Making Sense in and of the Asexual Community: Navigating Relationships and Identities in a Context of Resistance

Despite some increased visibility in recent years, the asexual community and asexuality generally remain largely unknown. Aiming to demystify asexuality, this paper discusses the context of anti‐asexual animosity in which the (largely American) asexual community is situated. Specifically, the asexual community constructed itself in response to hostility, including explicit anti‐asexual discrimination, homophobia against asexual people perceived to be lesbian or gay, and the negative impact of (implicit) pathologising low sexual desire. This theoretical paper outlines some of the unique challenges asexual people face negotiating identities and relationships; the collective sense‐making strategies they use (generating language and discourse) to do so; and why these things are central to understanding asexual people's experiences. This is accomplished through a purposeful review of literature and a case study of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network as an asexual community space. Understanding the challenges asexual people face and the resources they invoke to overcome them helps applied psychologists develop the cultural competence they need to work effectively with the asexual people they will encounter. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transmitting pro‐environmental behaviours to the next generation: A comparison between Germany and Japan

The present study examined the processes by which children acquire pro‐environmental behaviours in different cultures. Our focus was on parental influence. Several studies have been conducted on adults' environmental behaviours; however, we know little about how children's environmental attitudes and behaviours are formed. We conducted a questionnaire survey with elementary school children and one of their parents in Germany and Japan. Two hundred and twenty‐one pairs participated in Germany and 365 in Japan. The results of structural equation modelling showed that parents' behaviours affected children's environmental behaviours directly and also via the subjective norm (the children's experienced expectations of their parents). A comparison of the two countries revealed that hypothesized cultural differences between the impact of personal norms and subjective norms were clearer for adults. The results also showed that the effects of subjective norms were stronger for children, indicating that children are more likely to be influenced by expectations of others. The results of the study suggest that for promoting children's environmental behaviours, showing the behaviours in daily life would be most effective.     

Values and helping behavior: A study in four cultures

Values are important factors in determining individuals' behaviours. Previous studies have examined the relations between values and helping behaviour, but usually in the context of a single culture. The current study examines the relations between personal value types and helping behaviour among university students (N = 722) in four cultures (Germany, Scotland‐UK, Israel and Turkey). Across cultures, the value types of self‐transcendence versus self‐enhancement and conservation versus openness to change were positively related to helping. Specifically, self‐transcendence values were positively related, and self‐enhancement and openness to change values negatively related, to helping behaviour. The correlations pattern did not differ significantly between cultures.     

Serial killers,spiders and cybersex: Social and survival information bias in the transmission of urban legends

This study uses urban legends to examine the effects of the social information bias and survival information bias on cultural transmission across three phases of transmission: the choose‐to‐receive phase, the encode‐and‐retrieve phase, and the choose‐to‐transmit phase. In line with previous research into content biases, a linear transmission chain design with 60 participants aged 18–52 was used to examine the encode‐and‐retrieve phase, while participants were asked to rank their interest in reading the story behind a headline and passing a story on for the other two phases. Legends which contained social information (Social Type), legends which contained survival information (Survival Type), and legends which contained both forms of information (Combined Type) were all recalled with significantly greater accuracy than control material, while Social and Combined Type legends were recalled with significantly greater accuracy than Survival Type legends. In another study with 30 participants aged 18–22, no significant differences were found between legend types in either the choose‐to‐receive phase or the choose‐to‐transmit phase.     

上海冬令膏方的民俗、医俗与药俗浅析

在上海地域范围内,冬令膏方的认知度、参与度、美誉度都很高;上海冬令膏方兼具传统医药和民俗两方面特点,民俗是底色,医俗是源头和核心,而药俗则最直观、可视程度最高;三“俗”的汇流与交融,造就了灿烂多姿的上海冬令膏方文化。上海冬令膏方的技艺与文化以群体传承为主,家庭(或家族)传承、社会传承为辅的特征十分突出;具有周期性特点,且集中在冬季的中医诊疗和中药炮制煎煮场所,带有明显的仪式和节日庆典风格,有多种文化符号表达。上海的中医药专家与当地百姓共同塑造了冬令膏方的习俗。

     

药用曲的发展历史及其当代价值

酒曲初始应用为酿酒,后我国先民发现酒曲可以用于治疗疾病便将其纳入方剂之中,方剂中的酒曲又逐渐演化成专供药用的药用曲。药用曲在我国古代各个时期具有鲜明的特征,在曲类药物的溯源研究中具有导向性作用。至1956年,《中药成药配制经验介绍》正式提出“曲剂”的名词概念和相关标准,药用曲的完整内涵得以呈现。随着传统中医与西方现代医学的交流与融合,药用曲的工艺科学价值、医药文化价值和学术启示价值得以重塑,其当代价值和实用意义进一步被明确。药用曲的发展历史折射出了我国酒曲药用的深厚认知观念和文化内涵。

     

Why Clinical Psychology Needs to Engage in Community‐Based Approaches to Mental Health

The aim of this article is to advocate for clinical psychology to engage with community‐based approaches to mental health. This engagement will be challenging given community work is antithetical to the individualism that defines much of clinical psychology. It would also result in a direct challenge to the core tenets of our profession, including an emphasis on individualism, psychopathology, and expert‐driven intervention. We need clinical psychology, however, to decolonise itself to respond to the needs of Aboriginal communities and those from non‐Western collectivist cultures. We also need clinical psychology to consider the sociopolitics of human distress and lend itself to social action for complex problems. Specific examples of community‐based practices will be provided, focusing specifically on those that relate to mental health. Implication for the reform of research methodologies and classroom pedagogies will also be discussed.     

A tale of two processes: On Joseph Henrich’s the secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution,domesticating our species,and making us smarter

We situate Henrich’s book in the larger research tradition of which it is a part and show how he presents a wide array of recent psychological, physiological, and neurological data as supporting the view that two related but distinct processes have shaped human nature and made us unique: cumulative cultural evolution and culture-driven genetic evolution. We briefly sketch out several ways philosophers might fruitfully engage with this view and note some implications it may have for current philosophic debates in moral and political theory and over the nature of extended cognition. We end by noting how Henrich’s view of the source of cultural design and innovation, and the prominence of place he gives to the extended process of cultural evolution, cuts against a cluster of broad but common views about human minds, recasting putative bugs as features and indicating that many of the distinctive features of our individual minds evolved to allow them to be effective cogs in the larger, more productive cultural machine.