An exploration of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire for assessing female recidivism in South Africa

This study profiled incarcerated female offenders’ criminogenic-oriented self-appraisals. Respondents were 77 female offenders between the ages of 20 and 56 years, serving custodial sentences within the South African Department of Correctional Services ranging from under a year to 25 years, and of whom 7 per cent were reoffenders. They completed the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ: Loza, 2005 Loza, W. (2005). Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQTM). Technical manual. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems. [Google Scholar]), which is a self-report measure for assessing violent and non-violent recidivism. Findings suggest offenders with a history of violence to be at risk for reoffending compared to non-violent offenders.     

Response to Stuart Kauffman: The Measurement Problem in Quantum Mechanics

Richard Feynman, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner in physics, quoting an unknown philosopher, said: “It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.” And Feynman's reply: “Well, they don't.” Double-slit experiments with both slits open and the wave interference pattern created by electrons falling on a screen behind the slits speak volumes to those two statements and the interpretive problem created by the non-deterministic behavior of microscopic matter. Quantum mechanics (QM) with its successes over the last 85 years has created the information age, and with insights into nature has given humans an economy concentrated with products based on quantum technology. All this even with questions about the fundamental aspects of measurement in the quantum world still being debated! Discussing the measurement aspect of QM does not require a physics background where physics scholars join other scholarly disciplines engaged in gaining knowledge about the reality of the one world of human experience. The necessary tools for discussion are imagination, speculation, and curiosity. But for a new credible interpretation of the measurement problem, quantum training or a quantum theoretician is required.     

Can we distinguish an “I” and “ME” during listening?—an event-related EEG study on the processing of first and second person personal and possessive pronouns

Theoretically, stimuli can be related to the self as subject (“I”) or object (“ME”) of experience. This event-related brain potential (ERP) study investigated whether listening to personal and possessive pronouns elicits different modes of self-processing regarding time-course and neural sources. Going beyond previous research, first (1PP) and second person (2PP) pronouns were included to determine the specificity of self-processing. Participants listened passively to German pronouns while the electroencephalogram was recorded. Modulation of ERPs revealed a processing advantage for the 2PP personal pronoun “du” (“you”) already in early time windows. Regarding possessive pronouns, N1 amplitudes indicated increased attention orientation to the 1PP pronoun “mein” (“my”), whereas during later time windows, processing of 1PP and 2PP possessive pronouns did not differ but differed from the third person pronoun “sein” (“his”). ERP source imaging suggests that primary sensory brain regions (auditory cortex), the insula and cortical midline structures are differentially involved into these two processing modes. The results support the idea of distinct self-processing modes (“I” and “ME”) and confirm their dynamic nature. Moreover, they demonstrate that on a neural level neither “I” or “ME” are invariantly tied to the first person, in line with the hypothesis that self-processing is relational and context-dependent.     

Feasibility of Undertaking Off‐Site Infant Eye‐Tracking Assessments of Neuro‐Cognitive Functioning in Early‐Intervention Centres

Recent work suggests that differences in functional brain development are already identifiable in 6‐ to 9‐month‐old infants from low socio‐economic status (SES) backgrounds. Investigation of early SES‐related differences in neuro‐cognitive functioning requires the recruitment of large and diverse samples of infants, yet it is often difficult to persuade low‐SES parents to come to a university setting. One solution is to recruit infants through early intervention children's centres (CCs). These are often located in areas of high relative deprivation to support young children. Given the increasing portability of eye‐tracking equipment, assessment of large clusters of infants could be undertaken in centres by suitably trained early intervention staff. Here, we report on a study involving 174 infants and their parents, carried out in partnership with CCs, exploring the feasibility of this approach. We report the processes of setting up the project and participant recruitment. We report the diversity of sample obtained on the engagement of CC staff in training and the process of assessment itself. We report the quality of the data obtained, and the levels of engagement of parents and infants. We conclude that this approach has great potential for recruiting large and diverse samples worldwide, provides sufficiently reliable data and is engaging to staff, parents and infants. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Speaking of grief and the grief of speaking: martyrs’ speech and the perils of translation

In Derrida’s Monolinguism of the Other, a theory about the universal and constitutive alienation of the speaking subject from language finds its exemplary grounding in Derrida’s own experience as an Algerian Jew, one whose relationship to the French language is both totalizing and exiled (‘I have only one language, it is not mine.’). He equates speaking not only with contingent citizenship and a divestment of what one never really had in the first place, but also with the extreme experiences of torture, threat and physical violence. He indeed uses the words ‘passion’ and ‘martyr’ to describe his experience. In this paper, I will read Derrida ‘backwards,’ and against the universalizing move Derrida and those following him make in order to suggest a way of reading some scenes of violent death as scenes about diasporic cultural divestment. I’ll specifically attend to martyrs’ speech, and do so reading them as archives of the perils and inescapable expenses of entering dominant cultural ‘languages.’     

The Temporal Relations of PTSD Symptoms Among Treatment-Seeking Victims of Sexual Assault: A Longitudinal Study

This prospective study assessed the temporal relationships between the symptom clusters of PTSD in two nonprobability samples of treatment-seeking victims of sexual abuse: rape victims and adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Both groups were assessed at three time periods using self-report measures of PTSD symptomology. Findings from two cross-lagged panel analyses indicated weak temporal relationships between the symptom clusters of PTSD; however, avoidance and emotional numbing symptoms were found to exert the strongest cross-lagged effects. Avoidance and emotional numbing symptoms were also found to be the strongest predictor of subsequently meeting caseness for PTSD in both samples. Results suggest that there are minimal cross-lagged effects between the PTSD symptom clusters after three months from traumatic exposure.     

Developing a Validity Argument Through Abductive Reasoning with an Empirical Demonstration of the Latent Class Analysis

This article proposes and demonstrates a methodology for test score validation through abductive reasoning. It describes how abductive reasoning can be utilized in support of the claims made about test score validity. This methodology is demonstrated with a real data example of the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP)-General test—a program assessing functional English language ability in the community and workplace. Abductive reasoning seeks the enabling conditions through which a claim about a person's ability makes sense. For example, it makes sense that a person has strong functional language proficiency if he or she has been regularly using English to write emails and meet with colleagues at work. A valid test score should be affected by the extent of a person's engagement with such enabling conditions. Empirical evidence that warrants such an abductively reasoned claim is illustrated through a latent class analysis within a structural equation model. Evidence is examined to investigate whether certain classes of test takers who have been differentially engaging in the enabling conditions do, in fact, predict a person's CELPIP-General performance. The steps of the methodology are summarized in the closing section.     

社交网站使用能带来社会资本吗?

社交网站旨在维系和发展个体的人际关系网络,而社会资本是个体人际关系中潜在的、可获得的益处或资源,因此社交网站使用和社会资本存在密切关系。然而,有关一般性社交网站使用行为与社会资本关系的研究结果并不一致。针对不同类型使用行为的研究发现,特定类型的社交网站使用行为对特定类型社会资本有积极影响。社交网站中自我表露行为是获取社会资本的一种必要的途径,关系维持行为、资源动员请求行为、隐私保护行为等均是个体获取社会资本的有效行为策略。最后,就社会资本定义、线上线下社会资本存在覆盖等问题进行了探讨。