bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multidimensional Patterns of Aging in 70-Year-Olds
Authors: Maxson Pamela J. , Berg Stig , Mcclearn Gerald
Published: March 2007

This article examines the predictive ability for survival of five multidimensional patterns of aging found in 335 70-year-olds from the geriatric and gerontological studies in Gothenburg, Sweden (H-70). The multidimensional patterns were identified by cluster analysis of the domains of cognitive performance, physical health, functional capacity, subjective well-being, and social contacts. Survival differences are found among the patterns and between genders within the patterns. Patterns with higher domain scores at age 70 have higher median survival rates over 20 years. Conversely, patterns with lower domain scores at age 70 have earlier mortality. However, one group, with the lowest cognitive score, has a survival pattern similar to the group with low scores in every domain, substantiating the finding that poor cognitive performance is an important single predictor of mortality. Females exhibit at least a 4-year survival advantage over males in all but one group, in which the males resemble the females in their survival.
Beyond Sobriety: The Cultural Significance of Alcoholics Anonymous as a Social Movement
Authors: Bloomfield Kim
Published: March 2007

With the noticeable growth of Alcoholics Anonymous since its founding in 1935 has come the tendency to regard the organization as a social movement. This article analyzes Alcoholics Anonymous as a social movement, specifically as a new social movement, and draws upon new social movement theory for the analysis. A particular strand of new social movement theory, the identity-oriented paradigm, is applied. The analysis reveals that Alcoholics Anonymous shares several key features with new social movements. Alcoholics Anonymous can be seen as a partial social movement, or a movement network submerged in civil society. Although "hidden," it serves as a distinct social and cultural force because of what it offers in addition to abstinence: an alternate interpretation of reality to that of the utilitarian/rationalist perspective, which has traditionally dominated American thought.
Contested Spaces
Authors: SMITH FIONA , BARKER JOHN
Published: March 2007

Based on research carried out with over 400 children in England and Wales, this article explores the complexity of the social space of the out of school club, an increasingly important environment in the social landscape of British childhood. By exploring the ways in which children construct and contest the meanings they attach to the material and social environments they inhabit after school and during the school holidays, we aim to show how the notion of `place' is bound up with the action and behaviour of the children who inhabit these significant spaces of childhood. Moreover, by exploring out of school clubs as sites of domination and resistance, we aim to highlight some of the sociocultural struggles which are active in the constitution of the place of the club.
Negotiating `us' and `Them'
Authors: HENGST HEINZ
Published: March 2007

This article presents the results of an empirical survey. In accordance with the results of interviews with adult EU citizens in the 1980s the central theme of this article is to find transnational elements in the constructions of collective identity of west European children and in their conceptions of `us' and `them'. Above all this article shows which role the pluralized conception of childhood plays in their negotiations. The selective presentation of important results is descriptive. Aspects of developmental psychology have been omitted. The survey should be looked upon as an exploratory study. Above all it defines the horizon of relevant intercultural comparative studies, which take into account the complexity of childhood today.
Democratization of the Family
Authors: BECK ULRICH
Published: March 2007

Democratization of the family' might seem to confound notions of the political and private, the rights and obligations of the citizen and the intimacy of the family. A less conventional theory of modernity is characterized by the fact that the codes of behaviour which permeate it have previously been considered separate. One illustration of this is the interpenetration of civil freedom and family, which is the focus of this article. Two arguments are presented: first, some definitions and distinctions regarding the sociology of political freedom, which would also have to become the sociology of citizenship; second, this is applied to families, particularly to the situation of children.
Children's Accounts of Risk
Authors: KELLEY PETER , MAYALL BERRY , HOOD SUZANNE
Published: March 2007

This article discusses issues arising from a qualitative study, `Children, Parents and Risk', where children (aged 9 and 12 years) and their parents were asked to talk about children's daily life in and around the home, with emphasis on decision-making. The discussion of the data is contextualized mainly within the idea of children as a social group. Themes in the research are intergenerational identifications of risk, understandings of children, childhood and parenthood, power relations between children and parents, and how access to resources shapes children's and parents' understanding and management of risk. The article suggests that differences in perspective and debates between children and their parents hinge on ideas about socialization and the good childhood. Children, while recognizing and somewhat endorsing parental stress on children's time-future, place considerable emphasis on the quality of their lived childhoods in time-present.
From Majoritarian to Pluralist Democracy?
Authors: Dunleavy Patrick , Margetts Helen
Published: March 2007

The rapid changes in electoral systems and party systems in Britain since 1997 pose fundamental problems of explanation both for electoral system analysts and for students of British politics. We first describe the main types of electoral system change introduced and show how the new systems have already brought about important differences in party systems and patterns of party government across the UK. Possible explanations of the changes include: general trends across liberal democracies to re-appraise their historic voting systems; the UK’s historical and political distinctiveness in comparative terms; long-run processes specific to Britain triggering a lagged or ‘catch-up’ political and constitutional modernization; and short run (‘why now?’) causal factors. In our view change is already irreversible. For the foreseeable future either plurality rule and new electoral systems will co-exist within a primary/secondary elections structure; or the new systems will over time erode the previously foundational position of plurality rule, in tandem with a realignment of party politics UK-wide.
What Rational Political Actors Can Expect
Authors: Grafstein Robert
Published: March 2007

This article analyzes the distinction between two definitions of rationality, standard expected utility maximization and an alternative that says rational individuals maximize their expected utility given their acts. The latter version can explain important political phenomena that challenge the standard approach. Documenting the empirical advantages of the second definition for political science, the article also argues that conditional expected utility maximizers are normatively rational. Moreover, the article demonstrates that some important and recognized work in political science has unwittingly relied on this version’s underlying assumptions. Finally, it formally shows how this decision theory can ground equilibria in two-person games.
Towards a General Model of Public Policy Outcomes
Authors: Castles Francis G. , Merrill Vance
Published: March 2007

This paper seeks to provide an initial formulation of a general model combining the main sequences of policy determination established in the comparative public policy outcomes literature. In Part I, two prior and crucial problems of explanation in this field are discussed: (1) that of making the analytical step from attributions of shared national characteristics to true explanatory variables and (2) that of adequate statistical modelling in a universe of discourse characterized by too many theories and not enough cases. Part II outlines a model of public policy outcomes, which combines demographic, political and economic sequences, and utilizes the process of model elaboration and the associated findings as a means of assessing the extent to which the explanatory problems in the field can presently be resolved.
Computational Approaches to Bargaining and Choice
Authors: Nurmi Hannu
Published: March 2007

The theory of computation and automata has occasionally aroused some interest among political scientists. The article outlines some early applications, although the main emphasis is on the most recent ones. We concentrate on the applications to bargaining and negotiation procedures. It is argued that many existing bargaining procedures can be essentially improved by resorting to cryptographic protocols.
Comparing and Miscomparing
Authors: Sartori Giovanni
Published: March 2007

I seek to explain the disappointing performance of the field of comparative politics addressing the three basic questions: Why compare? What is comparable? and How? I also challenge the view that the methodology of comparison is pretty well known and established. Hosts of unsettled issues remain, while a growing cause of frustration and failure is the undetected proliferation of `cat-dogs' (or worse), that is, nonexistent aggregates which are bound to defy, on account of their non-comparable characteristics, any and all attempts at law-like generalizations. The bottom line is that the comparative endeavor suffers from loss of purpose.
Heterogeneity and the Provision of Governance for Common-Pool Resources
Authors: Hackett Steven C.
Published: March 2007

This paper provides an initial analysis of the governance provision problem for common-pool resources characterized by appropriation cost heterogeneities. Provision first requires the selection of a governance structure that lowers overall appropriation and allocates individual appropriation rights. The likelihood of successful implementation is then increased when appropriators make sunk, CPR-specific investments in monitoring and enforcement. Heterogeneity complicates efficient governance structures; appropriation rights allocations cannot minimize both implementation costs and heterogeneous appropriation costs. Some additional instrument, such as marketable appropriation rights or transfer payment schemes, are needed to minimize both forms of provision cost. The analysis identifies a voting rule tradeoff in which the form of provision cost depends on the form of voting rule used by appropriator groups attempting self-governance.
Community and the Endogenous Solution of Commons Problems
Authors: Ostrom Elinor
Published: March 2007

In their article in this issue, Singleton and Taylor ask why some groups of users of a commons are able to resolve their collective action problems on their own and others are not. They argue that when groups approximate a community of mutually vulnerable individuals, they are able to develop endogenous solutions. In this note, I discuss four questions: (1) Is community important for the solution of CPR problems? (2) Is community sufficient for the solution of CPR problems? (3) Is community necessary for the solution of CPR problems? and (4) Are solutions to CPR problems robust over the long-run without enforcers?
An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change
Authors: Harmel Robert , Janda Kenneth
Published: March 2007

The authors present a theory that seeks to explain why parties change their political strategies, organizational characteristics and issue positions. Whereas most of the existing literature on party change deals with party systems, the focus here is on individual parties. Whereas much of the literature views parties as responding more or less gradually to socioeconomic change, change is here regarded as a discontinuous outcome of specific party decisions linked to party goals. This approach is placed in the literature by reviewing extant theories of party change. Our theory itself is initially advanced in a discursive section which suggests that change does not `just happen', but instead results from leadership change, a change of dominant faction within the party, and/or an external stimulus for change. The article then presents a more formal exposition of this theory, consisting of definitions, assumptions, and a series of testable propositions. It concludes with illustrative examples of this theoretical framework.
Agenda Control by Interest Groups in Eu Social Policy
Authors: Boockmann Bernhard
Published: March 2007

Some authors have asserted that the Agreement on Social Policy (the `Social Chapter' of the Maastricht Treaty), by allowing the social partners (trade unions and employers' associations) to bargain over the contents of planned social legislation, grants them the power to set the agenda in the Council of Ministers. A problem is that the precise definition of each actor's competences is unclear from the wording of the Agreement. The first purpose of this paper is, therefore, to examine in a simple spatial model the implications for the legislative outcomes which different readings of the Agreement have. The second step of the argument concerns the distributional consequences of the procedure in each of the interpretations. It is shown that the Commission may benefit from the involvement of the social partners although this limits its own agenda rights. This helps to explain why the Commission chose an interpretation which transfers much of the agenda power to the social partners. It also illustrates the more general point that one should distinguish between agenda rights, on the one hand, and distributional outcomes, on the other.
Two-Level Collective Action and Group Identity
Authors: Gavious Arieh , Mizrahi Shlomo
Published: March 2007

We examine how group membership influences individual decisions with respect to joining a mass political struggle, under the assumption that group members have a strong group identity, expressed by a strong commitment to group decisions. We suggest a two-level theoretical game model in which, in the first stage, an individual calculates the costs and benefits of participation at the group level and then he/she calculates the costs and benefits of the group's participation in mass collective action. The model shows that when the costs of action are low and the expected benefits are high, there are two equilibria - one with high and the other with low probability of collective action. It also shows that the chances of achieving political change through mass mobilization are lower when individuals are members of two subgroups that act separately, than when they are members of one group only. The model is applied to the socio-political processes in Poland between 1976 and 1981.
Rorty, literary narrative and political philosophy
Authors: McGuinness Barbara
Published: March 2007

This article seeks to examine Rorty's contention that literary narrative, not political philosophy, is best able to address the problems of the West. It argues that although Rorty's conception of the novel as a valu able and informative medium is credible, he does not establish it as a valid alternative to political philosophy. Moreover Rorty retains the sort of reasoning that is characteristic of political philosophy, despite his assertions to the contrary.
The disenchanted world and beyond: toward an ecological perspective on science
Authors: Ben-Chaim Michael
Published: March 2007

Positivism and, especially, Max Weber's vision of the modern disen chantment of the world are incoherent because they separate human culture from the environment in which human agents pursue their life- projects. The same problem is manifested, more blatantly, in current social studies of science, which take the project of disenchantment further by disenchanting science itself. A different image of science is traced to classical empiricism, whose paradigm of learning is belief and, more specifically, the practical nature of the believer's experience of the environment of his or her actions. The believer's ecological imagery of the world, as it was elaborated by classical empiricism, provides the means to transcend the disenchanted image of the world and its prob lems.
The once and future ethnographic archive
Authors: Marcus George E.
Published: March 2007

This article is concerned with the literal and metaphoric senses in which anthropology's accumulation of knowledge through the production of ethnography on the world's peoples can be considered an archive. The relevance of this concept to ethnography has a very different past, present, and emergent associations. The Human Area Relations Files project as visionary science dependent on the making of an archive of ethnography contrasts with the uses of the past ethnographic record in the pursuit of contemporary fieldwork in a so-called postmodern world.
The Message of the Medium: the Challenge of the Internet To the Church and Other Communities
Authors: Clough David
Published: March 2007

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk — that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh — a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.1
Voluntary organizations in Bangladesh: a profile
Authors: Hasan Samiul , Mulamoottil George , Kersell John E.
Published: March 2007

Voluntary organizations in Bangladesh: a profile describes the emergence and development of voluntary groups in Bangladesh which organize people in the undertaking of development programmes, and the different forms they have taken. It also reviews their financial, staffing and functional strengths and weaknesses.
Environment, wealth and health: towards an analysis of intra-urban differentials within the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana
Authors: Songsore Jacob , McGranahan Gordon
Published: March 2007

presents findings from a study of household environmental problems that included a 1,000 household survey and tests for air and water pollution. After presenting a conceptual model summarizing key interactions between environment, wealth and health in Accra, the authors analyze intra-urban differentials in household environmental conditions by level of wealth and residential zone with particular emphasis on diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases among children and respiratory problem symptoms among principal homemakers.
Sustainable urban development strategies for China
Authors: Byrne John , Wang Young-Doo , Shen Bo , Li Xiuguo
Published: March 2007

Sustainable urban development strategies for China considers the transition that needs to be made in China to achieve sustainable urban development. After outlining the links between economic growth and energy use, a conceptual framework is developed to contrast the major economic, technological, energy and environmental assumptions between conventional and sustainable development strategies. Using five of China's cities (Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Xian) as examples, the authors demonstrate that urban environmental degradation in China, as in many Asian countries, is attributable to the pursuit of economic growth under the conventional development model.
The pauper insane of Leicester in 1844
Authors: Carpenter Peter K.
Published: March 2007

In 1844 the Poor Law Commissioners followed up a dispute with the Guardians of Leicester Union regarding the care of Pauper Lunatics by appointing Dr Samuel Hitch, an Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, to survey the treatment and condition of the pauper insane in Leicester and Birmingham Workhouses. At Leicester he exceeded his brief and surveyed the 13 insane on outdoor relief, 29 in the workhouse and 23 in the asylum. As such it is one of the earliest surveys of an area. This paper describes the dispute, the report and considers its aftermath.
“I Am Not a Racist But...”: Mapping White College Students' Racial Ideology in the USA
Authors: BONILLA - SILVA EDUARDO , FORMAN TYRONE A.
Published: March 2007

Survey-based research on Whites' racial attitudes in the USA has characterized their views as either `tolerant' or `ambivalent'. We argue that surveys on racial attitudes have systematically underestimated the extent of prejudice in the White population. The legal and normative changes created by the civil rights movement of the 1960s brought a new racial ideology (`color blind racism'), with new topics and a new form. These matters were examined by collecting survey and interview data from college students in three universities. The main findings were that White respondents appear to be more prejudiced in the interviews than in the survey, use a new racetalk to avoid appearing `racist', and that the themes and arguments that they mobilize are congruent with what other analysts have labeled as `laissez faire' or `competitive' racism.
Crossing Cultural Borders: `Girl' and `Look' as Markers of Identity in Black Women's Language Use
Authors: SCOTT KARLA D.
Published: March 2007

This study explores the use of two discourse markers - `girl' and `look' - used by a group of Black women in talk about their language use across cultural borders. In both group and individual interviews participants reported that they not only use language differently across cultural borders, but also see their relationships with others as different in those various cultural worlds. While the use of `girl' indicates solidarity between Black women, the use of `look' is reported as calling attention to differences in identity with those who are not Black and female. The women's use and talk about the use of these two discourse markers indicates an awareness of the implications of language choice when negotiating identity and social distance in various cultural worlds.
Self-sufficient Arguments in Political Rhetoric: Constructing Reconciliation and Apologizing to the Stolen Generations
Authors: AUGOUSTINOS MARTHA , LECOUTEUR AMANDA , SOYLAND JOHN
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on the rhetorical and argumentative organization of a major political address by the Prime Minister of Australia on the topics of reconciliation and apologizing to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous peoples. The analysis documents the interpretative repertoires that were mobilized to argue around these sensitive, controversial issues in a public forum, in particular the deployment of discursive formulations of `togetherness', of `culture' and of `nation'. The analysis also demonstrates the ways in which a limited number of rhetorically self-sufficient arguments, identified in recent studies of the language of contemporary racism, was mobilized in this important public speech. We argue that the flexible use of such rhetorically self-sufficient arguments concerning practicality, equality, justice and progress worked to build up a particular version of reconciliation which functions to sustain and legitimate existing inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia.
The Rhetorical Construction of a President
Authors:   WAUDAG: WAUDAG stands for the University of Washington Discourse Analysis Group: George L. Dillon, Anne Doyle, Carol M. Eastman, Susan Kline, Sandra Silberstein and Michael Toolan.
Published: March 2007

This paper proposes that the most relevant contextualization of President George Bush's Inaugural Speech of January 1989 is to view the address as a restoration of ideological normality, which is to say invisibility, in American public discourse: the President acts to re-cover (in many senses) the common values and concerns of `the nation'. We particularly delineate how the language (text- and sentence-structurings, metaphors, etc.) of the address works to construct both the privileged public figure of the President, and a spirit of collective identity and consent for the audience, while still espousing particular political assumptions and goals (conservatism, quietism and a representation of the presidential role as that of politically detached steward of a gendered status quo rather than agent of change).
How a Judge's Voir Dire can Teach a Jury What to Say
Authors: Shuy Roger W.
Published: March 2007

A common questioning event in the legal setting is the judge's voir dire (interview) of prospective jurors to determine their beliefs and predispositions about such matters as capital punishment. This paper analyzes the voir dires of 14 prospective jurors in a death penalty case in a midwestern US city. In four of the 14 interviews, linguistic analysis of the judge's questions reveals that he is actually guiding the jurors, probably unintentionally, in how to respond. The linguistic factors that lead to this conclusion include question sequencing, semantic marking, escalation of semantic intensity, face-threatening, interruption, rephrasing and evaluation. The power asymmetry of the interaction, the pressures of time and unskilled question-asking may be the sources of the judge's problem. Whatever the sources are, however, the evidence is clear that the judge's questioning style caused some jurors to change their position on the death penalty during their voir dires.
Discourse and the Projection of Corporate Culture: The Mission Statement
Authors: Swales John M. , Rogers Priscilla S.
Published: March 2007

This article explores how corporations project their corporate philosophy through `Mission Statements'. Linguistic and textual analysis of such statements drawn from a sizeable corpus allows us to typify the texts as constituting a non-routine, organizational genre, and one that has recently become of some significance. This discussion serves as a foundation for a contextual and intertextual analysis (cf. Fairclough, 1992) of Mission Statements from two well-known US companies. By detailing the history, rationale and role of these Mission Statements we indicate how the texts are rhetorically designed in order to ensure maximum employee `buy-in'. Despite linguistic and rhetorical similarities among the texts, an exploration of context reveals startling differences in communicative purpose. In one case the Mission Statement emerges as an empowering historical vision to be protected and nurtured through all vicissitudes; in the other case, the rewriting of the Mission Statement emerges as a collaborative response to crisis. The article ends by discussing the implications of such findings for contemporary approaches to discourse and genre analysis within institutional linguistics.
Hierarchical Interdependence Expressed Through Conversational Styles in Japanese Women's Magazines
Authors: Hayashi Reiko
Published: March 2007

There has been a common belief that the Japanese language has clear distinctions between male and female language use, and that such distinctions are not gender but sex differences. However, recent research re-examines this belief and shows that men and women's different use of speech styles is a sociocultural construct. In line with this research, this paper critically analyzes the language used in a popular form of self-help literature—Japanese women's magazines—and presents an account of the cognitive process whereby discourse positions women and women personalize the discourse. Deconstructing a discourse and the text behind the discourse helps to account for how language is used to control readers, how they perceive the social context through this language, and how they relate it to their personal experience. The paper argues that the polysemous nature of conversational styles, which represent hierarchy and solidarity, is strategically used in the magazines to construct the context in which the social images of a woman are stereotyped. The paper also argues that the `genderlect' (gendered women's speech style) in everyday conversation is a continuum of gendered speech styles in literary discourse.
Police Status, Conformity and Internal Pressure: A Discursive Analysis of Police Culture
Authors: Frewin Karen , Tuffin Keith
Published: March 2007

This paper provides a discursive analysis of interviews with eight police officers about a range of contemporary issues concerning the police force. Officers drew on three common linguistic resources (police status, conformity, and internal pressure) which are identified, illustrated and discussed in terms of their social consequences and rhetorical effectiveness. We suggest that these discourses operate collectively to maintain the reputation of the police. This is achieved through the imperative of rigidly conforming to standards. Diversity is discriminated against at the point of recruitment and also via a series of internal pressures for existing officers who fail to conform. We have tried to demonstrate the discursive resources producing such social practices. We argue that a climate of conformity pervades the wider police culture and discuss the implications of this.
Two Faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: Culture and the Construction of the `AIDS Celebrity'
Authors: Jones Rodney H.
Published: March 2007

Since the first reported case of HIV infection in Hong Kong in 1985, only two HIV-positive individuals in the territory have voluntarily made public their seropositivity: a British dentist named Mike Sinclair, who disclosed his condition to the media in 1992 and died in 1995, and J.J. Chan, a local Chinese disc-jockey, who came forward in 1995 and died just a few months later. When they made their revelations, both became instant media personalities and were invited by the Hong Kong Government to act as spokespeople for AIDS awareness and prevention. Mike Sinclair worked as an education officer for the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, and J.J. Chan appeared in Government television commercials about AIDS. This article explores how the public identities of these two figures were constructed in the cultural context of Hong Kong where both Eastern and Western values exist side by side and interact. It argues that the construction of `AIDS celebrities' is a kind of `identity project' negotiated among the players involved: the media, the Government, the public, and the person with AIDS (PWA) himself, each bringing to the construction their own `theories' regarding the self and communication. When the players in the construction hold shared assumptions about the nature of the self and the role of communication in enacting it, harmonious discourses arise, but when cultural models among the players differ, contradictory or ambiguous constructions result. The effect of culture on the way `AIDS celebrities' are constructed has implications for the way societies view the issue of AIDS and treat those who have it. It also helps reveal possible sites of difficulty when individuals of different cultures communicate about the issue.
Dominance in Academic Writing Tutorials: Gender, Language Proficiency, and the Offering of Suggestions
Authors: THONUS TERESE
Published: March 2007

This article investigates tutor dominance in academic writing tutorials within the framework of institutional discourse. Tutor gender and tutee gender and language proficiency, as well as the interaction of the three, are considered as exponents of interactant dominance. Pragmatic measures of tutor dominance selected are frequency of directives, directive type, and mitigation strategies. Analysis indicates that these features of tutors' speech remain relatively constant in interactions with male and female tutees or with native and nonnative speakers of English. These results suggest that institutional context outweighs gender and language proficiency in the definition of participant roles and the sanctioning of tutor dominance behaviors.
Political Discourse of a Working-Class Town
Authors: SOTILLO SUSANA M. , STARACE-NASTASI DANA
Published: March 2007

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) studies have examined the construction, reproduction, and mental appropriation of `top-down' discourses of dominance but have paid little attention to `bottom-up' analyses of semi-formal texts such as Letters to the Editor (LEs) in small-town newspapers. We investigate here the discourse of LEs written by candidates for political office, their supporters, and opponents. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed on a corpus of 123 LEs. Four research questions were addressed. The results of the study indicate that (1) letter writers used four specific forms of argumentation and selectively addressed issues; (2) LEs furnished a convenient platform for political campaigning but did not provide an effective medium for constructive dialogue leading to action and social change; (3) tax increases, ratables, the environment, and morality in education emerged as major topics; and (4) gender and class differences were salient in the discourse of LEs. An underlying discourse of disaffection, perceived as loss of social cohesion, emerged from the linguistic choices, content, tone, and structure of the letters. Readerwriters feel powerless at their inability to effect social change in their own communities.
Blunderbuss and Scattershot
Authors: Sharrock Wes , Coulter Jeff
Published: March 2007

Professor Wetherick (2000) returns to address the issues between us. In our view, the motley of disconnected arguments that he presents are united by their foundational misconception of our position. In dealing with these as systematically as we can, we shall attempt to restate our original line of attack in relation to the points which he raises. These points pertain to the notion that we are `linguistic determinists'; that we fail to grasp the true nature of psychology's problem with human perception; and that we persist in denying to psychology any legitimate problems at all. In our final reply, we shall tackle these matters as succinctly as we can in an effort to show that they are all misplaced, artifacts of a failure to appreciate the precise nature of our position.
Time Past, Time Present, Time Future
Authors: Sabat Steven R.
Published: March 2007

Two case studies of Alzheimer's disease sufferers are presented and analyzed in terms of William Stem's `Science of Personalistics'. Despite a plethora of deficits in cognitive function as measured by standardized tests, the afflicted persons discussed herein show striking evidence of having goals of the autotelic and heterotelic variety, and the need to entertain such goals. Furthermore, the application of Stem's concepts of the `personal present', `convergence', `assimilation', and the like, to the discourse of the afflicted permits us to understand the experience of the afflicted with a clarity not allowed by neuropsychological tests. Stem's approach to the study of persons is thus seen as an important addition to our understanding of cognitive life.
Gergen's Social Constructionism, Logical Positivism and the Continuity of Error
Authors: Hibberd Fiona J.
Published: March 2007

This paper provides further evidence for the thesis that K.J. Gergen's social constructionism and logical positivism are not antithetical. Gergen's metatheory, the later version of Schlick's verificationism and the operationism of Bridgman and S.S. Stevens, each in their own way, incorporate forms of the meaning-as-use thesis. Schlick and Gergen, in particular, are heirs of Wittgenstein's legacy. Yet the identification of meaning with use involves an incomplete characterization of meaning. It is inconsistent with the fact that the intension of any genuine term is always a set of general characteristics. Not surprisingly, the semantic similarities between logical positivism and social constructionism are driven by a common epistemology. Despite surface differences, both retain Kant's belief that the constituents of reality are not directly knowable. To the extent that positivism, operationism and social constructionism have influenced psychology, psychology has been aligned with anti-realist meta-theory and has not progressed. Yet these three `schools' admit implicitly the realist views that they deny explicitly. This demonstrates the un-avoidability of certain realist assumptions.
Experiments in Social Psychology
Authors: Wallach Lise , Wallach Michael A.
Published: March 2007

Criticisms of the very idea of experimentation in social psychology are longstanding; a focal claim recently has been that social psychological hypotheses are non-empirical. We contest this claim, but argue that many experiments in social psychology are pointless nonetheless because they are fundamentally circular. Testing hypotheses requires operationalization; operationalization requires assumptions; and in social psychology, we argue, the necessary assumptions often already imply that the hypotheses can be confirmed. Confirmability of the hypotheses of a number of experiments recently reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is shown to be implied by two illustrative truistic principles central to theories assumed in any tests of these hypotheses. We suggest that research aimed at finding specifically social psychological laws may only yield unfalsifiable truisms, while useful social psychological research aims elsewhere.
Significance Tests are Not Enough
Authors: Harris Monica J.
Published: March 2007

Chow (1991) distinguishes between `practical impact' and `conceptual rigor' research, and he concludes that effect-size estimation is useful only in practical impact research. I argue that significance tests do not answer substantive questions about the data and are useful only as a check that the results are unlikely to have occurred by chance. Chow's decision to regard the similarity between data and prediction as being a dichotomous judgment made on the basis of significance testing is therefore unwise. I conclude that effect sizes are the single best index of the relationship between theoretical predictions and the obtained data. The role of replications and meta-analysis in advancing theory is also discussed.
Conceptualizations of Short-Range and Long-Range Processes in Apparent Movement
Authors: Petersik J. Timothy
Published: March 2007

The two-process distinction in apparent movement posits the existence of competitive `short-range' and `long-range' processes. It was proposed to account for the fact that the visual system seems to generate different qualitative percepts under different spatiotemporal conditions of stimulation. It has been shown to be in accord with empirical data from random-dot cinematogram experiments and bistable-percept experiments, as well as with subjective experience. Although it has been developed by some into a model of motion perception, the two-process distinction is perhaps best conceptualized as a metatheoretical perspective rather than a theory. That is, the two-process distinction has guided the development of a number of theories, all of which share the notion of a basic processing dichotomy. The present paper elaborates these ideas and addresses criticisms of the two-process distinction, arguing that they inappropriately test the processes against fixed `criteria'. It is claimed here that, like all complex perceptual processes, those associated with the two-process distinction cannot be easily isolated by manipulations of individual stimulus parameters in the search for criterion behavior. The nature of perceptual theories is discussed in this context, and the notion of modes of perceiving is used as a conceptualization for the two-process distinction. Consistency between the two-process distinction and other theoretical conceptualizations is shown. Conclusions are drawn and suggestions are made for the future of the two-process distinction.
What is Doing History?
Authors: Blackman Lisa M.
Published: March 2007

This paper discusses contemporary approaches to the study of history, and their relation to the `history of ideas' which underpins traditional historiographies. After outlining the conventional histories of psychology, and their implicit assumptions, an alternative `history of the present' is discussed. The implications of utilizing a `history of the present', or archaeological approach to history, are discussed in relation to the `discourse debates' currently circumscribing critical psychological inquiry. An empirical example from my work in relation to an archaeology of hallucinations is used to illustrate these issues, in which I argue that the adoption of a `history of the present' avoids the dilemmas surrounding discursive approaches to the relation between language and social reality, and emphasizes the relevance of placing history on the agenda, when analysing the constitution of contemporary psychological phenomena. The paper raises these important issues and offers some conceptual tools for such an analysis.
Reasoning and Rationality
Authors: Wetherick N.E.
Published: March 2007

This paper considers certain experimental tasks used by cognitive psychologists, performance on which has been thought to show that intelligent and able human subjects are `irrational'. It is argued that the responses judged to be `correct' (which the subjects usually fail to give) are so only in a pedantic sense. They are the responses that would follow if thinking was in accord with some simple abstract model and if it could legitimately be claimed that following the model constituted rationality. The models chosen are shown to be inappropriate for the purpose. Furthermore, no account is taken of the subjects' desire genuinely to participate in the experiment-to make sense of the task given and respond according to that sense. Subjects do not without specific instruction try to dissect out an abstract model and respond according to that. It is concluded that the responses actually given are prima facie evidence of rationality in the subjects.
Individualism, Family Ideology and Family Therapy
Authors: Fowers Blaine J. , Richardson Frank C.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the ethical aims of family therapy and its relationship to the ideals of contemporary culture. Although family therapy has defined itself in part by rejecting an individualistic view of persons, it appears to have adopted a normative ideal for families that is tightly bound up with modern individualism. The modern nuclear family is a crucial support for individual autonomy in contemporary society through its provision of a private, emotionally intimate environment. By accepting this model of the family, family therapists are in the awkward position of indirectly supporting modem individualism and thereby perpetuating a view of individuals and families that contributes to the difficulties we seek to ameliorate.
Situated Knowledges of Personal Embodiment
Authors: Parlee Mary Brown
Published: March 2007

Academic psychologists' treatment of `sex' as an ahistorical, pretheoretical notion in theories of `gender' is compared and contrasted with knowledge produced by persons whose own gendered embodiment is outside binary gender/sex categories and whose moral agency is erased by theories depicting them as exceptions to a binary-based scheme. This latter knowledge, emerging from an activist community's reflections on its own personal/political praxis in relation to dominant social institutions and ideologies, has selectively incorporated, challenged and transformed gender/sex discourses in significant segments of medicine and academic disciplines other than psychology. Psychological theories continue to reproduce binary categories (and practices organized around them), in part because they incorporate only some of the implications of a social constructivist perspective, and in part because psychologists seem to theorize gender/sex in isolation from other knowledge-producing communities.
Politicizing the Politics of Postmodern Social Psychology
Authors: Kendall Gavin , Michael Mike
Published: March 2007

The paper considers the postmodern turn in social psychology, offering an account of similarities and differences between postmodern social psychology and more `standard' versions of social psychology. Various possible versions of postmodern social psychology are put to the test. The argument is made that the institutional construction of postmodern social psychology forces it to keep separate the following themes: the human and the non-human, the biological and the social, surveillance and self-realization, government and forms of ethical comportment. These dualisms can be understood in new ways through a reconceptualization of technology in postmodern social psychology. Our critique is intended to focus attention on the political implications of a postmodern social psychology which understands itself as a self-consciously `better' psychology.
History of Psychology Turned Inside(r) Out: A Comment on Danziger
Authors: van Rappard J. F. Hans
Published: March 2007

Danziger (1994) distinguished between the insider-scientist and the outsider-historian models for the history of psychology. The present paper contends that since in psychology history has a contemporary relevance, there is a place for insider history in the discipline; hence, a mixed model is appropriate. Issue is taken with Danziger's view of insider history as inherently celebratory. It is finally argued that it is doubtful if critical history bridges the gap between the two historiographical models.
Surrogates for Theories
Authors: Gigerenzer Gerd
Published: March 2007

I first discuss several strategies that serve as surrogates for theories in psychology: one-word explanation, redescription, drawing vague dichotomies, and data fitting. I then identify two conventions that allow these surrogates to flourish and multiply: null hypothesis testing, which makes precise hypotheses irrelevant, and the isolation of research in different disciplines, which prevents the exchange of positive metaphors between fields.
The Extraordinary Ordinary Powers of Abductive Reasoning
Authors: Shank Gary
Published: March 2007

The psychology of cognition has been influenced by semiotic models of representation, but little work has been done relating semiotics and the process of cognition proper. In this paper, I argue that the semiotically relevant concept of abduction is crucial for this effort. Abduction is identified as the ground-state, or default, mode of cognition. As such, it deals with the issue of reasoning toward meaning and away from what Peirce called `genuine doubt'. In this fashion, abduction is shifted from being solely a logical and semiotic concept to a psychological concept. Abduction is first examined historically, and then further compared to the more traditional reasoning modes of deduction and induction to show how all three are necessary for any complete model of cognition and research into cognition. Different modes of abduction, including detection, diagnosis and divination, and different directions of abductive research in psychology are detailed.