Re‐Member MOVE: The Anatomy of a Reconciliation

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia city officials authorized the dropping of a bomb on a house in a residential neighborhood, killing 11 people of the MOVE organization—including five children—destroying 61 homes and rendering nearly 250 residents homeless. The years leading up to this tragedy involved multiple instances of police brutality, one of which resulted in the more than 40‐year incarceration of nine MOVE members (commonly known as the MOVE 9). In this first‐person account, we review literature on reconciliation and apologies, explore the value of reconciliation in community psychology, and reflect on our involvement as a reconciliation strategist and a community psychologist in initiating, developing and facilitating a reconciliation process. A model of iterative reconciliation as a creative multilevel and multipurpose tool relevant for community psychology is proposed. The reconciliation process began in September 2018 between key players involved with the MOVE organization and Philadelphia officials and community members and family and involved multiple community gatherings and conversations with many stakeholders. Ultimately, through the extensive reconciliation process, the authors facilitated the issuing of an apology on May 13, 2020 by the Council of the City of Philadelphia.     

Number of options in a movement sequence affects learners' behavior in a self-controlled practice condition

Self-controlling practice implies a process of decision making, which suggests that the options in a self-controlled practice condition could affect learners. The number of task components with no fixed position in a movement sequence may affect the way learners self-control their practice. A 200-cm coincident timing track with 90 light-emitting diodes (LEDs)--the first and the last LEDs being the warning and the target lights, respectively--was set so that the apparent speed of the light along the track was 1.33 m/sec. Participants were required to touch six sensors sequentially, the last one coincidently with the lighting of the target light (timing task). Group 1 (n = 55) had only one constraint, and were instructed to touch the sensors in any order, except for the last sensor which had to be the one positioned close to the target light. Group 2 (n = 53) had three constraints: the first two and the last sensor to be touched. Both groups practiced the task until timing error was less than 30 msec. on three consecutive trials. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in the number of trials needed to reach the performance criterion, but (a) participants in Group 2 created fewer sequences compared to Group 1, and (b) were more likely to use the same sequence throughout the learning process. The number of options for a movement sequence affected the way learners self-controlled their practice, but had no effect on the amount of practice to reach criterion performance.     

Religiosity/Spirituality Matters on Plant-Based Local Medical System

Journal of Religion and Health - Religiosity/spirituality can affect health and quality of life in myriad ways. Religion has been present since the first moments of our evolutionary history,...