Online romance scams and victimhood

Online romance scams defraud dating website users of large amounts of money and inflict serious psychological harm. Victims of these scams often blame themselves for their losses and are blamed by others. We consider whether victims actually do share responsibility with the scammer for their losses. Three sorts of cases are particularly relevant: (i) where there are relatively many abortive meetings and even more fruitless money transfers in a single scam; (ii) where someone is a repeat scam victim; and (iii) where the victim has been warned by authorities that they are currently a victim of a scam and pay anyway. We argue that responsibility sometimes is shared, but that losses can be out of proportion to imprudence. Scam victims sometimes violate epistemic norms, but in ways that are peculiar to romantic attachment. The paper combines the methods of qualitative psychological research on scam victims and analytic philosophy (Research for this paper was supported by Grant EP/N028112/1 from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)

Differences in Love Attitudes Across Family Life Stages

Differences in the endorsement of six love styles among four family life stage groups were investigated using the Love Attitude Scale. The sample included 250 adults in four groups: college-age single youth, young childless married adults, married adults with children living at home, and married adults with launched children. Significant differences in the groups\u27 endorsements were found on several subscales, with most differences occurring between the non-married and married groups. Associations be- tween the love attitudes and relationship satisfaction at all life stages are discussed

Feminist Perspectives on Erikson’s Theory: Their Relevance for Contemporary Identity Development Research

In view of recent controversies about theory and self, identity development re- searchers need to examine the utility of their own theory. In an effort to begin this enterprise, we define what we see as the central concerns of Erikson’s theory—a life- span, psychosocial emphasis, and the notion of agentic identity development—and use a feminist standpoint analysis to examine the usefulness of these aspects of his theory in a rapidly changing, multicultural context. We critique the theory’s emphasis on biology as a significant component of psychosocial development, including the emphasis on the biological distinctiveness of women and men as an explanatory con- struct. We also address the issue of an androcentric bias that many have argued is interwoven with the theory’s core concepts. Finally, we offer conclusions regarding the aspects of the theory we find most useful and most in need of clarification or revision

Role-Related Identity Structure in Adult Women

This study explored women’s role-related identity structures through in-depth inter- views with 60 employed and stay-at-home women married to professional men. The employment, wife, mother, and homemaking roles of these women were examined to understand how married women integrate employment and family roles (i.e., wife, mother, and homemaking roles) within their identity. The women arranged the structure of their multiple roles in a variety of ways: Most structured their roles hierarchically, others intertwined several roles, some perceived their roles as equally important, a few indicated that they were “more than” their roles, and a small group of women were actively reworking their role-related identity structure. The structures observed are interpreted as representing a range of personal settlements with contemporary adult gender-role-related societal expectations

Identity and Spirituality: A Psychosocial Exploration of the Sense of Spiritual Self

The authors examined the structure and content of adults’ sense of spiritual identity by analyzing semistructured interviews with 13 spiritually devout men and 15 devout women, ages 22 to 72. Individuals’ responses to the Role-Related Identity Interview (G. T. Sorell, M. J. Montgomery, & N. A. Busch-Rossnagel, 1997b) were content analyzed and rated on the role-related spiritual identity dimensions of role salience and flexibility. Individuals were categorized as spiritually foreclosed, achieved, or in moratorium, on the basis of their motivational, affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral investments in spiritually defined roles and their reflectiveness about and behavioral changes in role-related spiritual identity. Similarities and differences within and between spiritual identity status groups were observed, suggesting a variety of ways that spiritual identity provides a sense of continuity as well as a domain for adult developmental change

Identity Research and the Psychosocial Formation of One’s Sense of Spiritual Self: Implications for Religious Educators and Christian Institutions of Higher Education

Utilizing Erikson’s (1963) psychosocial ego identity development theory, 28 qualitative interviews with religiously devout Americans are analyzed to determine different patterns of adult spiritual identity. Following an integrationist approach, we provide response to the question, “What types of identity development are accommodated, promoted, or prohibited by particular models of Christian education and the educational communities that embody them?” Recognizing individual differences in (a) the social and contextual factors that affect identity formation, (b) the way religious doubts are resolved, and (c) what individuals seek from community, we offer important implications for religious educators and Christian institutions of higher education

What’s so bad about scientism?

In their attempt to defend philosophy from accusations of uselessness made by prominent scientists, such as Stephen Hawking, some philosophers respond with the charge of ‘scientism.’ This charge makes endorsing a scientistic stance, a mistake by definition. For this reason, it begs the question against these critics of philosophy, or anyone who is inclined to endorse a scientistic stance, and turns the scientism debate into a verbal dispute. In this paper, I propose a different definition of scientism, and thus a new way of looking at the scientism debate. Those philosophers who seek to defend philosophy against accusations of uselessness would do philosophy a much better service, I submit, if they were to engage with the definition of scientism put forth in this paper, rather than simply make it analytic that scientism is a mistake

Organized crime and preventive justice

By comparison with the prevention of terrorism, the prevention of acts of organizedcrime might be thought easier to conceptualize precisely and less controversial to legislate against and police. This impression is correct up to a point, because it is possible to arrive at some general characteristics of organized crime, and because legislation against it is not obviously bedevilled by the risk of violating civil or political rights, as in the case of terrorism. But there is a significant residue of legal, moral and political difficulty: legislation against organized crime is hard to make effective; the harm of organized crime is not uniform, and so some preventive legislation seems too sweeping and potentially unjust. More fundamentally, the scale and rewards of organized crime are often dependent on mass public participation in markets for proscribed goods, which may point to a hidden public consensus in favour of some of what is criminalized. Preventive policing and legislation in both areas, then, are less easily justified than first appears

Cryptococcal antigen in serum and cerebrospinal fluid for detecting cryptococcal meningitis in adults living with HIV: systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies.

Cryptococcal antigen (CrAg) detection could direct timely initiation of antifungal therapy. We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for studies where CrAg detection in serum/cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and CSF fungal culture were done on HIV-positive adults with suspected cryptococcal meningitis (CM). With QUADAS-2, we evaluated risk of bias (RoB) of 11 included studies on 3,600 participants and used random-effects meta-analysis to obtain summary sensitivity and specificity of serum and CSF CrAg as well as agreement between CSF CrAg and CSF culture. Summary sensitivity and specificity of serum CrAg was 99.8% (88.4 - 100) and 95.2% (88.7 - 98), respectively; of CSF CrAg was 98.8% (96.2 - 99.6) and 99.3% (96.7 - 99.9), respectively. Agreement between CSF CrAg and CSF culture was 97% (96 - 99). In HIV-adults with CM symptoms, serum CrAg-negativity may rule out CM, positivity should prompt induction antifungal therapy if lumbar puncture is not feasible. In first episode of CM, CSF CrAg-positivity is diagnostic