Relational mobility and close relationships: A socioecological approach to explain cross‐cultural differences

This article reviews how behaviors and psychological tendencies in close relationships differ between cultures, and proposes a socioecological framework to understand those differences. Our review of the literature finds that paradoxically, people in individualistic cultures are more actively engaged in close relationships (e.g., higher levels of social support, self‐disclosure, intimacy, and love) than those in collectivistic cultures. From an adaptationist perspective, we argue that one reason for these differences is higher levels of relational mobility in individualistic cultures. In societies with high relational mobility, where relationships are relatively more fragile, more active engagement in close relationships helps individuals to impress potential, and retain current, partners. We emphasize the importance of examining socioecologies to better understand close relationships.     

"Detoxification" of Vietnam War Trauma: A Combined Family-Individual Approach

Treatment with families of veterans suffering from the aftereffects of combat trauma in the Vietnam War often requires a preliminary phase of disjoint treatment, in which family members are seen separately, before conjoint treatment can proceed. In this disjoint phase of treatment, wives and children are introduced to the brutal realities of Vietnam combat experience and to an understanding of its sequelae. This disjoint phase of family therapy detoxifies combat experience so that it can be approached in subsequent conjoint sessions along with more traditional family therapy issues.     

Contrasting Memory for Temporal-Source and Memory for Content in Children's Discrimination of Repeated Events

The current studies examined the separate roles that memory of temporal-source and memory of content play in children's discrimination of occurrences of a repeated event. The studies were also designed to determine the impact of age and retention interval on each of these components. In Experiment One, 4- to 5- versus 6- to 8-year-old children experienced six occurrences of a repeated event; each occurrence had the same underlying structure; however, a different version or instantiation of each item was included in each occurrence of the event. At either 1 or 6 week delay, the children were asked to recall which instantiation of the item was included in the final occurrence. In Experiment Two, children were required to recall as many instantiations as they could, prior to making a decision about which instantiation was included in the final occurrence. The results indicated that: (a) children's capacity to correctly identify the final instantiation declined over time and increased with age; (b) children's capacity to provide an instantiation that was temporally close to the final occurrence declined over time and increased with age; and (c) children's ability to remember the source of an instantiation decreased over time irrespective of any loss of memory for content. The results were discussed in relation to current theories of memory and children's eyewitness memory. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

IN THE FUTURE PHILOSOPHY WILL BE NEITHER CONTINENTAL NOR ANALYTIC BUT SYNTHETIC: TOWARD A PROMISCUOUS MISCEGENATION OF (ALL) PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS AND STYLES

In this paper, I suggest that the important philosophy of the future will increasingly be found neither in the “continental” nor in the “analytic” traditions but, instead, in the transcending sublation of (all) traditions I call “synthetic philosophy.” I mean “synthetic” both in a sense that encourages the bold combinatorial mélange of existing styles, traditions, and issues, and also in the Hegelian sense of sublating dichotomous oppositions, appropriating the distinctive insights of both sides while eliminating their errors and exaggerations, and thereby creating new syntheses in which the old oppositions are transcended.