Differentiating crisis incidents: A replication study using the action systems model

Crisis incidents are volatile situations that can pose significant risk to those involved and to law enforcement. The idiosyncratic conditions that lead to such incidents, as well as their volatility, often militate against consistent explanatory models. However, the application of overarching paradigms, such as the action systems model, has shown some promise in imposing order in the domain. Recent research has successfully differentiated crisis incidents into the four distinct modes of the action systems model: conservative, adaptive, integrative, and expressive. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to replicate this recent study using 242 cases from the United States, Ireland, Canada, and Sweden. Data analysis involves smallest space analyses and constrained multidimensional scaling. Although the results supported the underlying structure of original proposed behavioural model, there are a few deviances. These differences along with the potential influence of cultural variations, offence variable selection, the type of incident, and the sample under scrutiny are discussed. It is evident that there remain several challenges, and further research is required, prior to developing a unified framework.     

Crisis,Biology, Ecology: A New Starting-Point for Phenomenology?

The crisis of European sciences in Husserl’s late work diagnoses Galilean science as specifically and necessarily losing touch with the intuitive evidence that would legitimate it due to its reliance on a formal-mathematical conceptual apparatus. While the vast majority of Husserl’s late work was focussed on a critique of the formal-mathematical paradigm of the physical science of nature, at several points the possibility of biology as the exemplary science is raised to suggest that the lack of a reliance on formal-mathematical conceptual language would mean that a systemic crisis would not occur in such a case. This investigation considers the grounds for the expectation that biology would not engender a crisis, suggests that a paradigmatic role for ecology would more adequately address this expectation, and finally claims that the question of the relation between a specific exemplary science and transcendental phenomenology is not fully resolved even in this case.     

The perceived helpfulness of rendering emotional first aid via email

The present research examined the perceived helpfulness of an increasingly widespread mode of psychological assistance, namely, emotional first aid via email. The sample comprised 62 naturally occurring email interactions between distressful clients and trained volunteers operating within the framework of the Israeli Association for Emotional First Aid. Data were gathered by means of a structured questionnaire and open-ended questions so as to examine the clients' motivation to seek help via email and evaluate their satisfaction with the responses obtained. The results revealed a preference for written communication and the accessibility of assistance to be the most frequent reasons for clients to choose the medium of email. Most clients found the responses to be helpful in providing emotional support, enhancing cognitive change and suggesting practical ways of coping. Women perceived the assistance to be more helpful than men did. The results are discussed in terms of the unique value of email as an agent of mental health assistance.     

On becoming textually active at Youthline,New Zealand

The phones hardly ring at Youthline New Zealand anymore; youth still have problems and seek help, but it mostly happens silently. This article reports on experiences of texting at a 24-hour crisis helpline for young people. To date, there has been no formal evidence base for this practice; however, for new practice, there never is. In prompting discussion, this article attends to the tight constraints that texting imposes, returning to the necessary and sufficient conditions of any effective therapeutic relationship particularly in regard to working with young people. New possibilities are demonstrated with emotional support being demonstrated even in the tightly constrained space of a text-based medium.     

One-to-one support for crisis intervention using online synchronous instant messaging: evaluating working alliance and client satisfaction

Young people are increasingly turning to online support, especially when traditional mental health services are not immediately available. Using a cross-sectional design, sociodemographic information and self-reported perceptions of the strength of the working alliance and client satisfaction were collected from a sample of participants (n = 78) who were users of a service providing free online support using synchronous instant messaging. The results reported a significant positive relationship between the strength of the working alliance and client satisfaction, suggesting that the strength of the working alliance remains a key component in counselling, even online. Participants, however, scored significantly lower on both the strength of the working alliance and client satisfaction, compared to participants in offline settings as reported in past studies.     

Perceptual effects of linguistic category priming: The Stapel and Semin (2007) paradigm revisited in twelve experiments

Linguistic category priming is a novel paradigm to examine automatic influences of language on cognition (Semin, 2008). An initial article reported that priming abstract linguistic categories (adjectives) led to more global perceptual processing, whereas priming concrete linguistic categories (verbs) led to more local perceptual processing (Stapel & Semin, 2007). However, this report was compromised by data fabrication by the first author, so that it remains unclear whether or not linguistic category priming influences perceptual processing. To fill this gap in the literature, the present article reports 12 studies among Dutch and US samples examining the perceptual effects of linguistic category priming. The results yielded no evidence of linguistic category priming effects. These findings are discussed in relation to other research showing cultural variations in linguistic category priming effects (IJzerman, Saddlemyer, & Koole, 2014). The authors conclude by highlighting the importance of conducting and publishing replication research for achieving scientific progress.     

Effect of Color Coding on Visually Oriented Tests With Students of Different Cognitive Styles

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects that differentially coded (black and white and color) illustrations had on students (N = 117) who were classified as field dependent, field neutral, or field independent as a result of their performance on the visually oriented Group Embedded Figures Test (Witkin, Olt-man, Rashin, & Karp, 1971). Students were randomly assigned to two instructional treatments complemented by illustrations (black and white and colored). After receiving their respective treatments, students reviewed two visually oriented criterion tests. Two-way analyses of variance conducted on achievement scores indicated that field independents scored significantly higher than did field dependents on both visual tests, and differences between field-dependent and field-independent learners who received the color-coded treatments on the visual identification test were insignificant. Results indicate that field dependency is an important instructional variable and that for some types of learning objectives the process of color coding instructional materials may reduce achievement differences attributed to differences in cognitive style.     

A Transformative Eucharistic Vision for the Entire Oikoumene

This article begins from the awareness that in a world of affluence, millions are hungry. It addresses the question as to whether this is merely an economic issue or whether it also poses an ethical and theological dilemma, considering ways in which the situation we are living in challenges our faith in the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. It asks how, in the situation as it is, there is any possibility of believing in such a transformation. Finally it questions whether there is any relationship between hope for the transformation of hunger amidst affluence and belief in the transformation of bread into the body of Christ, and outlines a transformative eucharistic vision for the global Christian Church.     

The im-possibility of secular critique: The future of religion's memory

The legacy of secular critique, with its Greek, Christian, Kantian, modernist traces, constitutes an aporetic law (or contradiction). That law is this: a critical legacy, if it is critical, can affirm and sustain itself only by trying to separate it from itself (from the very crisis that it is). The legacy or history of ‘religion’ is always a history of such critique. Such a legacy always anticipates critiquing itself, its memory (of whatever kind – racist, sexist, colonialist, nationalist). Such a legacy of critique is always a legacy of crisis. However, the crisis of such a legacy cannot be resolved, because critique, as kairos/krisis (critical/decisive moment), can admit of no resolution. Yet the (secular) history of religion, if it is ever historical, can only be a history of such aporetic critique. Such an aporetic critique will be the heritage of religion's im-possible ¹ ?1. I write the word impossible/impossibility with and without a hyphen. When I hyphenate im-possible, I do so to remain true to Derrida's use of it. The im-possible is irreducible to either possibility or impossibility. Sometimes Derrida also writes the word without hyphenating it, but he still implies such irreducibility. future. It is an im-possible future because it will always be a promise, a promise to separate it from itself, a promise that will remain always deferred, always to come. Today, the promise of this secular critique is (in) democracy with its sovereign ‘decisive’ politics. We can no longer simply critique the (future) legacy of religion, understood this way. To do so is to fulfil that legacy's own messianic wish. This is the aporetic limit of secular critique. To think at the limits of the legacy of the critique of religion is to think the very question of the (secular) history of ‘religion’ and its others, that is, ‘religions’.     

The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Morality in Network News

This article examines some of the story conventions of network television news to explain the ways in which healthcare interest groups develop and maintain their presence in this medium—a process that has significant implications for public understanding of healthcare issues, and therefore to bioethics. The article is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on three major normative conventions of television news: adherence to a simple narrative structure, the balance ethic, and avoidance of the “think-piece” and outlines the basic strategies available to interest groups for exploiting these normative conventions. Section two introduces three case studies of organizations and individuals who have run high-profile media campaigns. Section three explores the implications for bioethics of the observations made in this article.