On Becoming a Cybernetician: Highlights and Milestones

In this article, I describe how I encountered cybernetics and how it became an important part of my life. I begin with an account of my time at Brunel University and also describe how I came to work with Gordon Pask, one of the few intellectuals and researchers in the UK who styled themselves as cyberneticians. To enrich my story, I include an overview of the story of cybernetics as I perceive it. Given the importance I attach to cybernetics as an intellectual tool, I end with a plea for it to be included in all educational curricula.     

Freedom and idealism in Mary Whiton Calkins

This paper explores Calkins’ absolute idealism and its ramifications for libertarian free will. Calkins’ metaphysics is a version of absolute idealism, according to which the absolute is a person who has everything else as either a part or an aspect. Three different arguments for the conclusion that Calkins’ metaphysics is incompatible with libertarian freewill are formulated and critically assessed. Finally, I assess the extent to which these arguments are independent of each other.     

精神分析客体关系革命的折衷进路:英国独立学派评述

自精神分析学诞生以来,其发展进路经历了自我革命、客体关系革命、自体革命、关系革命和神经科学革命。英国独立学派是客体关系革命的主要发起者和中间力量,它诞生于20世纪40年代英国精神分析学会内部的“论战”,并在规模以及精神分析理论和技术方面都取得重大发展。独立学派的精神分析师以开放和折衷的态度批判性地汲取各种现存的精神分析观点,形成不同于克莱因学派的客体关系思想,并表现出独立性、开放性、关系性和真实性的内涵与特征。温尼科特、费尔贝恩和巴林特是独立学派的主要代表人物,他们各自建构出独特的客体关系理论,促使精神分析范式从一元驱力模式转向二元客体关系模式,推动了客体关系理论的深入发展,奠定了后续精神分析发展的基石。     

“Y'all trying to make a mockery out of me.” The confined sexualities of girls in a US juvenile detention facility

This paper examines how girls confined in a juvenile detention facility contend with messages from adult staff about their gender, sexual, and racial identities and practices. I show that girls are perpetually on the cusp of being punished for sexual misconduct for merely being sexually expressive, although actual punishment is arbitrary and inconsistently applied by staff. More importantly, girls' stories about their sexualities illuminate the force of punitive confinement sculpted by intergenerational relations that mask carceral logics under a façade of adult care. Constant surveillance and behavioral evaluations deem all sexuality to be available for inspection and introspection. I explore how girls come to understand their capacities for sexual expression within these limits of tight spatial control, persistent behavioral scrutiny, and a pervasive adult language of youth pathology. Racism and heterosexism centrally situate intergenerational relations of control and care in the facility, disturbingly burdening African-American and queer girls with the added pain of coming to terms with the impossibility of achieving the conformity that they are taught should be within their grasp with proper gender-sexual behaviors. Thus, rehabilitation is perpetually beyond girls' reach, since in spaces of juvenile detention personal and behavioral reform is an unending process.     

Illness perception clusters and relationship quality are associated with diabetes distress in adults with Type 2 diabetes

This report aims to augment what is already known about emotional distress in Type 2 diabetes, by assessing the predictive value of illness perception clusters and relationship quality on four subcategories of Diabetes Distress.162 individuals with Type 2 diabetes responded to a postal questionnaire assessing demographics, depression, diabetes distress, illness perceptions and relationship quality. Long-term blood glucose was retrieved from participants’ General Practitioner. Three illness perception clusters emerged from the data, capturing three subgroups of participants sharing similar illness perception schemas. Regression analyses were performed across each diabetes distress subscale, with demographics, illness perception clusters, and relationship variables entered into three blocks. Covariates explained 51.1% of the variance in emotional burden, 41% of the variance in regimen-related distress, 20% of the variance in interpersonal distress, and 8.6% of the variance in physician-related distress. Cluster membership was strongly associated with emotional burden, regimen-related distress, and to a lesser degree interpersonal distress, but was not associated with physician-related distress. Relationship quality most strongly predicted regimen-related distress. Illness perception schemas and interpersonal issues influence emotional adjustment in diabetes. This study provides direction for the content of a novel approach to identifying and reducing diabetes distress in people with Type 2 diabetes.     

Les violences externes au travail : facteurs générateurs,perceptions et réactions des agents

External violences are the violences exerted against an employee on his workplace. The phenomenon constitutes an increasing risk, in particular for the employees in relation with a public. This article presents a research undertaken within a social structure, worked out starting from problems which relate to the identification of external violences, perceptions and reactions located of the agents in daily relation with users; starting from a collection of data resulting from interviews and observations on three sites. The article points the multi-determined character of violences and the strategies put in work by the agents to cope with it. In that, he questions the phenomenon within the organizations of service in link with the complexity of the situations of the users.     

Christian Participation and Creative Resistance: Reflecting on Luther's Two‐fold Governance in Muslim‐Majority Malaysia

How can Luther's contribution in theology and lessons arising from the Reformation have any relevance for Christians in Muslim‐majority Malaysia? In this article, I propose that a reflection on Luther's understanding of the so‐called “doctrine of two kingdoms”—better understood as God's two‐fold governance—offers a critical contribution that not only is relevant for the Malaysian Christian community, but also may have intercultural and interreligious implications for dialogue and engagement with the Muslim majority for interreligious solidarity and the common good.     

Coparental Affect,Children's Emotion Dysregulation,and Parent and Child Depressive Symptoms

Children's emotion dysregulation and depressive symptoms are known to be affected by a range of individual (parent, child) and systemic (parent–child, marital, and family) characteristics. The current study builds on this literature by examining the unique role of coparental affect in children's emotion dysregulation, and whether this association mediates the link between parent and child depressive symptoms. Participants were 51 mother–father–child triads with children aged 7 to 12 (M age = 9.24 years). Triads discussed a time when the child felt sad and a time when the child felt happy. Maternal and paternal displays of positive affect were coded, and sequential analyses examined the extent to which parents were congruent in their displays of positive affect during the emotion discussions. Results indicated that interparental positive affect congruity (IPAC) during the sadness discussion, but not the happiness discussion, uniquely predicted parent‐reported child emotion dysregulation, above and beyond the contributions of child negative affect and parental punitive reactions. The degree of IPAC during the sadness discussion and child emotion dysregulation mediated the association between maternal, but not paternal, depressive symptoms and child depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the unique role of coparental affect in the socialization of sadness in youth and offer initial support for low levels of IPAC as a risk factor for the transmission of depressive symptoms in youth.     

Destigmatization by Association: Improving Children's Reactions to an Obese Storybook Character

Second- through fourth-grade students were read a storybook that described a typical boy who interacted with an obese boy for one of four reasons (sympathy, curiosity, teacher instructed, or no reason) to explore the manner in which a typical storybook character's reason for associating with an obese storybook character influences children's responses to both characters. Results revealed that the children responded more favorably to the obese storybook character after than before learning about the typical storybook character's association with him, especially when the typical storybook character's reason for association was presented as internally motivated (sympathy or curiosity). In contrast to “stigma by association” findings reported in prior research, the children also responded more favorably to the typical storybook character after than before his association with the obese storybook character.