One of six commentaries on “Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic,” by Daniel Callahan, from the January‐February 2013 issue.

Rendell and Whitehead have drawn attention to some striking cetacean behaviour patterns. However, the claims for are premature. Weak examples of cetacean social learning do not, in sum, provide strong evidence for culture. Other terms, such as social learning, vocal learning, imitation, and tradition may be applied in some cases without resorting to more complex and controversial terms.

Contrary to Vaesen's argument that humans are unique with respect to nine cognitive capacities essential for tool use, we suggest that although such cognitive processes contribute to variation in tool use, it does not follow that these capacities arenecessaryfor tool use, nor that tool use shaped cognition per se, given the available data in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral biology.

Although the authors' ingenuity in identifying criteria for innovation for field studies is appealing, most field studies will lack adequate data. Additionally, their definition does not clearly distinguish innovation from individual learning and is vague about cognitive mechanisms involved. We suggest that developmental data are essential to identifying the causes and consequences of learning new behaviors.

It is not uncommon to hear that poor school performance, welfare dependancy, youth unemployment, and criminal activity result more from shortcomings in the personal makeup of individuals than from societal forces beyond their control. Are American values declining as so many suggest? And are those values at the root of many social problems today?Shaped by experience and public policies, people's values and social norms do change. What role can or should a democratic government play in shaping values? And how do (...) these values conditon the efficacy of public policy?In this book, six distinguished social scientists identify trends in America's values and their consequences, and consider public policy tools with which some of those values might be changed.Daniel Yankelovich begins with a discussion of how American values have shifted in the last half-century, and argues that affluence is the driving force behind these changes in values. James Q. Wilson argues that destructive habits which can lead to social pathologies, like crime and drug use, are set early in life; he examines how public policy might intervene when children are young to promote better values. David Popenoe maintains that America has veered too far towards industrialist values, and explores the resulting decline of families and many attendant social ills. Nathan Glazer describes the history and present status of the dispute over multicultural education. Jane Mansbridge examines the process of building cooperation, consensus, and public spirit. And George Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen discuss the problem of gang criminality.Inthe past, social scientists have often sidestepped questions about values as undefinable, unquantifiable, and somehow unscientific. The essays in this volume address these questions at last.Henry J. Aaron, director of the Economic Studies program at Brookings, is the authorof numerous books, including most recently Serious and Unstable Condition: Financing America's Health Care (1991), and coeditor of Setting Domestic Priorities (1992). Thomas E. Mann is director of the Brookings Governmental Studies program, coeditor of Media Polls in American Politics (1992), and coauthor of the Renewing Congress series (1993). Timothy Taylor is managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives at Stanford University. (shrink)

The doctrine of divine simplicity, the doctrine that God has no physical or metaphysical complexity whatsoever, is not a doctrine designed to induce immediate philosophical acquiescence. There are severe questions about its coherence. And even if those questions can be answered satisfactorily in favour of the doctrine, there remains the question why anyone should accept it. Thomas V. Morris raises both sorts of questions about a version of the doctrine which I have put forward. In the following pages I shall (...) respond to what I take to be the most serious of Morris's objections. I shall argue that the doctrine survives Morris's onslaught, but that one observation of his points it in a direction I had hitherto not taken seriously. The bulk of Morris's paper raises questions of the first sort; perforce the bulk of my paper will also. I shall offer, at the end, a reason for thinking that neither of us is yet in a position to pronounce categorically on the second question. My remarks in this paper constitute an interim report on how I think things presently stand with divine simplicity. (shrink)

This article explores how ethical agency, as ‘other-oriented’ caring, emerged from feelings of being ‘different’ in a cultural organization by drawing on feminist ethics of care. By analyzing interview material from an ethnographic study, we centralize the relationship between feelings of being ‘different,’ vulnerability and the development of sensibilities, practices and imaginaries of care. We elaborate on how vulnerability serves as a ground for caring with rather than for others, and illustrate how it allowed individuals to challenge both organizational, normative (...) diversity discourses and essentialization of differences. We contribute to the literature on critical diversity management by furthering problematizations of instrumental diversity management from the perspective of care, and to the organizational literature on feminist care ethics by empirically exploring how ethical agency emerges from tensions related to feeling ‘different.’ While previous studies have shown how marginalized individuals use their sense of ‘otherness’ to negotiate, conform to and resist organizational norms, practices and discourses, we provide further insights on how it also can drive concern and care for others, and thus serve as possible ground for ethical change initiatives within organizations. (shrink)

This study presents a process model of very long‐term episodic memory. The process presented is a reconstructive process. The process involves application of three kinds of reconstructive strategies—component‐to‐context instantiation strategies, component‐instantiation strategies, and context‐to‐context instantiation strategies. The first is used to direct search to appropriate conceptual categories in memory. The other two are used to direct search within the chosen conceptual category. A fourth type of strategy, called executive search strategies, guide search for concepts related to the one targeted for (...) retrieval.A conceptual memory organization implied by human reconstructive memory is presented along with examples which motivate it. A basic retrieval algorithm is presented for traversing that stucture. Retrieval strategies arise from failures in that algorithm. The memory organization and retrieval processes are implemented in a computer program called CYRUS which stores events in the lives of former Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie and answers questions posed in English concerning that information. Examples which motivate the process model are drawn from protocols of human memory search. Examples of CYRUS's behavior demonstrate the implemented process model. Conclusions are drawn concerning retrieval failures and the relationship of episodic and semantic memory. (shrink)

‘Ideologies of Discrimination’ considers the implications of the new genetics for understandings of personhood and for understandings of the relationship between people in groups. In particular, the essay delineates and examines the emerging notion of a ‘genetic group’ and considers the social implications of redefining families, racial groups and ethnic groups through express, and often exclusive, reference to a shared genome. One consequence of such redefinition has been the justification and elaboration of stigmatizing images of and discrimination against such groups—especially (...) those, such as Jews and African-Americans, that have long been identified with specific somatic characteristics. A few worrisome trends begin to emerge in the response of the American legal system to the notion of genetic groups. Among these is a shift in the locus of privacy and identity from the autonomous individual to the genetic group. This shift challenges long-standing Western values that depend upon the ideological centrality of autonomous individuality. (shrink)

This article examines strategies used by human rights advocates to lobby for policy at intergovernmental organizations. We suggest that the literatures’ central questions are about how best to organize, connect, and communicate, which are usually seen through theory on transnational advocacy networks and framing. We add that these questions should be seen as gendered, given the continued male dominance within diplomatic corps. With unusual access to their strategy, we conduct a case study of one advocate’s successful campaign to get the (...) United Nations to adopt a country-specific resolution. Like others, we found this campaigning relies upon the use of networks to overcome formal obstacles to access, human rights language to frame the problem, analysis of tally sheets of member states’ voting, and in-person lobbying. We also point out strategies key to their success that are not usually noticed by scholars, such as the gendered dynamics that get advocates in the door. (shrink)

The process of transmitting ballet’s complex technique to young dancers can interfere with the innate processes that give rise to efficient, expressive and harmonious movement. With the intention of identifying possible solutions, this article draws on research across the fields of neurology, psychology, motor learning, and education, and considers their relevance to ballet as an art form, a technique, and a training methodology. The integration of dancers’ technique and expressivity is a core theme throughout the paper. A brief outline of (...) the historical development of ballet’s aesthetics and training methods leads into factors that influence dancers’ performance. An exploration of the role of the neuromotor system in motor learning and the acquisition of expert skills reveals the roles of sensory awareness, imagery, and intention in cuing efficient, expressive movement. It also indicates potentially detrimental effects of conscious muscle control, explicit learning and persistent naïve beliefs. Finally, the paper presents a new theory regarding the acquisition of ballet skills. Recontextualization theory proposes that placing a problematic task within a new context may engender a new conceptual approach and/or sensory intention, and hence the genesis of new motor programs; and that these new programs may lead to performance that is more efficient, more rewarding for the dancer, more pleasing aesthetically, and more expressive. From an anecdotal point of view, this theory appears to be supported by the progress of many dancers at various stages of their dancing lives. (shrink)

Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits low spatial frequency biases in the right hemisphere and high spatial frequency (HSF) biases in the LH. We show (...) two factors that can influence lateralization: (a) Visual similarity among words: The more similar the words in the lexicon look visually, the more HSF/LH processing is required to distinguish them, and (b) Requirement to decompose words into graphemes for grapheme-phoneme mapping: Alphabetic reading (involving grapheme-phoneme conversion) requires more HSF/LH processing than logographic reading (no grapheme-phoneme mapping). These factors may explain the difference in lateralization between English and Chinese orthographic processing. (shrink)

This study investigates the online narratives Hong Kong employers construct around foreign domestic helpers and aims to compensate for the existing gap in discursive research and mainstream media, which tend to focus on the perspective of FDHs. It examines how employers portrayed FDHs both positively and negatively, as well as how they represented themselves in online environments. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyse more than 2000 Facebook posts on the subject of FDHs, identifying discursive strategies used in constructing both (...) power dynamics and identities. The findings revealed that nomination strategies dominated the discourse, constructing both the in- and out-group identities of FDHs. Other strategies, such as predication and augmentation, showed how employers portrayed themselves as opportunity-givers and food critics, which further contributed to the inferior self-perception of FDHs. The study concludes that employers have developed a sense of ideological ambivalence, in which they perceived FDHs as motherly figures while simultaneously maintaining their superior status. (shrink)

In Chinese orthography, the most common character structure consists of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right ; the minority, opposite arrangement also exists. Recent studies showed that SP character processing is more left hemisphere lateralized than PS character processing. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether this is due to phonetic radical position or character type frequency. Through computational modeling with artificial lexicons, in which we implement a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception but do (...) not assume phonological processing being LH lateralized, we show that the difference in character type frequency alone is sufficient to exhibit the effect that the dominant type has a stronger LH lateralization than the minority type. This effect is due to higher visual similarity among characters in the dominant type than the minority type, demonstrating the modulation of visual similarity of words on hemispheric lateralization. (shrink)

In health communication metaphor studies, mental and terminal diseases are often the center of attention. Yet, one of the most important life stages especially for many women, pregnancy, has receiv...

Alliance politics is not always an easy proposition. In public discourses about sexualities, unexpected alliances and splits occur even as accomplished alliances fail to achieve their political goals. By considering the models of agency enacted in a series of these alliances, I question how lesbian and feminist and queer actors can more effectively pursue alliance politics in relation to U.S. public policy.

This essay explores ethical conflicts underlying the discourse of the policy debate about transracial adoption, focusing on the adoption of Black children by whites. Three underlying conflicts are analyzed, namely, the values of equality versus community, interracial community versus multiculturalism, individuality versus racial-ethnic community. The essay concludes with observations on multicultural families.

Darnell F. Hawkins (ed.), Violent Crime: Assessing Race and Ethnic Differences Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 448.

A great quantity of American plants traveled with the precious metals that arrived in Europe from New Spain after ‘1492. Some were brought over intentionally, perhaps in the hands of some Spanish Indian (Spaniards who had travelled to the New World to make their fortunes and had returned were called “Indians”) who had become accustomed to new tastes in America. Others arrived by neither will nor invitation, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the ships or mixed in with the (...) ballast that the galleons carried on their return trip to the Old World. (shrink)

With this paper, from the perspective of ethics at the workplace, we problematize the taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in the use of artistic freedom in creative processes. Drawing on the notion of inequality regimes (e.g. Acker, 2006) and using empirical material from a performing arts organization in Sweden, we explore how the assumptions of artistic freedom facilitate and legitimize the emergence of inequality regimes in invisible and subtle manners. Our findings indicate that non-reflexive interpretations of the concept of artistic freedom result (...) in ethical dilemmas that impact the organization's pursuits of equality work. The aesthetic ethics oriented around the notion of ‘art for the sake of art’ tends to camouflage the centralization of aesthetic authority in processes where formal hierarchical structures are missing. Consequently, asymmetrical power relations between the Directors, actors, and producers are legitimized. Ethics of quality of art and that of the social ideal of equality have been constructed as dichotomic notions indicating that aesthetic ethics of art can only be preserved at the expense of social objectives of equality. We argue that the current interpretative practices of ‘artistic freedom’ in some cultural organizations add little value of ethics to the freedom of expressing artistic opinions and in achieving the social ideal of equality but lead to the emergence of inequality regimes in the artistic work processes. (shrink)