, accountability to the learning community, in which participants listen to and build their contributions in response to those of others; two, accountability to accepted standards of reasoning, talk that emphasizes logical connections and the drawing of reasonable conclusions; and, three, accountability to knowledge, talk that is based explicitly on facts, written texts, or other public information. With more than fifteen years research into Accountable Talk applications across a wide range of classrooms and grade levels, the authors detail the challenges and limitations of contexts in which discourse norms are not shared by all members of the classroom community.

La représentation des causes de l’état de santé par les infirmiers et les points de vue envisagés des patients et des aidants naturels : une approche socionormative

This study examines the representation of the determining factors of patients’ states of health in therapeutic care situations. We describe the average representation of experienced hospital nurses (n=44) and the differences which they consider to exist between their own and their patients’ points of view. Taking as our starting point the purpose of the care provided and the asymmetry of the carer/patient relationship, we hypothesize, on the one hand, that nurses will have a representation of their patients’ state of health which is based on the care to be provided, with the factors determining the state of health being necessarily perceived as having a general impact on patients’ lives while still being remediable, i.e. capable of changing and being controlled by the provided care. On the other hand, we expect them to attribute a passive position and attitude to their patients, with the factors determining their state of health being necessarily perceived as being out of their own control. The results and the analysis of the representations reported as being those of the patients and their families seem to justify this perception and role of carer: the supposed representations of the latter would appear to be convergent but less focused on health problems and would tend to minimize the patient’s involvement, in particular when the state of health declines. The results are discussed with reference to the Health Belief Model and the social norm of internality as well as the professional practices observed in hospital environments.     

中文音素言语流畅性任务的近红外脑功能成像研究

本文使用近红外脑功能成像技术探测正常被试在中文音素言语流畅性任务时的脑激活模式,34名右利手大学生被试参加了实验,实验任务为音素言语流畅性任务,采用近红外脑功能成像仪检测被试额颞区在任务时的激活情况,结果发现该任务激活了大脑双侧的额颞区,双侧缘上回的激活可能为中文音素言语流畅性任务的语言特异性激活脑区,该研究为临床诊断提供了参考价值,并说明了近红外脑功能成像仪可用于中文言语流畅性任务的研究     

自我控制可以抵御不良示范性规范对初中生环保行为的影响吗?

本研究检验不良示范性规范对初中生环保行为的影响是否受其自我控制的调节。研究1通过假设情境操纵示范性规范,测量初中生的自我控制能力和环保意愿;研究2在实验室情境下同时操纵示范性规范和初中生的自我控制状态,并测量其环保行为。结果表明,不良示范性规范显著降低初中生的环保意愿及环保行为;特质性和状态性自我控制水平越高,初中生的环保意愿就越高,其环保行为也越多;更重要的是,自我控制并不能有效抵御不良示范性规范对初中生环保意愿和环保行为的消极影响。     

Permission from an Input/Output Perspective

Input/output logics are abstract structures designed to represent conditional obligations and goals. In this paper we use them to study conditional permission. This perspective provides a clear separation of the familiar notion of negative permission from the more elusive one of positive permission. Moreover, it reveals that there are at least two kinds of positive permission. Although indistinguishable in the unconditional case, they are quite different in conditional contexts. One of them, which we call static positive permission, guides the citizen and law enforcement authorities in the assessment of specific actions under current norms, and it behaves like a weakened obligation. Another, which we call dynamic positive permission, guides the legislator. It describes the limits on the prohibitions that may be introduced into a code, and under suitable conditions behaves like a strengthened negative permission.     

A Coherentist Theory of Normative Authority

What makes an ``ought'' claim authoritative? What makes aparticular norm genuinely reason-giving for an agent? This paper arguesthat normative authority can best be accounted for in terms of thejustification of norms. The main obstacle to such a theory, however, isa regress problem. The worry is that every attempt to offer ajustification for an ``ought'' claim must appeal to another ``ought''claim, ad infinitum. The paper argues that vicious regress canbe avoided in practical reasoning in the same way coherentists avoid theproblem in epistemology. Norms are justified by their coherence withother norms.     

Bioethics policies and the compass of common morality

Even if there is a common morality, many would argue that it provides little guidance in resolving moral disputes, because universally accepted norms are both general in content and few in number. However, if we supplement common morality with commonly accepted factual beliefs and culture-specific norms and utilize coherentist reasoning, we can limit the range of acceptable answers to disputed issues. Moreover, in the arena of public policy, where one must take into account both legal and moral norms, the constraints on acceptable answers will narrow the extent of reasonable disagreement even further. A consideration of the debate over legalization of assisted dying supports this claim.

Functional role theories of representation and content explanation: with a case study from spatial cognition

The aim of this paper is to show that the widespread opinion, according to which functional role theories of representation fail to account for content explanations of human and animal behaviour, cannot be confirmed with respect to each type of functional role theory. Functional resemblance theories (as referred to by O’Brien and Opie in Representation in mind, Elsevier, 2004) allow for content explanations of successfully performed cognitive abilities as much as for explanations of systematic errors resulting from misrepresentation. How functional roles do their explanatory work in actual scientific research examples is shown by a detailed exploration of model assumptions about homing performances based on path integration mechanisms in humans and animals.