The power within: Mass media,scientific entertainment,and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

How did a new science initially promoted by only a few individuals eventually become a widespread cultural phenomenon practiced and known by thousands of people? Following a transnational approach, this article traces the introduction of psychical research into China during the first two decades of the 20th century. Known in the Republican period (1912–1949) as Spiritual Science (xinling kexue or xinling yanjiu), psychical research flourished between the 1920s and 1930s, playing a key role in the popularization of applied psychology and mind-cure across China. This article takes a step back from the heyday of Spiritual Science by looking at the period that immediately preceded and helped define it. Focused on wide-circulation newspapers, popular manuals, and stage performances, it teases out the ways in which Chinese popular culture translated European, American, and Japanese psychical research to local Chinese audiences in the midst of China's search for modernity. By naturalizing the reality of psychic powers, spiritual scientists blurred the boundaries between science and superstition in a period when these were posited as diametrically opposed.     

勿以恶小而为之：滑坡效应的心理机制及预防策略

滑坡效应是指个体的不道德程度有随时间推移而逐渐加剧的倾向, 即不道德行为具有反复性和渐进性。它广泛存在于个体自身层面以及人际互动过程中, 会影响个体正常社会交往, 甚至阻碍社会和谐健康发展。滑坡效应的研究方式包括实验者操纵法和自发性欺骗法, 心理机制包括道德推脱、内隐偏差、自我非人化等, 对应的干预措施包括提升预防定向动机和塑造积极的描述性社会规范。未来研究可从心理过程和生理机制的角度进一步探讨滑坡效应的适用范围、神经干预方式等。     

新型冠状病毒疫情影响下大学生对医生角色行为的道德判断研究

2020年初,在我国发生了新型冠状病毒引发的重大疫情,医生是战“疫”的重要角色,也是最受关注的职业群体。这次疫情是否改变了以往因医患矛盾而引发的大众对医生的道德判断?本研究采用徐科朋(2019)编制的道德判断材料,以非医护专业大学生为被试,用实验法分别比较了疫情前和疫情中大学生对医生道德和不道德行为的判断。结果发现:(1)疫情前大学生对医生在公平行为上的赞扬程度显著高于疫情中,疫情中大学生对医生在关爱、忠诚、权威行为上,赞扬程度显著高于疫情前。(2)在整体不道德行为上,疫情中大学生均对医生的评价比对照组严格。疫情前大学生对医生在背叛、颠覆行为上的评价要比对照组宽松。疫情中大学生对医生在伤害、背叛、堕落行为上的评价要比对照组严格。(3)疫情中,大学生对医生在整体不道德行为和各维度不道德行为上的评价较疫情前均更加严格。     

彰显道德韧性：应对疫情中的道德创伤

道德韧性是成功应对道德逆境的高尚道德操守。面对新型冠状病毒感染的肺炎疫情,中华民族的道德韧性得以彰显,有效地遏制了道德创伤的发生;但社会个体道德韧性的缺失,也使得部分道德创伤不容忽视,如果任其恣意蔓延必将消解和冲击人们抗击疫情的道德情感和道德意志。抵御疫情中的道德创伤,必须在坚定文化自信中传承道德韧性,在应对道德逆境中塑造道德韧性,在探寻生命意义中升华道德韧性,在领导和权威人士履职尽责中激发道德韧性。     

God Versus Party: Competing Effects on Attitudes Concerning Criminal Punishment,National Security,and Military Service

We explore how images of God interact with political party to predict attitudes concerning the appropriate role of government in both criminal punishment and national security. Using the second wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (2007), we analyze the extent to which beliefs regarding God's moral judgment moderate the influence of party affiliation on opinions about the death penalty, fighting terrorism, punishing criminals, serving in the military, and U.S. involvement in the Iraq War. Specifically, we find that Democrats who believe in a judgmental God tend to support more conservative policies. In fact, attitudes converge such that the effects of party membership are erased if rival partisans both believe in a judgmental moral authority.     

It's a great big universe: Astrobiology and future trends for an astrotheology

Despite the awe and wonder that discoveries related to astrobiology inspire, the sheer volume and diversity of new discoveries related to space science can become overwhelming without meaningful frames of reference by which to organize our understanding of these phenomena. I suggest that a critical feature of the future of “astrotheology” relates to how it serves as an organizing correlate to astrobiology and space research. Considering that the prefix astro‐ has an amplicative and abductive effect on the fields of study to which it is applied, I contend that astrotheology implies a creative and constructive shift in how we conceptualize meaningful human being for theology that parallels how astrobiology effects a creative and constructive shift in how we conceptualize living systems.     

Victims' Stories: A Call to Care

In her book Victims' Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights, Diana Meyers offers a careful analysis of victims' stories as a narrative genre, and she argues that stories in this genre function as a call to care: they both depict a moral void and issue a moral demand, thereby fostering the development of a culture of human rights. This article, while finding Meyers's articulation of this idea compelling, questions Meyers's account of how victims' stories do their moral work. Whereas Meyers argues that victims' stories are complete narratives, characterized by a distinctive form of closure, it suggests that the moral power of victims' stories may lie in part in their open‐endedness or lack of closure. In telling their stories, victims engage their audiences in a new moral relationship and implicitly give them a role to play in bringing about the moral (and narrative) closure they seek.     

Ethical intuitionism and the linguistic analogy

It is a central tenet of ethical intuitionism as defended by W. D. Ross and others that moral theory should re?ect the convictions of mature moral agents. Hence, intuitionism is plausible to the extent that it corresponds to our well-considered moral judgments. After arguing for this claim, I discuss whether intuitionists o?er an empirically adequate account of our moral obligations. I do this by applying recent empirical research by John Mikhail that is based on the idea of a universal moral grammar to a number of claims implicit in W. D. Ross’s normative theory. I argue that the results at least partly vindicate intuitionism.     

Reflecting on Participatory,Action‐Oriented Research Methods in Community Psychology: Progress,Problems, and Paths Forward

This paper provides a critical reflection on participatory action research (PAR) methods as they pertain to community psychology. Following a brief review of the fundamental aspects of PAR, key developments in the field are examined. These developments include the redefinition of the research enterprise among groups such as Indigenous and consumer/survivor communities, challenges that attend the “project” framing of PAR, academic and practice context challenges, and important domains in which PAR methods need to become more engaged (e.g., social media and disenfranchised youth). Three illustrative case studies of programs of work in the areas of youth homelessness, consumer/survivor engagement, and Indigenous research are provided to illustrate these contemporary challenges and opportunities in the field. The authors make the argument that without an effort to reconsider and redefine PAR, moving away from the stereotypical PAR “project” frame, these methods will continue to be poorly represented and underutilized in community psychology.