Can We Hear Silence?

Philosophia - We can hear silence because silence, an absence of sound, causes our hearing of it. Advocating this position, Roy Sorensen puts to use his own theory of the direct perception of...     

Gender-Role Attitudes in University Students in the United States, Slovenia, and Croatia

Determinants of gender-role attitudes were examined in samples of university students from Pittsburgh in the United States, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Osijek in Croatia. Surveys including items from the Attitudes Toward Women Scale and the Neosexism Scale were administered to a total of 1,544 U.S. students, 912 Slovene students, and 996 Croatian students between the years of 1991 and 2000. As predicted, men held less egalitarian or more sexist attitudes about the appropriate roles for women and men, and those with more frequent attendance at religious services held more sexist attitudes. No changes in attitudes were found for women over time, but Slovene males were found to become more traditional over time.     

Type A behavior and emotional responses to uncertainty: A test of the self-appraisal model

The self-appraisal model of Type A behavior holds that Type A's desire an accurate appraisal of abilities, and respond to uncertainty about abilities with exaggerated attempts to generate diagnostic information. The model also predicts that the major emotional response to uncertainty for Type A's is anxiety. In this study, Type A's and B's were induced to succeed or fail on a task where they were either very certain or very uncertain of their subsequent ability levels. Task failure produced greater depression, anger, and frustration for all subjects. Consistent with the self-appraisal model's prediction, uncertainty (regardless of success or failure) led to greater anxiety for Type A's than for Type B's. In fact, greater uncertainty produced lower anxiety for Type B's, indicating that Type A's and B's differ dramatically in their emotional responses to uncertainty about abilities.     

Divorce in the kibbutz: Past and present

In the kibbutz today, there are no ideological or economic barriers to prevent a couple from deciding to divorce. Both husband and wife are assured continued economic security and equal opportunities for co-parenting, thus reducing fears of disruption in the daily contact with the children. In spite of these favorable circumstances, marital breakups in the kibbutz are less frequent than in the larger cities in Israel. In recent years, however, at a time when a stronger and more intensive family life has gained legitimacy within the kibbutz structure, there is a marked tendency toward a rise in the rate of divorce. In this article we analyze the possible causes of the variations in the frequency of divorce within the kibbutz framework.The authors express appreciation to Esther Mivtzari, a psychologist on the staff of the Kibbutz Child and Family Clinic and a member of the religious kibbutz Ein-Tzurim, for assistance in gathering data on divorce in the religious kibbitzum.     

Mediating Effects of Perceived Personal Control in Coping With a Health Threat: The Case of Genetic Counseling1

The potential impact of perceived personal control on coping with a medical threat was investigated in genetic counseling, a clinical setting where issues of personal control are central. Data were collected from 72 counselees at a genetic clinic before, immediately after, and 1 month after initiating genetic counseling. Findings supported the hypothesized mediating model. Higher perceived control (cognitive-interpretive and decisional) and satisfaction with genetic counseling mediated between genetic counseling and the use of less emotion-focused coping strategies. Problem-focused coping was predicted only directly by counselees' knowledge of their problem after genetic counseling. Changes in emotion-focused coping were related to perceived increases in positive affect 1 month later, while changes in use of problem-focused coping were related to perceived decreases in both positive and negative affect.     

Persistent crying and parenting: Search for a butterfly in a dynamic system

The risks and causes of persistent crying in early infancy are discussed on the basis of a study of 61 infants referred to the Munich Interdisciplinary Research and Intervention Program for Fussy Babies for persistent crying between 1 and 6 months of age, and of a community sample of 51 infants of the same age. Particular attention was paid to pre-verbal parent-infant communication, the development of which was interpreted in terms of a dynamic interactional system including both regulatory and communicative predispositions in infants and intuitive competence for supporting infant predispositions in parents. Neither a gut problem nor any other single causal factor was identified for persistent crying in the majority of cases. In contrast, persistent crying was significantly associated with multiple biological and psychosocial risk factors for both parents and infants. Neurological immaturity, difficult temperament and sleep problems in infants, and impaired psychological conditions, limited resources and failures of intuitive competences in mothers were found to threaten the developmental process in infants and give rise to ‘vicious circles’ which were destabilizing the interactional systems. Increased attention to intuitive parental competences is recommended as one effective model for therapeutic interventions.     

Melodies in caregivers' speech: A species-specific guidance towards language

The author reports on a series of integrated studies on melodic contours in infant-directed (ID) speech. ID melodies in speech are taken as an instructive example of intuitive parenting in order to review current evidence on its forms, functions and determinants. The forms and functions of melodic prototypes are compared in terms of universal properties and individual and/or cultural variability across samples of German, Chinese and American mothers, and German mothers and fathers with their 2- and 3-month-old infants. Microanalyses of interactional contexts show that forms and functions of ID melodies are intimately related to typical dimensions of intuitive caregiving–arousing/soothing, turnyielding/turn-closing, approving/disapproving. The communicative functions of ID melodies as both categorical and graded signals are discussed with respect to the current knowledge on infant responses to ID speech and on early speech perception. According to a comprehensive longitudinal study of ID speech in relation to stages of infant vocalization, ID speech results from fine-tuned adjustments in various prosodic and linguistic features to developmental changes in infants' perceptual and vocal competence. ID melodies evidently have the potential to draw infant attention to caregivers' speech, to regulate arousal and affect in infants, to provide models for imitation, to guide infants in practising communicative subroutines and to mediate linguistic information. Current evidence suggests that the melodies in caregivers' speech provide a species-specific guidance towards language acquisition.     

Fractal geometry—The case of a rapid career

The first fractal constructions appeared in mathematics in the second half of the 19th century. Their history is divided into two periods. The first period lasted 100 years and is a good example of the method of proofs and refutations discovered by Lakatos. The modern history of these objects started 20 years ago, when Mandelbrot decided to create fractal geometry, a general theory concentrated on specific properties of fractals. His approach has been surprisingly effective. The aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for Mandelbrot's success and for the present popularity of fractals. They are now known not only in mathematics but also in many fields of natural, social and applied sciences, and even in the arts.     

What are numbers?

A number is the number of a class which is an objective, nonactual, mathematical object. The concept of class is analyzed and it is concluded that a number is the number of a pure founded class. A tempting strategy of explaining numbers away is rejected. Some well‐known definitions of numbers are analyzed and it is concluded that this analysis purports the thesis that the unique notion of number does not exist. Numbers are conventional. Nevertheless, an argument is offered purporting the thesis that von Neumann's ordinal numbers are the ordinal numbers. Accordingly, the corresponding von Neumann's cardinal numbers are the numbers.     

Recollecting the Religious: Augustine in Answer to Meno’s Paradox

Studies in Philosophy and Education - Philosophers of education often view the role of religion in education with suspicion, claiming it to be impossible, indoctrinatory or controversial unless...