9150 research outputs found
Sort by
Grief and the Search for Meaning: The Role of Merged Identity and Identity Disruption
No full textThe death of a loved one may have a profound effect on one’s sense of self and purpose in life. This loss may impact one’s identity and challenge previous goals and aspirations. The Cognitive Attachment Model attempts to understand grief by integrating core factors from the self-memory model, narrative approaches, and attachment theory (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2001). According to this model, modification and adjustment of merged identity to incorporate the loss and, therefore, establish new goals, life roles, and attachments is integral to managing bereavement (Maccallum & Bryant, 2013). The purpose of the proposed research is to examine the role of merged identity as defined by the Cognitive Attachment Model (merged vs. independent) on the development of grief symptoms. Specifically, this study examines (1) if a merged identity might be an important factor in predicting the experience of grief, (2) whether those with merged identity have more identity disruption after a loss, (3) how merged identity impacts an individual’s ability to integrate a loss, and (4) whether the relationship between merged identity and grief is mediated by meaning integration and identity disruption, sequentially. Results supported the hypotheses that merged identity can provide independent predictive value for grief above attachment style. This study also supported the argument that individuals with a more merged identity have both more difficulty integrating the loss into their meaning system and a more disrupted identity after the death of a loved one. Finally, there was support for a sequential mediational hypothesis where a chain reaction from merged identity, to poor integration, to disrupted identity, predicted more grief severity
The Common Law as Silver Slippers
Get PDFProfessor Anita Bernstein\u27s book, The Common Law Inside the Female Body, is an erudite investigation into the history and operation of the common law. Bernstein\u27s careful and wide-ranging study leads to her arresting thesis: The common law--an old, unpredictable, and slow system that has been there all along--has tremendous power to support and even advance women\u27s legal claims to personal liberty. In other words, women have always had the common law right to be treated equally to men. We simply have not realized it.
Bernstein makes a convincing argument that the common law tradition has a unifying theoretical commitment: “[T]he law ought to leave individuals alone and to honor this ascribed desire in the face of incursions or threats by other individuals.” Bernstein finds expressions of this commitment in multiple substantive areas. Criminal law embraces a right of self-defense (“If you are attacking me with deadly force, I have a right to resist with deadly force.”). Tort law does not impose on a bystander the duty to rescue, absent a specific type of prior relationship with the endangered (“I don\u27t have to jump into the lake to save a drowning stranger I stumbled upon.”). Contract law generally prefers monetary damages over specific performance (“You can\u27t make me do what I don\u27t want to, even if I signed a contract to do it.”). Property law limits an owner\u27s liability, based on the owner\u27s relationship to a person who enters the property (“You can\u27t make me liable for an injury suffered by a trespasser who then fell and broke his ankle on my land.”). Together this adds up to what Bernstein refers to as the common law\u27s respect for “condoned self-regard,” the ability to say what one does not want. Condoned self-regard expresses itself as a negative liberty--the right to be free from a particular obligation or duty.
Bernstein enhances gender equality discourse with her argument that this negative liberty provides a framework for understanding women\u27s rights to bodily integrity. Because negative liberty--the right to say no--means that “boundary-crossing into the personal identity and space of a person qua person is wrong,” then the common law as it has been interpreted for centuries already secures women the right to not be “penetrated, occupied, or put to use by another person. The common law, then, offers women ultimate protection that goes with their bodies, wherever those bodies go. This is what Bernstein means by the common law inside the female body
Explaining China\u27s Legal Flexibility: History and the Institutional Imperative
Get PDFChina’s legal system appears to harbor a major tension, or even a paradox. Certainty in law facilitates economic progress, which most observers agree the Communist Party requires to maintain its power—yet the Party has opted for a flexible legal system that often impedes predictability. Prior studies explain China’s legal system as a product of certain constraints and as an expedient that allows for policy adjustments. These factors undoubtedly are at work but do not fully explain the rationale for a legal design seemingly at odds with the Party’s economic goals. To obtain a fuller view, it is necessary to consult the historical circumstances in which the designers of China’s legal system were embedded. This Paper argues that the Party’s reformers achieved a percipient historical insight: the Party would require an ongoing competitive advantage in institutional entrepreneurship to survive after Mao. Moreover, the reformers understood this competency to embody not only the substance of policy, but also, crucially, the Party’s institutional stewardship. Of its many advantages, flexible law reinforces the Party’s dominance in institutional entrepreneurship, enabling the Party to impede rival entrepreneurs without disrupting the broader economic frameworks in place. Institutions with strategic functions emerge and viewed thusly, the economic tradeoffs inherent in China’s flexible laws are not the paradox that they seem. The Paper briefly considers the implications of this historical context for multinationals’ strategies in China and for states’ strategic uses of flexibility in international legal institutions
The Impact of Emotional Abuse on Psychotic Symptoms and Cognitive Functioning in Adolescents with Severe Mood Disorders
No full textObjectives: The impact of childhood abuse on cognitive functioning in adults with severe mood disorders has been well-established in the literature. In youth, however, the impact of abuse on cognitive functioning is less understood. Moreover, few studies have addressed the impact of emotional abuse, in-particular, on children with mood disorders. This study investigated the relationship between cognitive functioning (i.e., IQs, working memory and processing speed) and a history of abuse, in child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with mood disorders—with and without psychotic features (i.e., Major Depressive Disorder, MDD; Bipolar Disorders, BD; and, Mood Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, MD/NOS). Method: Retrospective chart reviews were conducted with closed medical records of 80 child and adolescent inpatients that were discharged from an intermediate care psychiatric hospital between 2009 stand 2012. Linear Regression Analyses, Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), and Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) were used to investigate associations between participants\u27: 1) diagnoses based on DSM-IV criteria (e.g., MDD, BD, and MD/NOS); 2) presence of psychotic features; 3) cognitive functioning (as measured by FSIQ, Coding, Symbol Search, and Digit Span); and, 4) history of abuse (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect). Results: Contrary to expectations, there were no differences in terms of abuse-type or psychotic features when looking at any of the dependent variables of cognitive functioning. When controlling for abuse, males performed worse than females in regards to the Coding measure but there were no differences between genders in regards to cognitive functioning. Whites did better on intelligence, coding, and working memory than nonwhites when controlling for abuse. Hispanics did better on intelligence when compared to non-Hispanics when controlling for abuse. Finally, the MANCOVA results show that whenlooking at the four cognitive dependent variables together, there was not a significant difference across abuse-type nor for psychotic features. This indicates that abuse, when looked at collectively, may not be impacting cognitive functioning among hospitalized youth. These findings agree with Post et al. (2015) when we look at individual aspects of cognitive functioning. However, once all four aspects of cognitive functioning are included together, emotional abuse was also not a significant predictor. Previous studies have not found gender and racial differences in the impact of abuse on cognitive functioning in adolescents with mood disorders. However, this study found both gender and racial differences, especially in regards to Whites who showed higher functioning compared to other groups. Conclusions: There are few studies of the impact of abuse on cognitive functioning in children and adolescents with mood disorders, and this may be the first to include adolescent inpatients. However, the limited sample size, the lack of detailed information about the history of emotional abuse (including age atonset, intensity and duration) and the retrospective chart review methodology may limit the generalizability of results. Findings from this study contribute to client-centered treatment planning and intervention strategies for children and adolescents with severe mood disorders (with or without psychotic symptoms) with a history of emotional abuse and cognitive challenges.Keywords: Emotional abuse, Cognitive functioning, Psychotic symptoms, Mood disorders, Children (ages 5-12) and adolescents (ages 13-17)
Wills Formalities in the Twenty-First Century
Get PDFIndividuals have executed wills the same way for centuries. But over time, traditional requirements have relaxed. This Article makes two principal claims, both of which disrupt fundamental assumptions about the purposes and functions of wills formalities. First, the traditional requirements that a will must be in writing and signed by the testator in the presence of (or acknowledged before) witnesses have never adequately served their stated purposes. For that reason, strict compliance with formalities cannot be justified by their cautionary, protective, evidentiary, and channeling functions. Reducing or eliminating most of the long-standing requirements for execution of a will is consistent with the true purpose of wills formalities--authenticating a document as the one executed by the testator with the intention of having it serve as the binding directive for the post-mortem distribution of the testator\u27s property.
This Article\u27s account has important implications for the way that legal scholars, lawmakers, and lawyers think about wills. The Article\u27s second claim is that the substantive standard of the harmless error rule--that the decedent intended a particular document to be the decedent\u27s last will and testament--should be the only threshold that must be satisfied for a court to admit the document to probate. Widespread adoption of such an intent-based rule is preferable to one that is overly formalistic. Current formalism leads both to false positives (i.e., grant of probate to a document not intended by the decedent as the decedent\u27s will) and false negatives (i.e., denial of probate of a document clearly intended by the decedent as the decedent\u27s will). An intent-based rule would make more likely the valid execution of wills by poor and middle-income individuals who typically cannot or do not consult attorneys. An intent-based standard also sets the stage for widespread recognition of electronic wills, if states are able to address concerns about authentication, fraud, and safekeeping of electronic documents. Technological developments could make estate planning in the twenty-first century more accessible than ever before to people of all wealth and income levels if the legal profession is prepared to embrace new ways of executing wills
Social Media, Venue and the Right to a Fair Trial
Get PDFJudicial failure to recognize social media\u27s influence on juror decision making has identifiable constitutional implications. The Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial demands that courts grant a defendant\u27s change of venue motion when media-generated pretrial publicity invades the unbiased sensibility of those who are asked to sit in judgment. Courts limit publicity suitable for granting a defendant\u27s motion to information culled from newspapers, radio, and television reports. Since about 2014, however, a handful of defendants have introduced social media posts to support their claims of unconstitutional bias in the community. Despite defendants\u27 introduction of negative social media in support of their claims, these same courts have yet to include social media in their evaluation of pretrial publicity bias. But social media is media, and as this article demonstrates, trial court judges faced with deciding change of venue motions have a constitutional obligation to include social media in their evaluations.
The collective refusal to treat social media the same as biased television, radio, or print media, suggests an erroneous assumption on the part of lower courts that social media is somehow different. This article identifies three reasons as justification for dismissing social media: social media is too recent a medium to fully understand and analyze, social media is not a legitimate news source, and social media is opinion based. Application of pretrial social media publicity to long-standing Supreme Court change of venue doctrine, coupled with its exploration of scientific and social research on social media influence, debunk these lower court rationalizations.
This article demonstrates that the reluctance of courts to consider social media evidence when deciding whether to grant a motion for a change of venue is a violation of any defendant\u27s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. On a larger scale, the article demands that courts embrace our new reality. Social media intersects with criminal justice, and our daily lives, in ways that demand judicial recognition
Use of the Reality-Fantasy Scale (RFS) in Identifying and Diagnosing Dissociative Experiences
No full textThis study examines the utility of the Rorschach Reality-Fantasy Scale (RFS; Tibon et al., 2005), a performance based measure developed to analyze experiences of reality and fantasy collapse within a Rorschach profile, in the identification of dissociative experiences in adolescents, in comparison to self-report measures of dissociative experiences. RFS-SD scores were examined in a sample of 86 adolescent inpatients alongside their self-reports of dissociation, as assessed using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory — Adolescent Version (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992), and the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSCC; Briere, 1996). Given the link between trauma and dissociation the current study utilized the PTSD scales of the MMPI-A as an indicator of dissociative experiences, with more direct attention focused on the items used within the scales of the Phillips Dissociation Scale (PDS; Phillips, 1994).Results indicated that no significant correlation was found between the standard deviation (RFS-SD) scores derived from the Reality-Fantasy Scale and the self report measures, as determined by the MMPI-A items and the scales within the TSCC within the overall sample. Additional results indicated significant findings across nearly every factor pair within the two self report measures (MMPI-A, TSCC) for the overall sample, however no significant correlations between either of the self report measures and the RFS-S were found. The significance and implications of these findings are discussed in the context of the development of more precise empirical assessment and deeper understanding of dissociative phenomena in this younger population, and the advancement of the possibility for earlier detection, diagnosis, and treatment
An Examination of Contemporary Christian Music Success Within Mainstream Rock and Country Billboard Charts
Get PDFRanging from inspirational songs void of theological language to worship music imbued with overt religious messages, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has a long history of being ill-defined. Due to the genre’s flexible nature, many Christian artists over the years have used vague imagery and secular lyrical content to find favor among mainstream outlets. This study examined the most recent ten-year period of CCM to determine its ability to cross over into the mainstream music scene, while also assessing the impact of its lyrical content and genre on the probability of reaching such mainstream success. For the years 2008-2018, Billboard data were collected for every Christian song on the Hot 100, Hot Rock Songs, or Hot Country Songs in order to detect any noticeable trend regarding the rise or fall of CCM; each song then was coded for theological language. No obvious trend emerged regarding the mainstream success of CCM as a whole, but the genre of Rock was found to possess the greatest degree of mainstream success. Rock also, however, was shown to have a very low tolerance for theological language, contrasted with the high tolerance of Country. As such, it is reasonable to question whether Mainstream Christian Rock is even really Christian at all.
Unreasonable Revelations: God Told Me to Kill
Get PDFThis Article focuses on one extreme example of the law’s response to unreasonable revelations that is starkly presented in a series of unsettling murders: those involving criminal defendants who claim they committed their crime because God told them to do it—known as “deific decree” cases. This example of the conflict between revelation and reason tests the limits of law’s ability to understand and countenance revelation when the stakes are highest. The deific decree cases also present the hardest epistemological problems, because the defendant claims that the experience of God’s command is self-authenticating—a position fundamentally at odds with both scientific and legal standards of proof