AQUINAS'S ARGUMENT AGAINST SELF-HATRED

Aquinas's argument against the possibility of genuine self‐hatred runs counter to modern intuitions about self‐hatred as an explanatorily central notion in psychology, and as an effect of alienation. Aquinas's argument does not deny that persons experience hatred for themselves. It can be read either as the claim that the self‐hater mistakes what she feels toward herself as hatred, or that, though she hates what she believes is her “self,” she actually hates only traits of herself. I argue that the argument fails on both readings. The first reading entails that all passions are really self‐love, and so is incompatible with Aquinas's own “cognitivist” view of what it is that distinguishes specific passions in experience. The second reading entails that persons have no phenomenal access to “self,” rendering self‐reference—how it is that the self can be an intentional object of conscious mental states—a mystery. Augustine's claim, which Aquinas accepts on authority, that all sin originates in inordinate self‐love seems to entail the impossibility of genuine self‐hatred because both thinkers fail to distinguish between two distinct forms of self‐love: amor concupiscentiae and amor benevolentiae.     

Comparison of response formats for Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales: six levels versus two levels

Two formats of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales were administered to 54 college students. Each subject completed the MHLC Scales in the standard 6-level response format (ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree) and in a revised 2-level format (ranging from disagree to agree). Comparisons of internal consistency measures, principal components, and classification of subjects into groups indicate that the 2-level response format yields comparable data to those obtained with the 6-level format, particularly when classification of subjects is the goal.     

Heat and Violence: New Findings from Dallas Field Data, 1980–19811

Research in both laboratory and field settings has suggested a link between thermal stress and violent behavior, and both linear and curvilinear models have been investigated. A dearth of field studies prompted the analysis reported here, which is based on data for some 10,000 aggravated assaults occurring the City of Dallas in 1980 (a summer of severe heat stress) and 1981. This analysis replicates and extends certain aspects of recent work by Anderson and Anderson (1984) relating to the so-called linear and curvilinear hypotheses. Thermal stress is measured in two ways: a Discomfort Index (DI), which takes into account the influence of humidity acting in concert with temperature, and ambient temperature. Regression analyses were performed in two stages. In the first, data for all neighborhoods and all days of the study period were combined into ambient temperature and DI models. At the second stage, models differentiated between the three levels of neighborhood socioeconomic status. With weekend controlled, DI and ambient temperature were significant independent variables in the ‘overall’ model and in medium and low status neighborhoods. However, when linear effects were controlled, the curvilinear measures were never significant. The analysis generally tended to confirm Anderson and Anderson's suggestion that a reduction of aggression with increasing temperature does not appear to occur within the normal range of temperatures. This analysis further suggested that the hypothesized curvilinear effect is weak, if not entirely absent, even during conditions of extreme heat.     

A content analysis of the conversational behavior of accepted and rejected children

The present study was designed to assess whether the conversational behavior of children separated into accepted, rejected, and mixed-status dyads differed along the dimensions of listening to, paying attention to, and indicating interest in their dyadic partner. Conversations of 40 third-grade dyads were analyzed as they occurred in a 2- min waiting period and a 4- min conversation period. Seventeen categories of verbal behaviors that indexed these dimensions were used as content codes. Multivariate analyses of variance performed on the observational data yielded significant main effects for status, sex, and experimental condition. Results are interpreted in terms of previous social skills research, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Some Ethical Issues In Applied Social Psychology: The Case of Bilingual Education and Self-esteem

Ideas and theories from social psychology are often put to practical use. Sometimes these borrowed concepts and theories are carefully implemented, sometimes they are not. Education is a practical area where social psychology is often applied, sometimes without much care. As an example of the problem, this article examines how educators used self-esteem to justify bilingual education programs for language minority students and whether this application of social psychology is warranted. We find that the postulated effect of bilingual educations on self-esteem does not occur. Also, self-esteem research and theory are misapplied in attempting to justify bilingual education with respect to its supposed effects on self-esteem. Finally, we raise the question of what responsibility the field of social psychology has to correct misapplication of theory and concepts.     

Erikson's life cycle theory and images of God

Human life is a God-ordained pilgrimage by which persons travel toward ever-expanding images of God that emerge from the universal pattern of developmental crises. Using the work of Erik Erikson on the human life cycle and the work of Donald Capps on human sin, the author presents a way to conduct pastoral diagnosis and to provide pastoral care. By accurately tracing a person's images of God back to their potentially unresolved developmental crises, the pastoral caregiver can reopen opportunities for further and healthier resolution of the crises.