To provide the three-way comparisons needed to test existing theories, we compared (1) most-stressful memories to other memories and (2) involuntary to voluntary memories (3) in 75 community dwelling adults with and 42 without a current diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Each rated their three most-stressful, three most-positive, seven most-important and 15 word-cued autobiographical memories, and completed tests of personality and mood. Involuntary memories were then recorded and rated as they occurred for 2 weeks. Standard mechanisms of cognition and (...) affect applied to extreme events accounted for the properties of stressful memories. Involuntary memories had greater emotional intensity than voluntary memories, but were not more frequently related to traumatic events. The emotional intensity, rehearsal, and centrality to the life story of both voluntary and involuntary memories, rather than incoherence of voluntary traumatic memories and enhanced availability of involuntary traumatic memories, were the properties of autobiographical memories associated with PTSD. (shrink)

As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers. These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 in the 7th (...) or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate. The model had adequate fit. Social status insecurity was associated positively with callousness, unemotional, and popularity-motivated aggression and related negatively to popularity-motivated prosocial behaviors. High social status insecurity was related to greater popularity-motivated aggression when adolescents had high callousness traits. The findings have implications for understanding the individual characteristics associated with social status insecurity. (shrink)

At metaphase, DNA in a human chromosome is estimated to be compacted at least 10,000 fold in length.1,2 However, the higher order mechanisms by which the chromosomes are organized in interphase and subsequently further condensed in mitosis have largely remained elusive. One generally overlooked participant in chromosome condensation is DNA replication. Many early studies of eukaryotic chromosome organization and cell fusions have suggested that DNA replication plays a role in chromosome compaction. Recent phenotypic analysis of Drosophila DNA replication mutants has (...) revitalized this old idea. In this review, the role of DNA replication in chromosome condensation will be examined. BioEssays 24:411–418, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Mature rats were kept on protein-deficient diets to test the hypothesis that late-onset protein restriction results in deficits and to determine the feasibility of doing nutrition-behavior research with old naive animals. A 3% low-protein (LP) group and a 24% adequate-protein (AP) pair-fed control were used. Body weights and plasma protein concentrations were lower and exploratory behavior and motor coordination were poorer for LP rats. Both groups preferred the 24% protein diet. LP rats habituated slower and failed to overcome an initial (...) black preference on an oddity discrimination learning task. Nutrition-behavioral research with older rats is feasible, and late-onset protein restriction produces psychobiological deficits. (shrink)

Previous research on youths’ online risky experiences has mostly utilized quantitative designs. However, some of this research does not account for youths’ views and perceptions. This qualitative study fills this gap by describing online problematic situations from the perspectives of European youths, focuses on classifying online problematic situations based on youths’ perspectives and interrelates these with their developmental contexts. As a theoretical framework, the co-construction model was adopted, which proposes that youths’ online and offline worlds are interconnected. Interviews and focus (...) groups were conducted with youths between the ages of 9 and 16 from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Youths’ responses reflected the complexity of the various problematic situations online they encountered or indirectly experienced, and how such experiences were interconnected with the developmental contexts of peer relationships, parent-child relationships, romantic relationships, school, sexuality, identity, health, and morality. We recommend the development of complex educational programs focused on youths about problematic situations online, which discuss the possible situations they may encounter and how to deal with them. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty has serious consequences for human lives, social values, and economy. The main aim of the study was to explore a model of relations between personal and cultural variables and academic dishonesty. The participants in the study were N = 2,586 individuals from nine countries (Pakistan, Israel, Italy, India, the USA, Peru, Romania, Ghana, and Poland). The authors administered the Academic Dishonesty Scale to measure academic dishonesty, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale to measure distress, the Almost Perfect Scale – (...) Revised to measure perfectionism, the Brief Self-Control Scale to measure self-control, and the Singelis Scale to measure independent self-construal. The results showed that the theoretical model was well fitted to the dataset in six countries: Pakistan, the United States, Romania, Ghana, Israel, and Poland. However, it was not well fitted in Italy, India, and Peru. Our results also showed that perfectionism significantly predicted academic dishonesty, but not in all countries. Self-control significantly predicted cheating, falsification, and plagiarism in the USA. Moreover, we found that distress was related to cheating o0nly in Ghana. Finally, independent self-construal predicted academic dishonesty. Our findings provide a cross-cultural contribution to the debate on academic dishonesty by highlighting its significant predictors and may inform interventions aimed at eliminating it. Our results can be used in preventing and curbing academic dishonesty. Knowledge on cross-cultural differences can be useful in international education for example, as an indicator accepting or relaxing attitude toward academic dishonesty in students from different countries. (shrink)

Moral imagination is a process that involves a thorough consideration of the ethical elements of a decision. We sought to explore what might distinguish moral imagination from other ethical approaches within a complex business simulation. Using a three-component model of moral imagination, we sought to discover whether organization cultures with a salient ethics theme activate moral imagination. Finding an effect, we sought an answer to whether some individuals were more prone to being influenced in this way by ethical cultures. We (...) found that employees with strong moral identities are less influenced by such cultures than employees whose sense of self is not defined in moral terms. (shrink)

The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement.What exactly is deliberative democracy? Why is it more defensible than its rivals? By offering clear answers to these timely questions, Gutmann (...) and Thompson illuminate the theory and practice of justifying public policies in contemporary democracies. They not only develop their theory of deliberative democracy in new directions but also apply it to new practical problems. They discuss bioethics, health care, truth commissions, educational policy, and decisions to declare war. In "What Deliberative Democracy Means," which opens this collection of essays, they provide the most accessible exposition of deliberative democracy to date. They show how deliberative democracy should play an important role even in the debates about military intervention abroad.Why Deliberative Democracy? contributes to our understanding of how democratic citizens and their representatives can make justifiable decisions for their society in the face of the fundamental disagreements that are inevitable in diverse societies. Gutmann and Thompson provide a balanced and fair-minded approach that will benefit anyone intent on giving reason and reciprocity a more prominent place in politics than power and special interests. (shrink)

In this important collection of essays Dennis Thompson argues for a more robust conception of responsibility in public life than prevails in contemporary democracies. He suggests that we should stop thinking so much about public ethics in terms of individual vices and start thinking about it more in terms of institutional vices. Combining theory and practice with many concrete examples and proposals for reform, these essays could be used in courses in applied ethics or political theory and will be (...) read by professionals and graduate students in schools of political science, public policy, law, public health, journalism and business. (shrink)

Hospital ethics, familiar enough in practice but surprisingly neglected in the literature, deals with the ethical problems that arise distinctively or typically in hospitals. More precisely, it consists of the ethical principles that shouldgovern 1) the conduct of healthcare professionals and other staff in their capacities as members of the hospital as an institution, and 2) the conduct of the hospital itself as an institution. It is a species of institutional ethics, which focuses on the ethical problems created or significantly (...) shaped by the institutional setting in which they occur. (shrink)

Aritsotle's hyle is contrasted with Plato's chora and Aquinas's prima materia. It is argued that Plato and Aristotle developed their concepts in response to very different needs, and that Aquinas's theory reflects a conflation of their views by Neoplatonic commentators. Hyle is shown to be an active potential to a determinate form in contrast to Aquinas's prima materia, which is a purely indeterminate passive potential. This gives a point of attachment in Aristotle's philosophy of nature for the later notion of (...) universal laws of nature. (shrink)

Democracy is prone to what may be called presentism – a bias in the laws in favor of present over future generations. I identify the characteristics of democracies that lead to presentism, and examine the reasons that make it a serious problem. Then I consider why conventional theories are not adequate to deal with it, and develop a more satisfactory alternative approach, which I call democratic trusteeship. Present generations can represent future generations by acting as trustees of the democratic process. (...) The general principle is that present generations should act to protect the democratic process itself over time. They should try to make sure that future citizens continue to have competent control over their collective decision‐making. (shrink)

...Witherspoon's Course in Political Theory, as Taken by James Madison Dennis F. Thompson Princeton University [523...Witherspoon's Course in Political Theory, as Taken by James Madison. James Madison was an unusually wen-prepared student when, at eighteen...

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.