Distinguishing rumination from worry in clinical insomnia

Research has found that repetitive thought processes, such as worry and rumination, play an important role in several disorders; however, these cognitive processes have not yet been examined in insomnia. This study explores rumination and worry in insomnia by examining: 1) whether those high and low on rumination and worry differ on subjective sleep measures, and 2) whether rumination and worry are distinct processes in insomnia. Participants (N = 242) were diagnosed with an insomnia disorder by sleep experts. Participants completed measures of worry and rumination and maintained a 2-week daily sleep log. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance found no main effect of worry; although high and low ruminators differed on several sleep log indices, including sleep efficiency, wakefulness after sleep onset and sleep quality. Factor analysis supported the idea that rumination and worry are separate constructs. Whereas previous research has focused on worry in insomnia, these findings suggest that rumination is important for understanding sleep disturbance. Further, although rumination and worry are both repetitive thought processes, these results indicate that they are distinct processes within insomnia and should be treated as such. The results are discussed with respect to treatment implications for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia.     

A little labeling goes a long way: Semi‐supervised learning in infancy

There is considerable evidence that labeling supports infants' object categorization. Yet in daily life, most of the category exemplars that infants encounter will remain unlabeled. Inspired by recent evidence from machine learning, we propose that infants successfully exploit this sparsely labeled input through “semi‐supervised learning.” Providing only a few labeled exemplars leads infants to initiate the process of categorization, after which they can integrate all subsequent exemplars, labeled or unlabeled, into their evolving category representations. Using a classic novelty preference task, we introduced 2‐year‐old infants (n = 96) to a novel object category, varying whether and when its exemplars were labeled. Infants were equally successful whether all exemplars were labeled (fully supervised condition) or only the first two exemplars were labeled (semi‐supervised condition), but they failed when no exemplars were labeled (unsupervised condition). Furthermore, the timing of the labeling mattered: when the labeled exemplars were provided at the end, rather than the beginning, of familiarization (reversed semi‐supervised condition), infants failed to learn the category. This provides the first evidence of semi‐supervised learning in infancy, revealing that infants excel at learning from exactly the kind of input that they typically receive in acquiring real‐world categories and their names.     

COMPARATIVE ETHICS,IDEOLOGIES, AND CRITICAL THOUGHT1

After the publication of my book and various articles about comparative religious ethics, obstacles in the field's further development seemed to mount as swiftly as practical issues seemed to trumpet the need for global ethics more loudly. Driven by impatience, I wondered if I were fiddling in unending discussion while the planet burned. As others persevered and evolved productively in addressing developmental issues in the field directly, I began to work through the lens of a less direct, but complementary, perspective: ideologies and critical thought. The following essay seeks to connect my parallel approach to ongoing obstacles and solutions within the prolific development of comparative religious ethics, especially its urgent pursuit of common moral grounds sufficient to support peaceful coexistence and living.     

More than off-task: Increased freely-moving thought in ADHD

Off-task thought has been found to occur at high rates and is related to impairment in ADHD. However, off-task thought is heterogenous and it remains unclear which specific dimensions of off-task thought are more prevalent in this disorder. It is therefore important to dissociate different aspects of off-task thought in order to better understand the mechanisms underlying impairment. The current study focused on the dimension of constrained (focused) to freely moving off-task thought. Self-report and neurophysiological measures during a computerized attention tasks provided convergent evidence that individuals with ADHD not only have more off-task thought than those without, but also engaged in a greater proportion of freely moving off-task thought than non-ADHD controls. Overall, this work demonstrated differences in both the quantity and type of off-task thought in adults with ADHD. It provides novel insight into both the phenomenology of off-task thought, as well as potential mechanisms underlying impairment in ADHD.     

MIGRANT DOMESTIC CAREWORKERS: Between the Public and the Private in Catholic Social Teaching

This essay argues that Catholic (magisterial) social teaching's division of ethics into public and private creates a structural lacuna which makes it almost impossible to envision a truly just situation for migrant domestic careworkers (MDCs) within the current horizon of Catholic social thought. Drawing on a variety of sociological studies, I conclude that it is easy for MDCs to “disappear” between two countries, two families, and, finally, two sets of ethical norms. If the magisterium genuinely wishes Catholic ethicists to address the plight of these migrant women, normative Catholic social teaching must pay more attention to household sociological realities and more fully absorb the feminist critique of the sharp line between the public and the private, between care and paid work.     

伊斯兰社会福利思想浅析

伊斯兰社会福利思想是在伊斯兰教的信仰体系下,用来指导团体和个人从事各种旨在改善和提高人民生活水平的社会福利实践的思想。这一思想如今仍然在很大程度上影响着穆斯林的福利实践。本文从救助性和发展性两个方面对伊斯兰教社会福利思想做了简单的探讨。     

The Development of Cognitive Reflection in China

Cognitive reflection is the tendency to override an intuitive response so as to engage in the reflection necessary to derive a correct response. Here, we examine the emergence of cognitive reflection in a culture that values nonanalytic thinking styles, Chinese culture. We administered a child-friendly version of the cognitive reflection test, the CRT-D, to 130 adults and 111 school-age children in China and compared performance on the CRT-D to several measures of rational thinking (belief bias syllogisms, base rate sensitivity, denominator neglect, and other-side thinking) and normative thinking dispositions (actively open-minded thinking and need for cognition). The CRT-D was a significant predictor of rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions in both children and adults, as previously found in American samples. Adults’ performance on the CRT-D correlated with their performance on the original CRT, and children's performance on the CRT-D predicted rational thinking and normative thinking dispositions even after adjusting for age. These results demonstrate that cognitive reflection, rational thinking, and normative thinking dispositions converge even in a culture that emphasizes holistic, nonanalytic reasoning.     

中西重商思想之源的跨文化阐释

15—17世纪，重商主义在西方一度盛行，极大改变了欧洲各国的经济、政治和文化形态。追溯其思想之源，最终必寻至古代希腊。在中国，虽然从来没有这一学派体系，但是重商思想在春秋时期却已经产生，战国时期则进一步发展，齐国堪称代表。本文将主要以齐国和古希腊为例，从跨文化的角度比较双方各自重商思想产生的条件、思想主张与实践结果，为我国当前的经济，文化建设提供有益的借鉴。