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Postscript: “Old Habits Never Die, They Just Mutate”

Cynthia Gordon

in Making Meanings, Creating Family: Intertextuality and Framing in Family Interaction

This postscript provides an update on how the families' lives have changed since the data for this study were collected.

Domestic Life and Habits

BONNIE S. McDOUGALL

in Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China: The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping

This chapter discusses Lu Xun and Xu Guangping's domestic and working life and habits. Deletions and recensions about domestic matters were mainly carried out on trivial detail and repetition, and ... More

This chapter discusses Lu Xun and Xu Guangping's domestic and working life and habits. Deletions and recensions about domestic matters were mainly carried out on trivial detail and repetition, and quite a lot of detail was retained. The only other areas where there were extensive deletions were passages such as her description of his bedroom when she was still his student, and their critical remarks about their or their institutions' servants. In 1926, both describe their new accommodation in great detail. In Amoy, Canton, Shanghai, and Peking there were always servants in their employ. Problems with them were often mentioned in Lu Xun's letters from Amoy.Less

Information, Imitation, and Inculcation

John V. Kulvicki

in On Images: Their Structure and Content

Verity, discussed in Chapter 11, is not the whole story about pictorial realism. Other accounts of realism appeal to the relative informativeness of representations, the way in which perceiving them ... More

Verity, discussed in Chapter 11, is not the whole story about pictorial realism. Other accounts of realism appeal to the relative informativeness of representations, the way in which perceiving them mimics our perception of their contents, and the extent to which they are of a standard kind. There is something right about each of these approaches, and this chapter sorts that out in light of the new account of depiction presented earlier.Less

Alcoholism

Mike W. Martin

in From Morality to Mental Health: Virtue and Vice in a Therapeutic Culture

This chapter presents an integrated, moral-therapeutic perspective on alcoholism. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) invigorated the therapeutic trend by convincing health ... More

This chapter presents an integrated, moral-therapeutic perspective on alcoholism. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) invigorated the therapeutic trend by convincing health professionals and the American public that alcoholism is a disease rather than a morally bad habit. In contrast, it is argued that alcoholism is both a sickness and a morally bad habit. It is a disorder of agency that has physical, psychological, and moral dimensions. The chapter concludes that beneath the disagreements about alcoholism, there is agreement on many key points: alcoholism raises major medical and moral issues; alcoholism is not dictated by a simple biochemical abnormality; most alcoholics retain significant episodic control; most have difficulty (in varying degrees) in controlling their overall patterns of drinking and need help; drinkers have responsibility to avoid causing harm, to cooperate in solving their drinking problems, and to make amends for the harm they cause; and self-righteous blaming and destructive self-blaming are objectionable on both moral and therapeutic grounds. These conclusions provide a partial roadmap for thinking about additional forms of wrongdoing as sickness.Less

The Lack of Muslim Vulnerability

Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi

in Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Violence in India

This chapter explores how the phantasmagoria of the Muslim is drawn from certain culinary and dietary habits, most clearly stereotyped in the meat eater or butcher. This stereotype manifests in the ... More

This chapter explores how the phantasmagoria of the Muslim is drawn from certain culinary and dietary habits, most clearly stereotyped in the meat eater or butcher. This stereotype manifests in the explanations of three separate members of three different communities: Jain, Rajput, and Dalit. While they share membership in the city's middle class, these communities differentiate themselves in their relation to diet and other practices. Stereotypes always carry a kernel of truth, as their power lies primarily in the psychological material they can evoke. In the pogrom, they work as residues of individual subjective experiences that became articulated collectively. When this residue takes on a stable form by being projected onto the Muslim, that figure becomes an embodiment of the most pronounced form of perceived threat, and a danger that appears confined to this figure, controllable despite its blurred and shifting nature.Less

Concluding Reflections: An Enduring Memory

Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman

in To Cast the First Stone

This concluding chapter argues that the history of the pericope adulterae reveals as much about the changing priorities of scribes, editors, and scholars as it does about an “initial text” of John. ... More

This concluding chapter argues that the history of the pericope adulterae reveals as much about the changing priorities of scribes, editors, and scholars as it does about an “initial text” of John. Local liturgical habits also had a tremendous impact on what could survive as an “authentic” gospel memory. The study's survey of the evidence shows that the story was interpolated into a Greek copy of John in the West, probably during the first half of the third century, and with great care; that the Johannine pericope was then gradually but decisively brought into texts, liturgy, and art in Greek and Latin, albeit at different rates; and thus that the story was not actively suppressed on theological grounds, either in its initial version or in its Johannine forms, despite the custom among some Byzantine scribes and scholars of identifying the passage as spurious.Less

Valence and Habit

John Levi Martin

in The Explanation of Social Action

This chapter follows the derivation of field theory in the social sciences from two starting points, first, the Gestalt psychology discussed in Chapter 5, and second, analyses of coordinated ... More

This chapter follows the derivation of field theory in the social sciences from two starting points, first, the Gestalt psychology discussed in Chapter 5, and second, analyses of coordinated striving. These two approaches reached towards each other as each formulated some sort of orienting characteristic of the environment (whether called “valence” or “value”) that was available for actors and led to the global patterning of actions. This implied an attention to habit as the processes whereby actors equip themselves to make use of these features of the environment—just as our exploration of vision reminded us that we learn to see, so our exploration of habit reminds us that we need to learn to sense the appropriatenesses that allow for skilful action.Less

Food, Recipes, Cookbooks, and Italian-American Life: An Introduction

Carol Bonomo Jennngs and Christine Palamidessi Moore

in American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana's Best Writings on Women

The linkages among food, culture, and identity have long occupied small numbers of folklorists and anthropologists. Among Italian Americans, food and cooking are powerful expressions of their ties to ... More

The linkages among food, culture, and identity have long occupied small numbers of folklorists and anthropologists. Among Italian Americans, food and cooking are powerful expressions of their ties to the past and their current identities. Many seem to believe that they are much, much more than what they eat, and that too many negative stereotypes link Italians and food. Cookbooks remain some of the most fascinating and ubiquitous texts that describe their eating habits. Italian Americans invite cooks, collectors, and scholars among Italian Americana readers to take cooking and eating seriously.Less

Estimating Aboveground Net Primary Production in Shrub-Dominated Ecosystems

Donald R. Young

in Principles and Standards for Measuring Primary Production

Shrublands pose particularly difficult challenges for primary production measurement because of the complex structure of the vegetation. Classical approaches are described, including dimension ... More

Shrublands pose particularly difficult challenges for primary production measurement because of the complex structure of the vegetation. Classical approaches are described, including dimension analysis and the difference method both of which rely on destructive sampling and allometric relationships. A new spatially-explicit sampling approach and other procedures for optimizing sampling intensity are explained. Additional methodological considerations, including leaf habit and herbivory, also must be carefully evaluated to obtain reliable primary production estimates in shrubland ecosystems.Less

Publicly Questioning Need: Food, Safety, and Comfort

Nina Eliasoph

in Making Volunteers: Civic Life after Welfare's End

This chapter focuses on the desires that organizers are at pains to avoid referring to as “needs”: food, safety, and comfort. Part of an organizer's job is to make participants question their ... More

This chapter focuses on the desires that organizers are at pains to avoid referring to as “needs”: food, safety, and comfort. Part of an organizer's job is to make participants question their feelings, and to treat all desires as “choices.” Empowerment Projects invite participants to draw on deep, intimately comfortable feelings, but also to challenge these feelings, and never take anything for granted. The projects put participants' feelings on display, where organizers can, without offending any of the program's multiple audiences, say that their participants do not have any unmet “needs” or any bad habits and desires, or even explain why participants had any unmet needs or bad habits or desires in the first place.Less

Individual Differences

Allan Paivio

in Mental Representations: A dual coding approach

This chapter focuses on individual differences in representational habits and skills, which presumably result from the developmental processes discussed in Chapter 5. The primary goal is to interpret ... More

This chapter focuses on individual differences in representational habits and skills, which presumably result from the developmental processes discussed in Chapter 5. The primary goal is to interpret relevant evidence in terms of dual coding theory and, where such data are not available, to propose testable implications of the theory.Less

Alternative Decision Criteria

Christian Gollier

in Pricing the Planet's Future: The Economics of Discounting in an Uncertain World

This chapter describes a sample of the alternative decision criteria that have features which are normatively attractive. A standard critique made to the discounted expected utility (DEU) model that ... More

This chapter describes a sample of the alternative decision criteria that have features which are normatively attractive. A standard critique made to the discounted expected utility (DEU) model that has been used in this volume is that the concavity of the utility function expresses at the same time the aversion to inequalities and the aversion to risk. Moreover, it does not take into account the possibility of an aversion to ambiguity on probabilities, or the formation of consumption habits. Such issues imply that the DEU model is not very good for explaining, or predicting, actual behaviors under uncertainty. However, as this book aims for normative rather than positive arguments, this chapter focuses not on what people actually do, but instead on determining what they should do.Less

Multiple Memory Systems: A Historical Perspective

Howard Eichenbaum and Neal J. Cohen

in From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory systems of the brain

This chapter provides an historical review and analysis of systematic attempts to characterize different forms of memory, and the central observations that support the idea of multiple memory ... More

This chapter provides an historical review and analysis of systematic attempts to characterize different forms of memory, and the central observations that support the idea of multiple memory systems. It reviews early ideas of multiple memory systems by the philosopher Maine de Biran, the distinction between habit and memory proposed by William James, the notions of behaviorism by Edward Thorndike, cognitive maps by Edward Tolman, schemas by Fredric Bartlett, and cell assemblies by Donald Hebb, and more. It also introduces insights from amnesia resulting from hippocampal damage in humans and from studies of animals that have suggested the hippocampus is critical to cognitive mapping, conditional and contextual association, and episodic memory, each of which highlights relational memory representation and flexible memory expression. Current research focuses on the mechanisms of relational memory and flexible memory expression, and on non-hippocampal memory systems.Less

Chapter Two. Identity and Antiquity: The Carmelite Habit

ANDREW JOTISCHKY

in The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and their Pasts in the Middle Ages

The central issue of this chapter is the adoption of a new habit by the Carmelites in 1287 and the significance of this change of outward appearance for the developing identity of the Order. The ... More

The central issue of this chapter is the adoption of a new habit by the Carmelites in 1287 and the significance of this change of outward appearance for the developing identity of the Order. The reasons for the change as articulated within the Order and the reception of the change by other religious orders are examined. The cultural and theological contexts of monastic and mendicant costume are discussed.Less

Dissociating Multiple Memory Systems in the Brain

Howard Eichenbaum and Neal J. Cohen

in From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory systems of the brain

The origin of each of the major memory systems of the brain is the vast expanse of the cerebral cortex, in particular on the highest stages of the several distinct sensory and motor processing ... More

The origin of each of the major memory systems of the brain is the vast expanse of the cerebral cortex, in particular on the highest stages of the several distinct sensory and motor processing hierarchies — the cortical association areas. The cerebral cortex provides major inputs to each of three main pathways associated with distinct memory functions as shown in studies that employ double dissociation of their functions. One pathway is to the hippocampus, which supports the relational memory and flexibility in memory expression. Another major system involves the amygdala as a nodal stage in the association of exteroceptive sensory inputs to emotional outputs, which is essential for emotional memory. The third system involves the neostriatum as a nodal stage in the association of sensory and motor cortical information with voluntary responses, and this pathway plays a critical role in habit memory or procedural memory.Less

Habits, Skills, and Procedural Memory

Howard Eichenbaum and Neal J. Cohen

in From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory systems of the brain

This chapter focuses on the distinct pathways critical to the acquisition of habits — that aspect of motor skill learning that refers to acquired, stereotyped, and unconscious behavioral repertoires. ... More

This chapter focuses on the distinct pathways critical to the acquisition of habits — that aspect of motor skill learning that refers to acquired, stereotyped, and unconscious behavioral repertoires. Understanding motor skill learning itself is just one aspect or example of procedural memory — involving the tuning and modification of, in this case, motor-system-specific systems. The chapter provides an overview of the anatomy of the brain systems that contribute to habit (or motor skill) learning, and then considers the roles of key structures within these systems. One major system involves pathways from the cortex through the neostriatum. This system is essential for the acquisition of habitual responses to specific stimuli in humans and animals. The other major system considered here involves complex pathways through the cortex and subcortical areas through the cerebellum. This system supports the learning of habitual reflexes to otherwise neutral stimuli in humans and animals.Less

The Fall

Carol Harrison

in Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity

This chapter examines the various ways in which Augustine talks about human fallenness and sin in the early works, and how these relate both to this understanding of creation from nothing and to the ... More

This chapter examines the various ways in which Augustine talks about human fallenness and sin in the early works, and how these relate both to this understanding of creation from nothing and to the Fall of Adam and Eve. It considers how far ‘original sin’ can be legitimately spoken of in these works, and concludes that its characteristic features — human solidarity in Adam’s sin, ignorance and difficulty in willing, the role of habit, concupiscence and inability to do the good without grace — shape Augustine’s understanding from the beginning.Less

The Explanation of Action

Maria Alvarez

in Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action

The final chapter is devoted to the explanation of action. It is noted that explanations of action can be as varied as the facts that explain why someone acted. A variety of explanations and the ... More

The final chapter is devoted to the explanation of action. It is noted that explanations of action can be as varied as the facts that explain why someone acted. A variety of explanations and the relations among them are explored: ‘reason explanations’, where the reason that explains is also the reason that motivated the agent; ‘Humean explanations’, where the reasons are the fact(s) that the agent believed and wanted certain things; and explanations by reference to motives, character traits, emotions, habits, and so on. In addition, the chapter explores purposive explanations: those where actions are explained by reference the agent's purpose, which is also normally his intention in acting.Less