Book reviews

Buckley, Key W. (1989). Mechanical man: John Broadeus Watson and the beginnings of Behaviorism. New York: Guilford Press. Pp. 293. ISBN 0-89862-744-3. $32.45/£18.00.

Colgan, P. (1989), Animal Motivation. New York and London: Chapman and Hall. Pp. 168. ISBN 0412-31850. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 0412-31860, £10.95 (paperback).

Antinucci, F (Ed.) (1989). Cognitive structure and development in nonhuman prinates. Hillsdale, Nj: Laweence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. 266. ISBN 0-8058-0544. £16.50 (Hardback).

Parker, S.T. & Gibson, K.R. (Eds.) (1990). “Language” and intelligence in monkeys and apes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 590. ISBN 0-521-38028-6. £40.00 (hardback).

Ley, Ronald (1990). A whisper of espionnage: Wolfgang Koehler and the apes of Tenerife. Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publoshing Corporation. Pp.264. ISBN 0-89529-432-x. $19.95.     

The social brain meets neuroimaging

Recent neuroimaging studies in humans have indicated that individual differences in social network size correlate with amygdala volume and the volume of brain regions associated with theory of mind. A new article demonstrates that this is also true for monkeys. Taken together, these findings provide crucial support for the social brain hypothesis.     

When is Parental Suppression of Black Children’s Negative Emotions Adaptive? The Role of Preparation for Racial Bias and Children’s Resting Cardiac Vagal Tone

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Research demonstrates that Black parents attempt to suppress children’s expressions of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear), in part, to...     

Openness to experience and creativity: When does global citizenship matter?

The relationship between the openness to experience trait (OTE) and creativity has been well documented in previous research. Likewise, the global citizenship construct has theoretical overlap with both OTE and creativity. We hypothesised global citizenship would make a unique contribution to explaining variance in five types of creativity (self/everyday, scholarly, performance, mechanical/scientific and artistic), above and beyond the contribution of OTE. Participants were predominantly female, European American, traditionally aged college students (N = 407). Global citizenship prosocial outcomes explained unique variance in self/everyday (sr² = .10), scholarly (sr² = .03) and mechanical/scientific (sr² = .03) creativity. Results are discussed in terms of dual processes theories of cognition.     

Use of social network sites and instant messaging does not lead to increased offline social network size, or to emotionally closer relationships with offline network members

The effect of Internet use on social relationships is still a matter of intense debate. This study examined the relationships between use of social media (instant messaging and social network sites), network size, and emotional closeness in a sample of 117 individuals aged 18 to 63 years old. Time spent using social media was associated with a larger number of online social network "friends." However, time spent using social media was not associated with larger offline networks, or feeling emotionally closer to offline network members. Further, those that used social media, as compared to non-users of social media, did not have larger offline networks, and were not emotionally closer to offline network members. These results highlight the importance of considering potential time and cognitive constraints on offline social networks when examining the impact of social media use on social relationships.     

科学家怎样建构模型

令人惊讶的是,科学家做什么和他们怎样思考一直是困难的考察课题。研究者们一贯利用笔记、谈话、日记、历史重构和同事的阐述来得到对认知过程的描述,它成为科学思考和建立模型的基础。运用这些方法,研究者们对科学中发生的事情已经完成了许多重要的说明。然而,过去的十年我们一直追踪不同的方法来考察科学家思考和推理的方式。我们已经考察过“有机地”发生在分子生物学和免疫学实验室集会上的思考和推理。我们已经做的是当科学家在自己的实验室思考和推理的时候,对他们进行录像和录音。然后我们逐字逐句地分析科学家们在明确地叙述理论、分析数据、设计实验和建立模型时所利用的思考和推理的类型。我们已经在美国、加拿大和意大利考察了最主要的实验室。在每个实验室我们工作了三个月到一年的时间,为每周一次的实验室集会录音,以会见和其他文件(如核准的建议、论文草稿)以及个别谈话补充集会内容。用这种方法,我们能够建立科学思维的认知基础的细致模型。尤其是,我们考察了现代科学中类比、意外发现和组合推理的作用。     

Gratuity,Embodiment, and Reciprocity

Protestant Christian ethicist Timothy Jackson and secular feminist philosopher Eva Feder Kittay each explore the relationship between love or care and justice through the lens of human dependency. Jackson sharply prioritizes agape over justice, whereas Kittay articulates a more complex and integrated understanding of the relationship of care and distributive justice. An account of Christian love and its relation to justice must account for the gratuity, mutuality, and reciprocity that pervade human existence. Such an account must integrate provision for another's basic needs, a feature of agape, with a distributive justice that fairly allocates the material prerequisites of care and the burden of caring labor. Kittay's treatment of care and justice is more adequate to the realities of human embodiment and the social organization of care than Jackson's, but neither offers a fully adequate ground for the moral personhood of all human beings, including deeply dependent persons.