Interpreting President Barack Obama's Facial Displays of Emotion: Revisiting the Dartmouth Group

Charismatic presidents like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and now Barack Obama have been able to overcome stereotype‐based barriers to political power by connecting emotionally with viewers, particularly through their nonverbal skills. In this study we focus on the facial displays of emotion by President Obama and how participants interpret them. This study builds upon the pioneering research of the Dartmouth Group concerning response to displays of happiness‐reassurance by political leaders. It will first replicate and extend upon existing research by using Ekman and Friesen's Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to characterize facial displays by President Obama, specifically three neutral displays and three different types of smiles. Second, this study replicates research carried out over two decades ago concerning individual differences in sex, ethnicity, and age cohort on response to political candidates culturally defined as Black. Video focusing on the head and torso were FACS coded and presented in a web‐based experiment to 79 participants working at a southern institution of higher education. The participants identified the emotions felt by President Obama on a scale ranging from “not at all” to “extremely” focusing on the basic emotion terms of: “Happy” and “Playful” (happiness‐reassurance) and “Angry” and “Disgusted” (anger‐threat). Findings suggest participants differentiate between subtle facial‐display differences and that there are differences based upon ethnicity and support for President Obama when they interpret his facial displays of emotion.     

An Activities Approach to the Treatment of Mentally Retarded Clients in an Acute Care Psychiatric Hospital

This article describes therapeutic activities offered in an occupational therapy treatment program for mentally retarded patients in an acute-care hospital facility. Implications of therapeutic activities for the building of ego strengths are discussed.     

Going Under Toward the Abyssal Question: Heidegger's Confrontation with Hegel on Negativity

Consulting Heidegger's other texts composed during 1936–1942, this article employs a principle of charity and constructs a consistent discourse about an inceptual negativity Heidegger articulates through a confrontation with Hegel in GA 68. Heidegger deliberately differentiates his use of denial (Verneinung) that bears Being-historical significance from Hegel's Negation that allegedly aims at synthesis or elevation as a dialectical movement. Being unsatisfied with his approach that remains entangled with metaphysics in the Contributions, Heidegger attempts to transform the question of the Nothing from a subsidiary question to Beyng to an abyssal question. One needs to go under toward the Nothing in its concealed, conjoined, and most intimate relation to Beyng. The movement of going under is fundamentally significant for transitions that could occur from out of the history of Beyng. Never being the fullness of essence, the Nothing places a limit on Beyng, constantly thwarts its unfolding, and maintains it in finitude.     

OTR Burnout

When job stress beconies chronic, it can result in the syndrome of burnout. This is characterized by feelings of reduced personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalizing attitudes towards patients and colleagues. This pilot study explored burnout in a sample of hospital-based registcrcd occupational therapists employed in Virginia. Scores from 129 OTRs on the Maslach Burnout lnventory and a demographic data sheet were analyzed. Burnout scores were compared for OTRs working in physical disabilities, mental health, and developmental disabilitics. Also, the subjects were compared bascd on time spent in direct patient scrvice. The sample rcported moderate levels of burnout. The only statistically significant finding was that the OTRs who spent the least time with patients reported more depersonalization (intensity only) than their peers. Thc results did not replicate those from a previous report that psychiatric occupational therapists arc experiencing more burnout than other occupational therapists. Much further research appears to bc needed on the topic.     

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,Sensory Integration,and Aquatic Therapy: A Scoping Review

The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) continues to increase. Symptomology of PTSD include sensory deficits much like those displayed in children with sensory integration (SI) disorder. The aim of this scoping review is to review symptoms of PTSD and SI, and make a case of how aquatic therapy may be an effective modality in treating clients with PTSD. Eighteen articles were selected for review. From this review, it is suggested that aquatic therapy can be an effective modality in reducing symptoms of PTSD; however, future research is essential in determining its effectiveness.     

Dialogue in Our Cosmic Aloneness

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is briefly summarized to serve as a background for making the case that, due to the highly exceptional characteristics of the earth's position and motion in the solar system as well as the precarious history of human evolution, we may be alone in the universe. With the conviction that this cosmic isolation enhances our need for dialogue with God, I discuss the nature of authentic dialogue as exhaustively explored by Martin Buber. I conclude with remarks dealing with the importance of understanding and using Buber's insights on dialogue as a way of satisfying our primal need to communicate with a cosmic “other,” in particular, God. Thus, in contrast to the numerous articles that have discussed the theological implications of SETI being successful, I treat here what it might mean if we are alone.     

The diaconate as ecumenical opportunity: historical ecclesiological layers in understanding the diaconate

This article gives an account of the background to the Hanover Report, The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity (1996), and in particular to the West Wickham consultation (1995). Recognising that the diaconate offers new ecumenical perspectives on ordained ministry, the author presents and critiques the Hanover Report for its harmonisation of contradictory positions, especially among Lutherans. The idea of diaconal ministries in the report makes the distinctive diaconate indistinct and gives rise to a mainly functional understanding of ministry. Ecclesiologically historical layers contradicting each other are mixed in such a way that the ecumenically productive eucharistic ecclesiology derived from the Early Church and central to the report's understanding of the diaconate remains at the end rather indistinguishable among the variety of other perspectives conveyed.     

The diaconate after the signing of the Porvoo Declaration: an overview of methods and hermeneutics

This article examines development in the deacon's ministry in the Porvoo Communion. Some of the initiatives which have contributed in significant ways to the common understanding of diaconal ministry in its member churches, since the signing of the Porvoo Declaration in 1996, are presented and analysed. The main focus is on methods used and on the way material has been interpreted by the churches or their representatives. The article also considers developments on two levels: first, on methods applied specifically by the individual Porvoo member churches, when presenting and interpreting the ministry of deacons; secondly, on the presupposed understanding behind the interpretations of deacons’ ministry in the Porvoo churches as a whole. The author's interest also encompasses the way in which the churches interpret significant differences and variety in the ministry of deacons within the Porvoo Communion, and what they regard as characteristic in current developments.     

On the Ethics of Facial Transplantation Research

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced by Dr. Francis Moore in the late 1980s for introducing innovative procedures in transplant surgery. In addition to these we also insist that human face transplantation must meet all the ethical requirements usually applied to health care research. We summarize the achievements of transplant surgery to date, focusing in particular on the safety and efficacy of immunosuppressive medications. We also emphasize the importance of risk/benefit assessments that take into account the physical, aesthetic, psychological, and social dimensions of facial disfiguration, reconstruction, and transplantation. Finally, we maintain that the time has come to move facial transplantation research into the clinical phase.