Author Archive
FHL Foundation Makes Spring 2013 Grants
Posted by: | CommentsThe following is a listing of the grants approved by the board at the FHL Foundation’s spring board meeting on April 30th, 2013:
1) Syracuse University (Dr. Ken Corvo, lead researcher) – $15,000
DESCRIPTION – (From Dr. Corvo’s Full Proposal narrative) For nearly 40 years, the public policy response to the problem of domestic violence has been defined as the socially sanctioned dominance of women by men. This view of patriarchy as the sole cause of domestic violence is the underpinning for a policy/practice paradigm that has dominated the regulatory, legal, and policy discourse of the United States, Canada and other countries. In spite of a robust and rigorous literature indicating a much broader range of psychological risk factors, policies regarding the etiology and treatment of domestic violence perpetration often disregard or forbid considerations of mental health issues, particularly those with developmental antecedents. Instead, a model of psychoeducation is substituted, based upon an ideological interpretation of domestic violence as only resulting from the socially-sanctioned domination of women by men.
The literature contains numerous studies of psychopathology and neuropsychological issues in domestic violence perpetration, including perpetrator typologies, correlational studies between specific mental disorders and perpetration, links to substance abuse/dependence, and neurological deficits (e.g. traumatic brain injury). Of the probable psychological vulnerabilities or risks in domestic violence perpetration, deficits in executive function may be the least explored. Using a subject heading search “executive function”, the PsycINFO database contains over 3600 journal articles, but only 3 when keyword “domestic violence” is added. Funds are requested to undertake a synthetic review of the literature on the intersection of executive function deficits and psychopathology as they are manifested in dysfunctional violent coping in domestic violence perpetrators. Products will include an article submitted for publication to a relevant peer-reviewed professional journal and at least one national-level professional conference.
Hunters and Gatherers Go To the Movies
Posted by: | CommentsBack in February, 2013, I wrote a two-part blog series entitled What’s So Social About Machine Media? In this blog series I mentioned a 2010 book by psychologist and social critic Dr. Mack Hicks entitled The Digital Pandemic—Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age. In his book Hicks spends a lot of time talking about two overarching personality types: Gatherers and Hunters. Here’s how I described these two personality types in my blog series:
Throughout his book Hicks defines and describes two overarching personality types: Hunters and Gatherers. Simply, Gatherers are linear and left-brain oriented (e.g., comfortable with precision, certitude, and reliability); Hunters are holistic and right-brain oriented (e.g., comfortable with approximations, guesses, and hunches).
In my blog series I suggested that one can find an almost archetypal struggle between Hunters and Gatherers in the 1950s western movie Shane. As movie critics have pointed out, Shane is essentially a remake of the Cane and Abel story from the Old Testament. As mythologist Joseph Campbell often told his audiences, Abel was associated with sheep farming while Cane was associated with cattle herding. Simply, Abel was a Gatherer and Cane was a Hunter. Psychologist David Anderegg (in his book Nerds) describes Gatherers as people of thought, and Hunters as people of doing. Both Hicks and Anderegg suggest that President Obama embodies the Gatherer mindset with its focus on mental worlds, and the second President Bush would be a Hunter, a doer out in the physical world.
Reprint: Robots, Robots Everywhere
Posted by: | CommentsRobots, robots everywhere
by Jay Nelson
February 2013 issue of SWCP Portal
(reprinted with the kind permission of the author)
What follows is a reprint of an article by Jay Nelson that appeared in the February 2013 issue of Southwest Cyberport Portal Newsletter. Southwest Cyberport is the FHL Foundation’s IP or Internet provider. Their newsletter appears in our invoice statement each month. Given that SWCP is very much a digital technology company, I am impressed by how much they regularly write on such issues as how technology affects us not only as individuals but also as a society. The following article is just one example. I asked for (and received) permission to reprint this particular article because I myself have written extensively on what automation is doing to our society, especially our economy. In short, pundits (like economist Jeremy Rifkin, more on Rifkin below) regularly point to automation as a chief cause of our high levels of un- or underemployment. I am always heartened to see that others are also looking at this issue. When I called Jay, he told me that the TV news program 60 Minutes ran a piece on automation back in January, 2013. I did a Google search and, indeed, the title of the piece is, Are Robots Hurting Job Growth? Jay told me that the 60 Minutes piece offers up a more gloomy picture than the one he paints in his article. I’ll offer up a few additional gloomy observations of my own following this reprint of Jay’s article. For now, enjoy this reprint of Robots, Robots Everywhere. And thanks Jay. (My editorial comments will be in brackets.)
COMMENT: Student Must-Haves for Scholarship Success – Yahoo! News
Posted by: | CommentsStudent Must-Haves for Scholarship Success – Yahoo! News.
By Rachel Ny | U.S.News & World Report LP – Mon, Mar 4, 2013
Just a quick comment concerning the above article by Rachel Ny (which I viewed via Yahoo News) entitled Student Must-Haves for Scholarship Success. I focused on this article because I would suggest that it supports my claim (in earlier posts) that EF or executive function plays a large role in not only school preparedness but also school success.
According to Ny’s article, a group called NerdScholar conducted a survey to determine the ingredients needed for scholarship success. The results of the survey suggest that students will need three things:
- Transcripts
- Essays
- Letters of Reference
Transcripts are self-explanatory.
Now, here’s what the article says about essays:
Digital Skeptic or Analog Celebrant … Which Frame Would You Choose? (part two of two)
Posted by: Rick Leonhardt | Comments (0)Welcome to part two. Let me see if I can get you up to speed. In part one I talked about two frames: digital skeptic and digital celebrant. Simply, digital skeptics view the rise of the digital age with a fair bit of caution and reserve. On the other hand, digital celebrants, well, celebrate the coming and arrival of the digital age. I first encountered these frames reading Robert McChesney’s 2013 book entitled Digital Disconnect—How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. In his book McChesney credits Robin Mansell with developing these frames. McChesney argues that the conflict between the digital skeptic frame and the digital celebrant frame essentially gives rise to what could be called a “Straw Man fallacy.” Such a fallacy, argues McChesney, takes light off the real conflict: Internet monopolists, like Zuckerberg, Gates, the late Jobs, and Schmidt (of Google fame), are “marketizing” or monetizing the Internet and, as a result, are killing any potential the Internet may provide as far as revitalizing democracy.
Well, OK, but in part one I argue that the frames digital skeptic and digital celebrant are misleading and do not appropriately convey what is really going on as we continue to go through a huge paradigm shift: moving from a human state to a posthuman state. Here are the frames that I propose and my reason for proposing them.
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