Student Service Members/Veterans’ Mental Health: Who Is at a Greater Risk for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms on College Campuses?

Using a cross-sectional design, this study surveyed 144 students on campus who are service members and veterans to determine whether posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms are significantly correlated with demographic factors (e.g., age, race and marital status), risk factors (e.g., military branch and combat exposure), and resources (e.g., social support and religiosity). The results confirm previous findings on correlates of PTS symptoms, provide new information about service members on campus that are at a greater risk for PTS and highlight resources that are associated with reduced PTS symptoms. These findings not only give institutions of higher learning insight into identifying specific demographics that are at a greater risk for PTS symptoms on college campuses, but also point to ways of supporting student service members/veterans by accurately targeting existing resources to the most affected populations.     

Puzzles of Discourse in Being and Time: Minding Gaps in Understanding

Abstract

This paper takes issue with Heidegger’s claim that discourse and understanding are equally basic in the constitution of our making sense of the world. I argue that Heidegger cannot consistently establish this claim, and that discourse can be thought of as being more basic than understanding. The proposed line of thinking has the advantage of shedding light on both the finitude and the normativity of our making sense of the world. Thus, by setting up an exchange with the later Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule‐following makes it possible to develop an approach to the normativity of meaning which was not readily available on Heidegger’s account. Further, the paper offers an inquiry into a certain aspect of our finite sense of the world which, in spite of Heidegger’s marked attention to finitude, was obscured by his approach to discourse. The implications of the argument might be far‐reaching. The view of a basic role of discourse can put into question Heidegger’s guiding vision according to which time alone is ultimately the fundamental constituent of our sense of what there is. The engagement with Wittgenstein indicates, in conjunction with other themes of the paper, that there are certain perspectives and issues in phenomenology which are much closer to aspects of the analytic tradition than is usually granted.     

The Struggle of Behavioral Therapists With Exposure: Self-Reported Practicability,Negative Beliefs,and Therapist Distress About Exposure-Based Interventions

Exposure-based interventions are a core ingredient of evidence-based cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, previous research has documented that exposure is rarely utilized in routine care, highlighting an ongoing lack of dissemination. The present study examined barriers for the dissemination of exposure from the perspective of behavioral psychotherapists working in outpatient routine care (N = 684). A postal survey assessed three categories of barriers: (a) practicability of exposure-based intervention in an outpatient private practice setting, (b) negative beliefs about exposure, and (c) therapist distress related to the use of exposure. In addition, self-reported competence to conduct exposure for different anxiety disorders, PTSD, and OCD was assessed. High rates of agreement were found for single barriers within each of the three categories (e.g., unpredictable time management, risk of uncompensated absence of the patient, risk of decompensation of the patient, superficial effectiveness, or exposure being very strenuous for the therapist). Separately, average agreement to each category negatively correlated with self-reported utilization of exposure to a moderate degree (-.35 ≤ r ≤ -.27). In a multiple regression model, only average agreement to barriers of practicability and negative beliefs were significantly associated with utilization rates. Findings illustrate that a multilevel approach targeting individual, practical, and systemic barriers is necessary to optimize the dissemination of exposure-based interventions. Dissemination efforts may therefore benefit from incorporating strategies such as modifying negative beliefs, adaptive stress management for therapists, or increasing practicability of exposure-based interventions.     

Toleration and Pragmatism: Themes from The Work of John Horton

John Horton’s work has been particularly influential in debates on specific topics related to toleration, political obligation, modus vivendi and political realism. More recently, he has synthesised these views in the form of a distinctive position in political philosophy, a position that has the potential to question much of the received wisdom in the field. The papers of this special issue engage with some of the most fundamental issues of Horton’s account, more exactly, the related issues of toleration and modus vivendi, Horton’s account of associative obligations, with a focus on the methodological assumptions which underpin his position more generally, and the metaphysical presuppositions of his account, in particular, the presupposition of contingency. I offer brief presentations of the papers in the special issue and of the ways they link with each other. In the discussion of the papers by Forst, Newey, Jones, Weale and Mendus, the emphasis will be on those arguments which question Horton’s position. Horton’s paper will then be presented with a focus on possible responses to these challenges. I will conclude with several remarks on an unexpected continuity between Horton’s realist view and a view realists usually criticise as idealising, namely, John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness.     

Brief experimental analysis of early reading interventions

The purpose of this study was to investigate how brief experimental analyses (BEAs) could be used to identify effective interventions for Kindergartners (2 girls and 2 boys, 5 years and 7-10 months old) with low performance and/or growth slope in letter sound fluency (LSF). Interventions were tested within a multielement design with brief mini-reversals until an intervention yielding at least 20% improvement on a specific subskill measure or a curriculum-based measure of LSF was identified. BEA-identified interventions were implemented one-on-one for 5 to 9 weeks. A multiple-baseline design across participants showed large intervention effects (average adjusted d = 2.4) on general outcome measures, supporting treatment validity of BEAs. Findings extend the BEA literature to younger participants, early reading interventions, and early reading measures.     

Evolving judgments of terror risks: foresight, hindsight, and emotion

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.     

How is Philosophy Supposed to Engage with Religion? Heidegger's Philosophical Atheism and Its Limits

The paper addresses two related questions: 1. the much debated issue concerning philosophy's proper way of engaging with religion, and 2. the extent to which religious concerns belong to our existence. If philosophy is understood as the hermeneutics of existence, that is, as the self‐interpretation of existence, as the early Heidegger proposes, then the way the second question is answered bears on the approach to the first issue. While endorsing Heidegger's claim in the 1920s that philosophy should be autonomous and neutral in relation to religious concerns, I reject his view that this can be achieved through a silencing attitude characteristic of a “fundamentally atheistic” philosophy. I link Heidegger's failure to offer a convincing response to the first question to the way in which he addresses the second question as to whether religious concerns essentially belong to our existence. In contrast with his views on the second question, which often seem to propose a negative answer to it (but which, I claim, are not as not as clear as it is sometimes assumed), I argue that spiritual comportment is an essential aspect of our life. How can then philosophy ‘transcend’ it and be religiously neutral without becoming silent about it? I argue that philosophy can be religiously neutral and, at the same time, speak about spirituality as an open question within a shared space.     

Evolving judgments of terror risks: foresight, hindsight, and emotion: a reanalysis

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.     

Forecasting one's future based on fleeting subjective experiences

When we forecast our futures, to what extent do we rely on explicit and concrete facts versus implicit and fleeting subjective experiences? Results from two studies reveal that forecasting judgments hinge on at least two fleeting experiences: the specific incidental emotions one happens to feel at the time of forming a judgment and the subjective ease-of-thought-generation. Results also reveal that imposing accountability for the accuracy of one's forecast provides no simple remedy. Incidental emotions, the ease-of-thought-generation, and accountability combine multiplicatively in a three-way interaction. Although accountability attenuates the respective effects of incidental fear and incidental anger, doing so has the undesirable effect of amplifying the ease-of-thought-generation effects that fear otherwise suppresses. In no instance does accountability completely eliminate the unintended effects of these fleeting subjective experiences. Discussion addresses implications for theories of affect and social cognition as well as for applications to risk perception.