Johannes Scotus Erigena on Imagination

This study attempted to check, in an authoritarian culture, Ray's hypothesis that there is no relationship between authoritarian behavior and authoritarian attitudes. Scales measuring these two variables were administered to 38 white Afrikaans-speaking South African college men and women (average age 20.74 years). The correlation between the two scales was -.21 which is not significant. The results were therefore seen as a confirmation of Ray's hypothesis.     

Naturalizing Moral Justification: Rethinking the Method of Moral Epistemology

The companion piece to this article, “Situating Moral Justification,” challenges the idea that moral epistemology's mission is to establish a single, all‐purpose reasoning strategy for moral justification because no reasoning practice can be expected to deliver authoritative moral conclusions in all social contexts. The present article argues that rethinking the mission of moral epistemology requires rethinking its method as well. Philosophers cannot learn which reasoning practices are suitable to use in particular contexts exclusively by exploring logical relations among concepts. Instead, in order to understand which reasoning practices are capable of justifying moral claims in different types of contexts, we need to study empirically the relationships between reasoning practices and the contexts in which they are used. The article proposes that philosophers investigate case studies of real‐world moral disputes in which people lack shared cultural assumptions and/or are unequal in social power. It motivates and explains the proposed case study method and illustrates the philosophical value of this method through a case study.     

Aimee Semple McPherson and the Making of Modern Pentecostalism, 1890-1926, by Charles H. Barfoot,Equinox Publishing, 2011, xxxi + 640 pp. ISBN 978 1 84553 166 9, US$80.00 (hbk)

In this book Norenzayan maintains that the mechanisms that make possible cooperative behavior among members of hunter-gatherer bands and tribal societies cannot account for what he calls the ‘scaled-up’ cooperation of humans in cities and states. Only the fear of being watched by an omnipotent and omniscient supernatural being who is able and willing to punish those who do not play fair can account for the emergence of the ultrasociality on which complex societies are based. The author shows here that neither the experimental nor historical evidence he brings forward supports that claim.     

Breaking ground,hitting ground: A Sure Start rapid response service for parents and their under fours

This paper describes a project aimed at taking an under fours' counselling and parent support service into a neighbourhood characterized by particularly high levels of deprivation and ethnic diversity. Referrals to the local CAMHS showed a high level of disturbance in school aged children and adolescents in this area. However, children under 4 years were strikingly under-represented in referral statistics, suggesting the need to make our service more accessible to this group. The project took the form of a once-weekly clinic run in a community centre. Differences in ways of engaging and working with the families in order to make the service accessible and ‘user friendly’ are described. So, too, is a protocol developed in order to support the worker in thinking through the many anxiety raising situations to be responded to in dealing with severely deprived families living in extremely stressful situations. Three clinical examples illustrate that a major value of this initiative was in increasing the worker's understanding of ethnic and cultural differences and of how to work with them. The service also helped to promote good liaison between statutory and voluntary agencies. The project was established initially under the auspices of Sure Start, a government sponsored scheme for enriching developmental opportunities of under fours and their parents in deprived areas. After running for 18 months, it will be funded through mainstream resources, as an example of the kind of innovative work with hard to reach populations encouraged by the guidelines given in the new National Service Framework for Children in England.     

Assessing conspiracist beliefs across societies: Validation of the Serbian adaptation of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS)

Initial validation of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS) identified five correlated factors: Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Extraterrestrial Cover-up, Personal Well-being and Control of Information. Despite replications of this structure, ensuing research, mostly using translated versions of the GCBS (i.e., Persian and Japanese), has reported factorial alternatives. Concomitantly, researchers postulated that belief in conspiracies was higher in historically troubled societies (e.g., Serbia). To further assess the cultural stability of the five correlated factor solution and test the assumption that GCBS scores are affected by social-political instability, a Serbian adaptation of the GCBS was assessed alongside the standard English language version. Data were collected from Serbian (n = 259, 44.40% males) and UK samples (n = 402, 52.25% males). Within samples, confirmatory factor analysis replicated the five-factor solution. Additionally, national and gender invariance was confirmed. National comparisons (Serbia vs. UK) revealed that the Serbian sample scored higher on Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Personal Well-being and Control of Information, whereas the UK sample scored higher on Extraterrestrial Cover-up. There were no gender differences on GCBS factors. Findings indicated that while the Serbian GCBS was interpreted similarly to the GCBS, societal factors influenced endorsement of belief facets.     

The role of verbal behavior in the establishment of comparative relations

Twelve college students received conditional discrimination training with nonarbitrary and arbitrary stimuli, and derived comparative and transformation of function tests with a think-aloud condition across 2 experiments. Participants who failed these tests received remedial verbal operant training. Four control participants received verbal operant training alone. Across both experiments, only 1 participant passed the derived comparative test after conditional discrimination training. However, all participants passed derived comparative tests and 11 out of 12 participants passed transformation of function tests following verbal operant training, including the 4 control participants. Participants who passed derived comparative tests engaged in a high percentage of correct vocalizations during the think-aloud condition, while participants who failed did not. These results suggest that mediating verbal behavior could have played a crucial role in participants' responses during derived stimulus relations tests.     

中国城市妇女赋予丈夫吸烟行为的象征意义研究

对不同社会背景的城市妇女进行深入访谈发现,其赋予丈夫吸烟行为的人类学意义为:成瘾,坏毛病,缺乏责任感,减压,小事情,男人社交方式和男性特征.由此得出结论,就女性而言,开展预防来自于其丈夫的二手烟的健康教育,应在传播吸烟和被动吸烟危害知识的基础上,设法改变其对丈夫吸烟行为的价值判断.     

Connecting theory to fat talk: Body dissatisfaction mediates the relationships between weight discrepancy,upward comparison,body surveillance,and fat talk

The fat talk literature is meager in terms of offering theoretical explanations for women's self-disparaging communication. The research presented here sought to establish a relationship between three prominent body image theories – self-discrepancy theory, social comparison theory, and objectification theory – and fat talk by proposing body dissatisfaction as a potential mediating mechanism. Young adult women (N = 201) completed an online questionnaire. As predicted, results revealed that body dissatisfaction significantly mediated the relationships between weight discrepancy, upward comparison, body surveillance and fat talk. Effect size estimates indicated that the size of each indirect effect was medium in magnitude.     

Gender‐role egalitarianism predicts desirable traits of potential marriage partners: A cross‐cultural comparison

We examined whether gender‐role egalitarianism predicted participants' rank‐order preferences for traits in potential marriage partners of the opposite sex, and whether gender‐role egalitarianism mediated cultural differences between participants from North America, Polynesia and East Asia. Participants completed the Sex‐Role Egalitarianism Scale and ranked the following traits in terms of their importance in choosing a potential marriage partner: kindness, physical attractiveness, social level, athleticism, creativity and liveliness. Parallel analyses for male and female participants reveal that traditional males value physical attractiveness more than egalitarian males, and that traditional females value social level more and kindness less than egalitarian females. Gender‐role egalitarianism fully mediated the effect of culture on kindness rankings, but no others. These results expand upon previous findings by accounting for individual differences regarding beliefs about traditional gender roles.     

Teaching Exegesis in Historically Black Theological Schools

This Forum collects the papers presented at a 2010 panel at the Society of Biblical Literature, an outcome of a Wabash Center funded grant project. The project examined the unique dimensions and experiences of teaching Biblical exegesis at the six historically black theological schools (HBTSs), including discussion of the unique needs of HBTS students and their communities, and appropriate learning goals and effective teaching practices for this context. None of the biblical studies faculty were prepared as graduate students for the unique challenges that they have encountered teaching at a HBTS, so they have all had to “learn on the job” how best to approach the unique needs of the student body. The brief statements collected here summarize the findings from the project, describe and analyze some effective teaching strategies, and offer suggestions for continuing the conversation.