Making peace in gestational conflicts

Mary Anne Warren's claim that there is room for only one person with full and equal rights inside a single human skin ([1], p. 63) calls attention to the vast range of moral conflict engendered by assigning full basic moral rights to fetuses. Thereby, it serves as a goad to thinking about conflicts between pregnant women and their fetuses in a way that emphasizes relationships rather than rights. I sketch out what a care orientation might suggest about resolving gestational conflicts. I also argue that the care orientation, with its commitment to the significance of the partial and the particular, cannot be absorbed within standard, impartialist moral theory.     

Assessing the relationship of Type A beliefs to cardiovascular disease risk and psychosocial distress

Investigators have begun to take a multimodal approach to the assessment and treatment of psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). For instance, cognitive responses have become the focus of contemporary research along with continued examination of overt Type A behaviors. Price (1982) has outlined a set of beliefs purportedly associated with Type A behavior and subsequent CVD risk. The current study examines the validity of this belief set as represented by a newly developed measure, the Type A Cognitive Questionnaire (TACQ). Subjects were 221 employed adults participating in a worksite CVD risk reduction program. They completed the TACQ as part of a pretreatment CVD risk screening protocol. As hypothesized, TACQ scores were significantly associated with Type A behavior, hostility, physiological mediators of CVD, and psychosocial distress. Discussion addresses continued refinement of the Type A belief construct.     

The health needs of the majority versus the health needs of the individual: The reorganization of medical education in Colombia

The challenge of excellence in community health services has been taken up by medical educators in Colombia. Confronted with a nation where the primary indicators of disease mortality and morbidity (cardiovascular disease and infant mortality) were characteristic of First and Third World patterns, respectively, the Ministry of Health and La Asociacion Colombiana de Facultades de Medicina (ASCOFAME), representatives of institutions of medical education, have collaborated to conduct a needs assessment of the country's health needs and devised an implementation plan designed to better address the needs of the majority of that nation's people.As a model, the Colombian reorganization of medical education is an example which could be emulated by the U.S. where policy makers are struggling with troublesome questions of cost, equity and quality.     

TOWARD A GENERAL THEORY OF HUMAN CREATIVITY

Abstract. The presence of a basic and general form of creativity in people is investigated through experiments with music. The results indicate that "generative" creativity—-the ability to spontaneously generate a music by varying a basic set of musical elements—is a basic human endowment, unlike "constructive" creativity—-the type of creativity exhibited by composers and other artists—-which is the result of training and the spehal development of faculties. Generative creativity's coming to the fore in contemporary people would contribute to the development of the personality and help bring about more fulfilled, better balanced people and societies.     

Competitive fixed-interval performance in humans

Two persons responded in the same session in separate cubicles, but under a single schedule of reinforcement. Each time reinforcement was programmed, only the first response to occur, that is, the response of only one of the subjects, was reinforced. “Competitive” behavior that developed under these conditions was examined in three experiments. In Experiment 1 subjects responded under fixed-interval (FI) 30-s, 60-s, and 90-s schedules of reinforcement. Under the competition condition, relative to baseline conditions, the response rates were higher and the pattern was “break-and-run.” In Experiment 2, subjects were exposed first to a conventional FI schedule and then to an FI competition schedule. Next, they were trained to respond under either a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) or fixed-ratio (FR) schedule, and finally, the initial FI competition condition was reinstated. In this second exposure to the FI competition procedure, DRL subjects responded at lower rates than were emitted during the initial exposure to that condition and FR subjects responded at higher rates. For all subjects, however, responding gradually returned to the break-and-run pattern that had occurred during the first FI competition condition. Experiment 3 assessed potential variables contributing to the effects of the competitive FI contingencies during Experiments 1 and 2. Subjects were exposed to FI schedules where (a) probability of reinforcement at completion of each fixed interval was varied, or (b) a limited hold was in effect for reinforcement. Only under the limited hold was responding similar to that observed in previous experiments.     

Dance becomes therapeutic in the mid to late 20th century

The convergence of dance art and therapeutic culture engendered the development of dance-movement therapy in the mid to late 20th century internationally. This article traces the sociopolitical, institutional, and aesthetic influences that coalesced in this process by contrasting histories of dance-movement therapy in Hungary and in the United States. The professionalization dance-movement therapy, through which it established its own theory, practice, and training institutions, occurred first in the United States in the late 1940s. Modern dancers in the United States began to conceptualize their activity as therapeutic, and the dancer as a (secular) healer, a therapist. The influx of therapeutic concepts into the field of dance is viewed as an example of therapeutic discourse permeating various areas of life in the 20th century. The Hungarian case provides a contrasting history of therapeutic culture, one that deviates from the predominant view of the phenomenon as a product of the global spread of Western modernization and the growth of free-market capitalism. Hungarian movement and dance therapy indeed developed independently from its American predecessor. Its history is intimately tied to the sociopolitical context of state-socialist period, particularly to the institutionalization of psychotherapy in public hospitals, and to the adaptation of Western group psychotherapies within the informal setting of the “second public sphere.” The legacy of Michael Balint and the British object-relations school provided its theoretical framework. Its methodology was rooted in postmodern dance. The methodological differences between American dance-movement therapy and the Hungarian method reflects the shift in dance aesthetics that occurred internationally between 1940 and 1980s.     

The power within: Mass media,scientific entertainment,and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

How did a new science initially promoted by only a few individuals eventually become a widespread cultural phenomenon practiced and known by thousands of people? Following a transnational approach, this article traces the introduction of psychical research into China during the first two decades of the 20th century. Known in the Republican period (1912–1949) as Spiritual Science (xinling kexue or xinling yanjiu), psychical research flourished between the 1920s and 1930s, playing a key role in the popularization of applied psychology and mind-cure across China. This article takes a step back from the heyday of Spiritual Science by looking at the period that immediately preceded and helped define it. Focused on wide-circulation newspapers, popular manuals, and stage performances, it teases out the ways in which Chinese popular culture translated European, American, and Japanese psychical research to local Chinese audiences in the midst of China's search for modernity. By naturalizing the reality of psychic powers, spiritual scientists blurred the boundaries between science and superstition in a period when these were posited as diametrically opposed.     

Typical coping patterns: A person-centered approach to coping

Applying the person-oriented approach to coping can provide a unique perspective by revealing typical latent patterns. The study examined typical latent patterns shown by task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented trait-based coping styles. We performed secondary analyses with Latent Profile Analysis on our former data and three independent datasets containing coping measures with the CISS-48 scale (Endler & Parker, 1994). Gender differences were also studied. Two basic profiles seem universal: the first is characterized by a high level of task-oriented coping, and the second profile is with moderately high scores on all three coping styles. The finding indicates that two fundamental latent coping profiles exist, which suggests a within-subject comparison in practice instead of investigating the absolute value of coping styles. Comparing data before and after 2020, COVID-19 does not seem to affect these profiles. The person-centered approach provides a possibility for the integration of coping-related findings.     

依恋对象回应方式对不同依恋类型幼儿支持提供预期修正的影响

依恋对象的敏感性回应是儿童安全依恋发展的重要前因。研究采用改编版依恋预期范式考察实时互动情境中依恋对象确定性和概率性回应对幼儿支持提供预期及预期修正的影响。结果发现：相对不安全型依恋幼儿,初始预期中安全型幼儿更多预期依恋对象会向依恋者提供支持;幼儿能够基于依恋对象的确定性和概率性回应一致地修正对该对象是否提供支持的预期。同时,低水平回应对幼儿预期修正的影响高于高水平回应。研究表明5岁左右幼儿能够基于实时互动中依恋对象的回应信息修正其对该依恋对象的预期,这对理解幼儿依恋表征的发展具有重要启示。     

The elderly and high technology medicine: A case for individualized,autonomous allocation

The issues involved in decision making about the aggressiveness of future medical care for older persons are explored. They are related to population trends, the heterogeneity of older persons and a variety of factors involved in individual preferences. Case studies are presented to illustrate these points, as well as a review of pertinent literature. The argument is offered that, considering these many factors, a system of flexible, individualized care by informed patient preference, is more rational than the rationing of technological services by age.