Variations in judgments of intentional action and moral evaluation across eight cultures

Individuals tend to judge bad side effects as more intentional than good side effects (the Knobe or side- effect effect). Here, we assessed how widespread these findings are by testing eleven adult cohorts of eight highly contrasted cultures on their attributions of intentional action as well as ratings of blame and praise. We found limited generalizability of the original side-effect effect, and even a reversal of the effect in two rural, traditional cultures (Samoa and Vanuatu) where participants were more likely to judge the good side effect as intentional. Three follow-up experiments indicate that this reversal of the side-effect effect is not due to semantics and may be linked to the perception of the status of the protagonist. These results highlight the importance of factoring cultural context in our understanding of moral cognition

Using Criminal Punishment to Serve Both Victim and Social Needs

In recent decades, the criminal-justice pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. Criminal law is often described as covering disputes between the offender and the state. Victims are not direct parties to criminal proceedings, they have no formal right to either initiate or terminate a criminal action, and they have no control over the punishment meted out to offenders. In this state-centric system, victim needs have been left unsatisfied, giving rise to a politically powerful victims\u27 rights movement that has had success in giving victims rights of access to prosecutors and rights to be heard in the courtroom. Here, O\u27Hara and Robbins propose changing the manner in which control rights over criminal sanctions are distributed

How Do We Explain Honor Violence As a Function of Gender Norms and Identity? A Case Study of Turkey

Honor-based violence occurs commonly within a variety of cultures and communities. Definitive and reliable worldwide estimates of incidences of honor violence do not exist, but most recent estimates by the UN report the number of honor killings alone at five thousand per year.Whereas media attention focuses primarily on honor killings themselves, all honor-based acts of violence reflect social and cultural norms of honor in the contexts in which they occur. Violent crimes motivated by a desire to preserve or restore family or community honor include, aside from murder, forced marriage, enslavement, abuse or mutilation, and the deprivation of certain freedoms such as access to education. In most cases, the victims of honor-based violence are female and the perpetrators their male relatives, and the commission of these crimes is typically justified by their perpetrators as having been warranted by certain behaviors deemed unacceptable or inappropriate on the part of the victim. Ultimately, the boundaries of acceptable behavior for a woman are dictated by culturally-ingrained codes of honor which effectively rob her of her autonomy over her own body and sexuality

Effects of Neurofeedback Therapy on Patients with Traumatic Brain Injuries

Abstract One to two million traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) take place each year in the U.S. resulting in an estimated 153 related deaths every day, making it a major health concern due to disability and death. Surviving a TBI can result in a lifetime of neurological deficiencies and disabilities, yet no medically accepted treatments have been identified. Holistic treatments such as neurofeedback are often overlooked, even though the improvements and positive benefits are significant and quantifiable in patients with TBIs. The aim of this integrative literature review was to evaluate the effectiveness of neurofeedback as treatment for patients with TBIs, and analyzed the positive or negative effect(s) of neurofeedback. Reviewed literature was obtained from the following databases: CINAHL Complete, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health, PsychInfo, and PubMed. Search terms included: traumatic brain injury, and neurofeedback. Twelve studies that integrated neurofeedback with TBI revealed that neurofeedback therapy is advantageous. The benefits include an increase in neural connections and cognitive function, improvement of lingering negative effects, and enhancement of quality of life. In addition, the effectiveness and long-term benefits were considered, including reasons neurofeedback is not being utilized. Neurofeedback therapy demonstrates success for helping individuals who are recovering from TBIs. Keywords: neurofeedback, traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Foreword

This issue of the San Diego International Law Journal is filled with articles that truly exemplify the diversity of international law. Increasingly, United States courts are looking abroad for possible solutions to domestic legal problems. This issue provides a look into the successes and failures of legal structures from several different foreign nations, and provides a forum for discussion regarding the possible importation of these legal structures to the United States

Foreword

The eleventh issue of the San Diego International Law Journal is composed of articles examining the world\u27s reaction to conflict and of ideas throughout the world can bring about major shifts in socio-political thought by challenging the status quo, often resulting in conflict within or among nations. As the world becomes a more interconnected society these international issues become more important within U.S. and International Jurisprudence. The authors within this issue explore the myriad of responses a nation may take when presented with a potential conflict

Sharing and fairness in development

PostprintPeer reviewe

Emerging Signs of Strong Reciprocity in Human Ontogeny

Strong reciprocity is considered here as the propensity to sacrifice resources to be kind or to punish in response to prior acts, a behavior not simply reducible to self-interest and a likely force behind human cooperation and sociality. The aim was to capture emerging signs of strong reciprocity in human ontogeny and across highly contrasted cultures. Three- and 5-year-old middle class American children (N = 162) were tested in a simple, multiple round, three-way sharing game involving the child, a generous puppet, and a stingy puppet. At the end of the game, the child was offered an opportunity to sacrifice some of her personal gains to punish one of the puppets. By 3 years, American children demonstrate a willingness to engage in costly punishment. However, only 5-year-olds show some evidence of strong reciprocity by orienting their punishment systematically toward the stingy puppet. Further analyses and three additional control conditions demonstrate that such propensity is not simply reducible to (a) straight imitation, or (b) inequity aversion. To assess the relative universality of such development, a group of 5- to 6-year-old children from rural Samoa (N = 14) were tested and compared to age and gender-matched American children. Samoan children did not manifest the same propensity toward strong reciprocity. The results are interpreted as pointing to (1) the developmental emergence of an ethical stance between 3 and 5 years of age, and (2) that the expression of such stance by young children could depend on culture

Fairness and distributive justice by 3- to 5-year-old Tibetan children

We asked whether young children raised in an environment strongly promoting compassion for others, as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism, would show less proclivity toward self-maximizing in sharing. We replicated the procedure of Rochat et al. with a group of 3- and 5-year-old Tibetan children living in exile and attending a traditional Buddhist school where the Dalai Lama resides. We report that Tibetan children, like children of seven other cultures, start from a marked self-maximizing propensity at 3 years of age, becoming significantly more fair by 5 years. These data confirm that the developing sense of equity by young children is comparable in the context of a compassion-based culture.PostprintPeer reviewe

White bias in 3-7 year-old children across cultures

In three studies we report data confirming and extending the finding of a tendency toward a White preference bias by young children of various ethnic backgrounds. European American preschoolers who identify with a White doll also prefer it to a Black doll. In contrast, same age African American children who identify with a Black doll do not show a significant preference for it over a White doll. These results are comparable in African American children attending either a racially mixed (heterogeneous), or an Afro-centric, all African American (homogenous) preschool. These results show the persistence of an observation that contributed to school de-segregation in the United States. Results also reveal a lack of congruence between skin color identity and preference is not limited to African Americans. There is a comparable, if not stronger White preference bias in five to seven-year-old Polynesian and Melanesian children tested in their native island nations. Using a modified procedure controlling for binary forced choice biases, we confirm these findings with second generation American children of Indian descent showing clear signs of a White (lighter skin preference) bias. These results are consistent with the idea that during the preschool years children are sensitive and attracted to signs of higher social status that, for historical reasons and across cultures, tends to be associated with lighter skin color.PostprintPeer reviewe