WALKER PERCY,LANGUAGE, AND HOMO SINGULARIS

The novelist Walker Percy argued that modern science has a tremendous blind spot in its view of human nature. Unlike purely physical phenomena, which can be explained by the interaction of dyadic relationships, human beings must also be understood in terms of triadic relationships brought into being by symbolic language. The self brought into being by symbolic language is nonmaterial but real, and operates by different “laws” than those that govern dyadic relations. In making this case, Percy drew a sharp line between human and nonhuman language, a line that more recent developments in science has challenged. However, Percy's central point, that the agent of symbolic language cannot be understood within a materialist framework, remains valid.     

Growth and social behavior of previously undernourished mice

Developing mice were growth-retarded by underfeeding of their mothers during lactation. Control mothers were well nourished throughout. All offspring were fed ad libitum from weaning till their behaviour was tested in adulthood. The undernourished mice had weight deficits at weaning of 49% compared with controls. Nevertheless, they showed partial catch-up growth thereafter, in that their absolute weight deficits decreased between weaning and adulthood. Social behaviour observations were made on pairs of mice of the same treatment group. Previously undernourished mice were slower to start attacking one another, spent more time near or in contact with one another and did less tail-rattling than their controls.     

The Bodily Self: The Sensori-Motor Roots of Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness

A bodily self is characterized by pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness that is “immune to error through misidentification.” To this end, the body's double involvement in consciousness is considered: it can experience objects intentionally and itself non-intentionally. Specifically, pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness, by contrast with the consciousness of the body that happens to be one's own, consists in experiencing one's body as the point of convergence of action and perception. Neither proprioception alone nor intention alone is sufficient to underlie this pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness. Rather, it is made possible thanks to a sensori-motor integration, allowing a sensitivity to the sensory consequences of one's action, through action monitoring.     

Feminism's Third Wave

Summary

“Third wave” feminists, raised in the wake of an established feminist movement as well as a strong anti-feminist backlash, are beginning to define their own feminist agenda. “Third wave” feminists are exploring the contradictions in their lived experience as feminists, and examining the inter section of feminism with their other identities. Young feminists' self-expression has been characterized (by feminists and non-feminists) as “self-obsessed” and “divorced from matters of public purpose” (Bellafante, 1998, p. 57 & 60). In this essay, we provide an alternative view of “third wave” expression, seeing young feminists' honesty in their struggles with various identities as a resurgence of grass roots activism; a return to “the personal.” In this essay, we call for an intergenerational dialogue between second and third wave feminists, and encourage feminist therapists to support and validate young feminists.     

男性身体意象失调:大众媒体的影响及作用机制

近年来,男性身体意象失调越来越普遍,大众媒体被认为是一种重要的影响因素。大量研究证实了媒体对男性身体意象的消极影响,主要表现在对身体意象的认知、情绪情感和行为调控等方面。研究者基于社会文化理论提出三重影响模型(Thompson,Heinberg,Altabe,Tantleff-Dunn,1999),用以解释媒体影响男性身体意象的作用机制。该模型假设社会文化因素,即家庭、同伴、媒体是身体意象失调的三个最初影响源;外貌比较和"瘦理想"或"肌肉理想"内化是社会文化和身体意象失调之间的中介变量。未来研究应关注被试群体的多样化,将实验室研究和纵向研究相结合,并考虑其他变量的影响作用,对三重影响模型进行丰富和拓展,同时运用脑科学技术探究其神经机制。此外,还应从干预的角度展开研究。     

Learning to like it: Aesthetic perception of bodies,movements and choreographic structure

Appreciating human movement can be a powerful aesthetic experience. We have used apparent biological motion to investigate the aesthetic effects of three levels of movement representation: body postures, movement transitions and choreographic structure. Symmetrical (ABCDCBA) and asymmetrical (ABCDBCA) sequences of apparent movement were created from static postures, and were presented in an artificial grammar learning paradigm. Additionally, “good” continuation of apparent movements was manipulated by changing the number of movement path reversals within a sequence. In an initial exposure phase, one group of participants saw only symmetrical sequences, while another group saw only asymmetrical sequences. In a subsequent test phase, both groups rated all sequences on an aesthetic evaluation scale. We found that posture, movement, and choreographic structure all influenced aesthetic ratings. Separate ratings for the static body postures presented individually showed that both groups preferred a posture that maximized spatial symmetry. Ratings for the experimental sequences showed that both groups gave higher ratings to symmetrical sequences with “good” continuation and lower ratings to sequences with many path reversals. Further, participants who had been initially familiarized with asymmetrical sequences showed increased liking for asymmetrical sequences, suggesting a structural mere exposure effect. Aesthetic preferences thus depend on body postures, apparent movement continuation and choreographic structure. We propose a hierarchical model of aesthetic perception of human movement with distinct processing levels for body postures, movements and choreographic structure.     

On being victimized by peers in the advent of adolescence: prospective relationships to objectified body consciousness

Previous research indicates that peer victimization is tied to children's negative appearance evaluations. The current study examines whether early peer victimization is also prospectively related to objectified body consciousness. Six-hundred-and-two Swedish boys and girls answered questionnaires at age 10, and again at age 18. Main findings showed that being the target of peer victimization at age 10 was related to more habitual appearance monitoring and body shame at age 18. Gender moderated the relations between victimization and body shame, with victimized girls experiencing stronger body shame than victimized boys. Additionally, whereas boys experienced less body shame than girls, they were equally likely to monitor their appearance. In sum, this study provides preliminary support to the notion that peer victimization is involved in the processes by which young adolescents’ self-objectify. Future studies are warranted to further validate these findings.     

大一新生网络心理问题调查研究

采用自编网络心理问卷研究了669名大一新生在情绪反应、动机冲突、现实疏离、躯体症状四个维度上的性别、家庭来源、家庭气氛、父母教养方式上的差异。结果表明．大一新生网络使用的负性心理总体上不严重;在情绪反应和现实疏离上存在极其显著的家庭气氛主效应;在动机冲突和躯体症状上存在极显著的家庭气氛与父母教养方式交互作用。     

WHY I AM AN ACCOMMODATIONIST AND PROUD OF IT

There is a strong need of a reasoned defense of what was known as the “independence” position of the science–religion relationship but that more recently has been denigrated as the “accommodationist” position, namely that while there are parts of religion—fundamentalist Christianity in particular—that clash with modern science, the essential parts of religion (Christianity) do not and could not clash with science. A case for this position is made on the grounds of the essentially metaphorical nature of science. Modern science functions because of its root metaphor of the machine: the world is seen in mechanical terms. As Thomas Kuhn insisted, metaphors function in part by ruling some questions outside their domain. In the case of modern science, four questions go unasked and hence unanswered: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the foundation of morality? What is mind and its relationship to matter? What is the meaning of it all? You can remain a nonreligious skeptic on these questions, but it is open for the Christian to offer his or her answers, so long as they are not scientific answers. Here then is a way that science and religion can coexist.