Explanatory Flexibility Research Articles

Intersectionality as emergence

Intersectionality is the notion that concerns the complexity of the experiences of individuals in virtue of their belonging to multiple socially significant categories. One of its main insights is that the way society is structured around categories such as gender, race, sexuality, class, etc., produces distinctive and specific forms of discrimination and privilege for groups in the intersections. In this paper, we suggest conceiving intersectionality as a general metaphysical framework wherein specific claims to the effect that the experiences of discrimination of Black women, among others, can be fruitfully formulated and examined. The main claim is that intersectional experiences emerge from the conjunction of social categories when social structures make them relevant vis-à-vis discrimination and privilege. We then argue that our view has three main virtues: metaphysical neutrality, explanatory flexibility and methodological openness. Explaining these virtues will allow us to contrast our proposal with alternatives from the recent literature.

Inflexibility in Reasoning: Comparisons of Cognitive Flexibility, Explanatory Flexibility, and Belief Flexibility Between Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder.

Introduction: Inflexibility in reasoning has been suggested to contribute to psychiatric disorders, such as explanatory flexibility in depression and belief flexibility in schizophrenia. However, studies tended to examine only one of the flexibility constructs, which could be related to each other, within a single group of patients. As enhancing flexibility in thinking has become one of the psychological treatment goals across disorders, this study aimed to examine three constructs of flexibility (cognitive flexibility, explanatory flexibility, and belief flexibility) in two psychiatric groups.Methods: We compared three groups of participants: (i) 56 outpatients with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and active delusions, (ii) 57 outpatients with major depressive disorder and at least a moderate level of depression, and (iii) 30 healthy controls. Participants were assessed on symptom severity and flexibility, using the Trail-Making Task, the Attributional Style Questionnaire, the Maudsley Assessment of Delusions Scale (MADS) and the Bias Against Disconfirmatory Evidence (BADE) Task.Results: Cognitive flexibility was reduced in the two clinical groups compared to controls. Explanatory flexibility was comparable across groups. The three groups differed in belief flexibility measured by MADS but not by the BADE task. Response to hypothetical contradiction was reduced in the delusion group than the other two groups, and the ability to generate alternative explanations was reduced in the delusion group than healthy controls.Discussion: We found an effect of diagnosis on cognitive flexibility, which might be confounded by differences in intellectual functioning. Reduced belief flexibility tended to be specific to delusions.

Православие и «Радикальная ортодоксия»: понимание «посредничества» и перспективы взаимодействия

The article critically examines the concept of “mediation” used by the modern conservative Christian philosophical and theological movement “Radical Orthodoxy” (arose at the end of the 20th century among Anglican and Catholic philosophers) and also puts the question about the prospects of dialogue between Orthodox tradition and the “Radical Orthodoxy”. The article gives general information about this movement and contemporary researches on it. It is noted that the term “Orthodoxy” in its name does not indicate a connection with Orthodoxy or any Christian denomination but is used in the sense close to the concept of Christian tradition and placed in a postmodern context. “Radical Orthodoxy” considers Christian theology a universal “mediator” which is designed to replace secular meta-discourse and strengthen the voice of Christianity in the world today. The author notes that the idea of universal mediation is connected with the gnostic approach to theology. Analyzing the principles of philosophical and theological constructions in this movement the author draws a parallel between the proposed concept of “mediation” and the fact that the authors of “Radical Orthodoxy” of all the themes of Russian religious philosophy showed special interest in gnostic Sofia. The article analyzes the origins of this view of Sofia and identifies the margins beyond which the Church considers sophiology to be a heresy. “Radical Orthodoxy” sophiologizes the concept of “mediation” in order to protect it from the threat of its “adaptation” to secular reality and to establish an ideal mediator which possesses the maximum possible explanatory theological flexibility. Nevertheless, this approach has some vulnerabilities, since its way of theologisation of secular discourse can lead to the opposite effect – the secularization of theology, which was sometimes done by Russian religious philosophers of the 19th-20th centuries. In conclusion the author argues that a successful dialogue between representatives of the Orthodox tradition and the “Radical Orthodoxy” is more promising in the socio-political plane than in the theological one.

Inflexibility as a Vulnerability to Depression: A Systematic Qualitative Review.

The study of vulnerabilities to depression typically identifies factors that are thought to be universally maladaptive or adaptive. In contrast, researchers recently have theorized that the ability to flexibly engage in different thoughts and behaviors that fit situational demands may be most indicative of psychological health. We review empirical evidence from 147 studies reporting associations between five components of flexibility (set-shifting, affective set-shifting, cardiac vagal control, explanatory flexibility, and coping flexibility) and depression and classify studies according to strength of study design. Evidence from correlational and case-controlled studies suggests cross-sectional relationships, but few prospective studies have been conducted. We discuss limitations of existing studies, identify new directions for programmatic research, and discuss implications that flexibility has for the prevention and treatment of depression.

Change in Explanatory Flexibility and Explanatory Style in Cognitive Therapy and its Components

The current study represents a secondary analysis of the dismantling study of cognitive therapy of depression originally conducted by Jacobson et al. (J Consult Clin Psychol 64:295–304, 1996). New analyses examined the role of explanatory flexibility and explanatory style in the recovery from depression. Results indicated that BA treatment responders, but not AT or CT participants evidenced significant improvement in explanatory flexibility, whereas patients from all three study arms, irrespective of responder status demonstrated improvements in explanatory style. Improvement in explanatory flexibility was associated with decreases in symptoms of depression for CT, but not BA or AT, participants. Further, the combination of high explanatory flexibility and low explanatory style conferred maximal protection over relapse. These results suggest that explanatory flexibility is a viable candidate as a process associated with treatment gains in CT. In addition, the results suggest that important cognitive change is possible without an explicit, deliberate focus on the part of the therapist.

Explanatory flexibility and explanatory style in treatment-seeking clients with Axis I psychopathology.

Cognitive diathesis stress models of depression emphasize individual styles of attributing causal explanations to negative and positive events in life. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) has traditionally been used to measure explanatory style, defined as an individual's habitual way of assigning causes to negative events. Explanatory flexibility, rather than focusing on the content of one's thoughts, emphasizes the extent to which individuals are able to make different attributions depending on the particular context of each event. The underlying notion is that individuals who are better able to adapt to the cues and demands of a stressful situation may be able to respond more effectively and are thereby less vulnerable to depression. Despite evidence attesting to its relevance to depression and anxiety disorders, explanatory flexibility has yet to be examined in a purely treatment-seeking sample of patients clinically diagnosed with Axis I psychopathology. The current study examined baseline levels of explanatory flexibility, along with explanatory style, in a sample of 171 treatment-seeking patients diagnosed with either major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or at least one other Axis I disorder. Overall, the results replicate and extend past results indicating a distinction between explanatory flexibility and explanatory style. Furthermore, patients with MDD and GAD demonstrated lower levels of explanatory flexibility relative to patients with other Axis I disorders. Thus, explanatory flexibility may assist in our understanding of the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of emotional disorders, with particular relevance to MDD and GAD.

Explanatory Flexibility of the Matching Law: Situational Bias Interactions in Football Play Selection

The generalized matching law was used to evaluate play selection (passing versus rushing) in professional football game situations defined by combinations of football-specific factors. Archival statistics were analyzed to determine whether play selection covaried with yards gained from passing and rushing plays, and whether the details of this relationship, as measured by the matching law's fitted parameters, varied systematically across game situations. The matching law accounted for substantial variance in play selection for several combinations of game situations, and statistically significant situation-interaction effects were found for bias, but not sensitivity. Follow up analyses revealed that, across game situations, play-selection bias effects were closely related to relative probability of a turnover (can be described in terms of punishment) and the relative yards-gained variance (which can be described in terms of variable-magnitude reinforcement schedules). These results bolster an operant-choice interpretation of football play selection; they reveal two separate aspects of play preference (generic matching versus bias); and provide a rare example of how face-valid effects in a domain of everyday interest may relate to a theoretically-important term of a laboratory-based quantitative model of choice.

Changes in Explanatory Flexibility Among Individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder in an Emotion Evocation Challenge

Seventy-eight undergraduates, 39 with self-reported generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), completed measures of mood and explanatory flexibility (the capacity to assign causes to negative events with a balance of historical and contextual factors) prior to and directly after a musical priming challenge that consisted of listening to negatively-valenced emotional music and thinking about a personally relevant negative event. After the emotion evocation, participants also completed a measure of state emotion regulation. Despite comparable increases in negative affect, GAD analogues evidenced drops in explanatory flexibility whereas non-GAD Controls did not. Drops in explanatory flexibility among GAD analogues covaried significantly with lack of emotional clarity. Findings suggest that for individuals with GAD, emotionally evocative experiences may result in a constricted perspective when apprehending the causes for negative events. This perspective may serve to dampen arousal, but perhaps at the cost of failing to inform one’s actions with important emotional information.

Operationalizing the Cognitive Vulnerability of Hopelessness Depression and Its Related Research

Operationalizing the cognitive vulnerability includes composite score, the highest score, and intra-individual standard deviation, which are used widely in depression researches. In the present, we reviewed these approaches and appreciated their significance during the course and therapy of hopelessness depression. We found that the composition score and the highest score reflected the different aspects of the cognitive vulnerability factors in hopelessness depression respectively. Therefore, comparing the two methods would be of great importance in future research. In addition, explanatory flexibility, which was represented by intra-individual standard deviation, may be a new vulnerability component beyond the hopelessness theory, and thus should shed light on the therapy of depression.

Empirical Analysis of Impact of Capital Market Development on Nigeria's Economic Growth (1981–2008) (Case Study: Nigerian Stock Exchange)

This study empirically examined the impact of capital market development on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1981-2008. The major tool we employed for empirical analysis is a multiple regression analysis model specified on the basis of hypothesized functional relationship between capital market development and economic growth. For capital market development indicators, we considered ratios of value of shares traded, market capitalization, gross capital formation and foreign private investment, to gross domestic product, as explanatory variables, while we used growth rate of gross domestic product as the dependent variable. We introduced an error correction term to capture the flexibility in adjustment to long-run equilibrium. We estimated the model via the ordinary least squares (OLS) techniques. Further, we evaluated the model using relevant statistics. The results showed that while market capitalization, gross capital formation, and foreign private investment individually exerted statistically significant impact on growth of the economy, value of shares traded exerted positive but statistically insignificant impact during the review period. However, the variables jointly exerted statistically significant impact on growth of the economy. In addition, the model exhibited a very high explanatory power and high flexibility in adjustment to long-run equilibrium. The variables time series were stationary at second difference, showed existence of long-run relationship between the two sets of variables, and exhibited stability for the study period. Based on the findings, the study recommended, among others, sustainable development of the capital market to enhance faster rates of capital accumulation for greater productivity gains and economic growth as well as the need to complement market development with real sector macroeconomic policy thrust like significant reduction in lending rates to stimulate investment and manufacturing activities in the real sector and translate capital market gains to real sector output growth. Keywords: Capital Market; Development; Economic Growth DOI: 10.3860/ber.v20i2.1915 DLSU Business & Economics Review 20.2 (2011), pp. 79-96

The Utility of Measuring Explanatory Flexibility in PTSD Research

This study explored how explanatory style and explanatory flexibility were related to each other and to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sixty-eight college students who had endorsed DSM-IV-TR PTSD Criteria A1 and A2 on the Life Events Checklist completed the Attributional Style Questionnaire as well as self-report measures of PTSD and depression. Explanatory flexibility demonstrated independence from explanatory style. In addition, explanatory flexibility, but not explanatory style, was associated with PTSD symptoms such that lower flexibility corresponded with higher levels of PTSD. In regressional analysis, explanatory flexibility also appeared to have the ability to predict outcome above and beyond other known predictors of PTSD. These results suggest that the malleability of one’s causal explanations for adversity may be more adaptive than habitual explanatory style.

Adherence to Masculine Norms and Attributional Processes Predict Depressive Symptoms in Recently Unemployed Men

We investigated individual differences in adherence to masculine norms (AMN) as predictors of concurrent and prospective depressive symptoms above and beyond negative attributional style and explanatory flexibility in a community sample of unemployed men. Sixty-two men from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds were recruited from an unemployment center in a large industrial city and were followed for 3 months. Adherence to the specific masculine norms of emotional control and self-reliance accounted for variance in concurrent depressive symptoms after statistically controlling for attributional processes. At the 3-month follow-up, only AMN predicted depressive symptoms after accounting for attributional processes and initial depressive symptoms. Negative attributional style was negatively associated with the likelihood of reemployment at the 3-month follow-up while AMN was positively associated with the likelihood reemployment. Results suggested that AMN may be an important sociocultural factor contributing to depression that is largely independent of attributional processes.

The Relationship of Explanatory Flexibility to Explanatory Style

Traditional cognitive vulnerability-stress models regarding the etiology of depression emphasize the content of the depressed individual’s thoughts. One important cognitive content index, explanatory style, represents the habitual way that individuals assign causes to events that occur in their lives. A more contemporary model, however, emphasizes the cognitive process by which these attributions are made and to what extent the individual can make different attributions depending on the particular context of the event. This process is referred to as explanatory flexibility. Given that both indices of causal explanation are derived from the same assessment instrument, the Attributional Style Questionnaire, the current investigation sought to examine the extent to which the two variables can be differentiated from one another. Results indicated that explanatory style (a measure of cognitive content) and explanatory flexibility (a cognitive process measure) are empirically related, but distinct, constructs.

Explanatory Flexibility and Negative Life Events Interact to Predict Depression Symptoms

This study examined how explanatory flexibility and explanatory style, two indices derived from the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), were related to each other and to symptoms of depression. At Time 1, seventy–three college students completed the ASQ and a self–report measure of depression, and at Time 2, approximately eight weeks later, completed the depression measure once again as well as a self–report measure of negative life events. Explanatory flexibility demonstrated relative independence from explanatory style. Additionally, explanatory flexibility, but not explanatory style, interacted with negative life events to predict change in depression symptoms such that rigidity was associated with higher levels of depression in the face of negative life events. These findings add to research suggesting that explanatory flexibility is distinct from, but related to, explanatory style and that both constructs add to our understanding of depression.

Flexibility and Negative Affect: Examining the Associations of Explanatory Flexibility and Coping Flexibility to Each Other and to Depression and Anxiety

Recent research on vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety has begun to de-emphasize cognitive content in favor of the responsiveness of the individual to variations in situational context in arriving at explanations of events (explanatory flexibility) or attempts to cope with negative events (coping flexibility). The present study integrates these promising avenues of conceptualization by assessing the respective contributions of explanatory and coping flexibility to current levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Results of structural equation modeling support a model of partial mediation in which both explanatory flexibility and coping flexibility independently contribute to the prediction of latent negative affect, with coping flexibility partially mediating the influence of explanatory flexibility.

The effect of a negative mood priming challenge on dysfunctional attitudes, explanatory style, and explanatory flexibility

Ninety-seven undergraduates, 48 of whom had a history of self-reported major depression, completed measures of mood and cognitive style (e.g. explanatory style, explanatory flexibility, dysfunctional attitudes) prior to and directly after a negative mood priming challenge that consisted of listening to sad music and thinking about an upsetting past event. Eighteen of the previously depressed participants endorsed baseline levels of depression, explanatory style for negative events, and dysfunctional attitudes higher than levels reported by never depressed participants or euthymic participants with a history of depression. All three groups (never depressed participants, dysphoric participants with a history of depression, euthymic participants with a history of depression) demonstrated increases in dysphoria and dysfunctional attitudes in response to the negative mood priming challenge. Dysphoric participants with a history of depression, but not the other two groups, evidenced modest increases in explanatory style following the negative mood priming challenge. Finally, euthymic participants with a history of depression, but not the other two groups, evidenced drops in explanatory flexibility. Findings from the present study suggest that the cognitive theories of depression may benefit from examining both cognitive content and cognitive flexibility when assessing risk for depression.