“Growing your own herbs” and “cooking from scratch”: Contemporary discourses around good mothering,food, and class‐related identities

In a cultural climate of “intensive parenting” and concerns about the “obesity epidemic,” parents are expected to take responsibility for their children's health, particularly through the provision of a “healthy” diet. This study involved intergenerational dyad interviews with both middle‐class and working‐class mothers and daughters from the United Kingdom. Analysing the data using discourse analysis informed by feminist poststructuralist theory, we found that mothers were positioned as having prime responsibility for the nurturing of family members, including the provision of a healthy diet. However, providing a healthy diet alone was insufficient; mothers needed to demonstrate that time and effort had been taken in the preparation of meals using fresh ingredients. Those who failed to do so were positioned as “lazy,” thus inviting the blaming of mothers for any current or future health problems encountered by family members (especially children). However, talk from some of the working‐class mothers pointed to the unattainable and “classed” ideals that are set by such cultural expectations.     

Interindividual differences in neonatal sociality and emotionality predict juvenile social status in rhesus monkeys

In humans, socioeconomic status (SES) has profound outcomes on socio‐emotional development and health. However, while much is known about the consequences of SES, little research has examined the predictors of SES due to the longitudinal nature of such studies. We sought to explore whether interindividual differences in neonatal sociality, temperament, and early social experiences predicted juvenile social status in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), as a proxy for SES in humans. We performed neonatal imitation tests in infants’ first week of life and emotional reactivity assessments at 2 and 4 weeks of age. We examined whether these traits, as well as the rearing environment in the first 8 months of life (with the mother or with same‐aged peers only) and maternal social status predicted juvenile (2–3 years old) social status following the formation of peer social groups at 8 months. We found that infants who exhibited higher rates of neonatal imitation and newborn emotional reactivity achieved higher social status as juveniles, as did infants who were reared with their mothers, compared to infants reared with peers. Maternal social status was only associated with juvenile status for infant dyads reared in the same maternal group, indicating that relative social relationships were transferred through social experience. These results suggest that neonatal imitation and emotional reactivity may reflect ingrained predispositions toward sociality that predict later outcomes, and that nonnormative social experiences can alter socio‐developmental trajectories. Our results indicate that neonatal characteristics and early social experiences predict later social outcomes in adolescence, including gradients of social stratification.     

Bidding for delayed rewards: Accumulation as delay discounting,delay discounting as regulation,demand functions as corollary

In the accumulation paradigm animals press one manipulandum to accumulate pellets or seconds of access to food, and then press another manipulandum, or run some distance, to collect it. The accumulation may be interpreted as delay discounting, with the animals adjusting the distal amount to compensate for its distance or delay. The amount accumulated before being collected is a linear function of the distance or time that the experimental paradigm stipulates for collecting it. That linear function follows from the Unit‐Price/Unit‐Amount axiom. The inverse of the linear compensation functions gives a delay‐discount hyperbola. The advantages of the accumulation paradigm and analytic framework for delay discounting studies are noted. Compensation functions are then derived from a behavioral regulation model, which generalizes them to contexts where the individual's budget for response cost becomes over‐taxed. In turn, such compensation/regulation models lead directly to representative demand functions. In sum, regulation models provide a theoretical grounding for demand functions, compensation functions, and delay discounting hyperbolas. The parameter that links them is the unit amount k, the slope of the compensation function and of the discount function, the setpoint for consumption in a regulation model, and the ideal quantity consumed at minimal price in a demand analysis.     

Examples of real world engineering ethics problems

Nine examples are presented illustrating the kinds of problems encountered in actual practice by conscientious engineers. These cases are drawn fom the records of the IEEE Ethics Committee, and from the experience of the ethics help-line initiated recently by the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science. They range from situations in which companies try to cheat one another to those in which human health and safety are jeopardized. In one case, an engineer learned that even a quiet resignation can prove very costly in a personal sense. Some ways in which professional societies might make ethical practice of engineering somewhat easier are mentioned. An carlier, shorter version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Ethics in Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, March 21–24, 1999, and can be accessed on line at http://onlineethics.org/cases/unger.html. In all cases described in this paper, the names of individuals and organizations have been suppressed or fictionalized. Professor Unger was Chairman of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Ethics Committee (1997–1998).     

Investigating whether maternal memory specificity is indirectly associated with child memory specificity through maternal reminiscing

Maternal reminiscing and remembering has a profound influence on the development of children’s autobiographical remembering skills. The current study investigated the relationships between maternal memory specificity, maternal reminiscing and child memory specificity. Participants consisted of 40 mother–child dyads. Children’s age ranged between 3.5 and 6 years. Mothers and children participated in individual assessments of autobiographical memory specificity. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about three past emotional (happy, sad, stressful) events. A positive moderate association was found between maternal autobiographical memory specificity and child autobiographical memory specificity. Maternal autobiographical memory specificity was significantly correlated with mothers’ focus on the task, involvement and reciprocity, resolution of negative feelings, and structuring of narratives in the mother–child reminiscing task. Moderate positive associations were found between maternal focus and structuring and child memory specificity. There was no evidence to suggest maternal elaborative reminiscing style was significantly positively correlated with mother or child memory specificity. Finally, there was support for an indirect pathway between maternal memory specificity and child memory specificity through quality of support and guidance provided by the mother in maternal reminiscing. Theoretical and clinical implications are considered.     

Demeter's Compromise: Separation,Loss, and Reconnection in Mothers with Daughters Entering Adulthood

Drawing on contemporary theory of female development that focuses on the dynamics of the mother/daughter relationship regarding issues of separation and individuation, this article examines the treatment of a middle aged mother as she navigates her way through her daughter's adolescence and early adulthood. Psychoanalytic object relations, psychoanalytic relational theory, and feminist theory serve to frame an understanding of the case material in terms of developmental challenges that are uniquely female. Issues around mother/daughter attachment, separation, competition, conflict, and love are explored in the relationships between the patient and her mother, the patient and her daughter, and the patient and the therapist. The therapist's countertransference, intensified by her relationships with her own mother and daughter, suggests the possibility of both pitfalls and opportunities in the treatment. The article attempts to address a gap in psychoanalytic developmental theory, which offers little understanding of the challenges for women in midlife.     

重症加强监护医学与临床思维

重症加强监护医学的发展史,也是其临床思维的发展史,一个由个体性呼吸衰竭救治观念转化为集群性救治启动了重症加强监护学的建立,它们的发展带动亦受益于其临床思维、动态思维的发展。重症加强监护的实施,引发了医学伦理学新的思考与选择,而新的生物技术革命,必将导致重症加强监护医学及其临床思维的巨大变革。     

医疗过失的法律责任

引起医疗纠纷的事实可分为应由医方承担责任的事实和不应由医方承担责任的事实,只有医方符合法律责任的构成要件－即医疗行为的主体是医疗单位、主体有过失或违反义务的行为、有损害后果、而且主体的行为与损害后果之间有因果关系,才需承担法律责任,以消除只有损害后果医方就要承担法律责任和只有鉴定为医疗事故的才承担法律责任等方面的误区。     

青少年期母子性格与家庭亲密度的关系:性格喜好的作用

研究旨在考察性格喜好与母子性格、家庭成员亲密度的关系以及性格喜好在其他两个变量之间的中介作用。成都市632对初高中学生及其母亲分别自评并填写了艾森克人格问卷,同时评价喜欢对方性格的程度。另外,青少年还报告了与家庭成员的亲密程度。通过相关分析、多元方差分析、层级回归分析以及结构方程模型建模,结果发现：性格喜好与母亲性格、青少年性格均有显著关系,青少年对母亲的性格喜好程度与家庭成员间的亲密感有显著正相关。青少年性格和青少年对母亲的性格喜好程度能直接预测家庭成员亲密度,同时青少年和母亲的性格还通过青少年对母亲的性格喜好程度间接作用于家庭亲密度,提示性格喜好在二者的关系中发挥了重要的中介作用。     

Using a new analysis of the best interests standard to address cultural disputes: Whose data,which values?

Clinicians sometimes disagree about how much to honor surrogates’ deeply held cultural values or traditions when they differ from those of the host country. Such a controversy arose when parents requested a cultural accommodation to let their infant die by withdrawing life saving care. While both the parents and clinicians claimed to be using the Best Interests Standard to decide what to do, they were at an impasse. This standard is analyzed into three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions and used to resolve the question of how much to accommodate cultural preferences and how to treat this infant. The extreme versions of absolutism and relativism are rejected. Properly understood, the Best Interests Standard can serve as a powerful tool in settling disputes about how to make good decisions for those who cannot decide for themselves.