“More on Respect for Embryos and Potentiality: Does Respect for Embryos Entail Respect for In Vitro Embryos?”

It is commonly assumed that persons who hold abortions to be generally impermissible must, for the same reasons, be opposed to embryonic stem cell research [ESR]. Yet a settled position against abortion does not necessarily direct one to reject that research. The difference in potentiality between the embryos used in ESR and embryos discussed in the abortion debate can make ESR acceptable even if one holds that abortion is impermissible. With regard to their potentiality, in vitro embryos are here argued to be more morally similar to clonable somatic cells than they are to in vivo embryos. This creates an important moral distinction between embryos in vivo and in vitro. Attempts to refute this moral distinction, raised in the recent debate in this journal between Alfonso Gómez-Lobo and Mary Mahowald, are also addressed.     

Do you get what you pay for? Preventing insufficient effort responding in MTurk and student samples

Previous research has developed multiple indices to detect instances of insufficient effort responding (IER; Huang et al., 2015, 0.1037/a0038510). Although these techniques are largely successful, conflation between effort and insufficient effort leads to unnecessary data removal, thus warranting investigation into IER prevention strategies such as warning statements. For example, Brühlmann et al. (2020, 10.1016/j.metip.2020.100022) reported that close to 60% of participants were flagged for IER on at least one IER detection index. The current study used positive, negative, and no warning statements in two samples (MTurk and university participant pool) to examine their impact on two types of IER. Results do not support the use of warning statements to reduce IER covertly, overtly, or overall. Although slightly more university participants were flagged for IER for two of five IER indices, the remaining three indices did not differ between samples. This finding represents an important contribution to survey research literature by directly comparing samples on a variety of IER indices. Implications for survey research necessitate the examination of additional prevention strategies and sample differences in IER.     

Action Research on Meaning-Making at Residents' Meetings for Local Disability Policy1

This is the third in a series on residents' meetings (RMs) for municipal disability policymaking in Japan; members included people with disabilities (PWDs). I focused on members' meaning-making process for three community organizational goals: task, process, and relationship. Action research was employed in all three studies during my participation in RMs, which began in 2002. The present study is a follow-up on the meetings' development and covers 2013 to 2019. Meetings were divided into three phases: (a) use of the annual symposium to inform a broader audience about disability policies; (b) appreciation that PWDs can play active roles as supporters of others, especially other PWDs; and (c) recognition that contradiction and dilemma are present in attempts to provide “universal” social equipment for social minorities. The three goals were interrelated through uncertainty and vagueness of RMs; however, it enabled the members to interpret their multifaceted disability-related experiences. PWDs realized their power to help others and developed disability identities through intensive discussions, while they realized the difficulty of social acceptance of their power and the limited solidarity among PWDs.     

Beyond the Frontstage: Trust, Access, and the Relational Context in Research with Refugee Communities

This paper examines the role of trust and the concept of access as they affect the relational context in which community research, and research with refugee communities in particular, is conducted. Sociologist Irving Goffman's metaphor of frontstage and backstage behavior is used to illustrate the complexity and importance of developing of relations of trust, and thereby gaining "backstage" access, in communities that are generally closed to outsiders. It is argued that gaining authentic ("backstage") access to refugee communities, as well as other communities that have developed a self-protective insularity, is essential if we are to gather data that accurately reflect the actual beliefs, feelings, and experiences of community members. The paper then examines the puzzling lack of discussion regarding issues of trust, access, and the relational context in the literature on refugee mental health. Explanations for this apparent inattention are sought in the influence of the prevailing scientific paradigm that guides most research with refugees, and that shapes the values of the field's "gatekeepers," the editors and reviewers of scholarly journals. Throughout the paper, key points are illustrated with examples drawn from the author's research with refugees from Guatemala, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.     

Within‐subject analysis of a prevention strategy for problem behavior

Although decades of research on functional analysis methodology have identified common contingencies that maintain problem behavior and effective interventions, relatively little research has been conducted on strategies to prevent the initial development of problem behavior. We conducted a 2‐part case study, the purposes of which were to illustrate the use of sensitivity tests as the bases for intervention (Study 1) and subsequently to assess the efficacy of a prevention strategy using a single‐subject design (Study 2). Results showed that the sensitivity tests identified establishing operations that may set the occasion for the development of problem behavior and that interventions based on differential reinforcement prevented increases in the severity of problem behavior relative to untreated and control baselines. Benefits and limitations to this individualized approach to prevention are discussed.     

A Proposal for the Demarcation of Theory and Knowledge

Research communication in interdisciplinary research projects requires a way of demarcation of theory and knowledge that is easy to communicate, is inconsequential for the framework of concepts, results, and procedures within existing scientific disciplines, and abstains from trying to resolve the dispute between (neo)positivists and constructivists. A simple way of demarcation starts from the notion of language-independent and language-dependent reality. Currently, what passes for knowledge (“news”) and myth (“fake news”) depends, besides on sheer volume and frequency of the messages, increasingly on the internal consistency of (computer) language-dependent reality and decreasingly on language-independent reality. All language is instruction, and knowledge is to know which instructions (that is, theory) are predictive of a result, state, or situation in language-independent reality. Any theory that doesn’t reduce outcome space, or contains one or more empirically/physically impossible instructions, or produces wrong predictions, or falls short of demonstration is not knowledge.     

Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Students’ Career and College Readiness: A Survey of Professional School Counselors

Grounded in Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory and Savickas’s (2011) career construction theory, this study examined school counselors’ beliefs about whether they can perform specific tasks related to supporting students’ career and college readiness. A national sample of school counselors (N = 2,047) completed the School Counselor Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Student Career and College Readiness Scale (Baker, Parikh-Foxx, & Martinez, 2017). Findings from a survey research design indicated that the extent of related training and the challenges associated with implementation of career service delivery were of concern to participants. Recommendations for training, practice, and further research are presented.