Latent Beliefs Research Articles

Optimising clinical practice in cancer genetics with cultural competence: lessons to be learned from ethnographic research with Chinese-Australians

Hereditary cancer is about families, and clinicians and genetic counsellors need to understand the cultural beliefs of patients and families about cancer and inheritance. In the light of their kinship patterns Chinese-Australians were chosen for the present study, which aims to determine the explanatory models of inheritance, cancer, and inherited cancer, with a view to identifying the relationship between these culture-specific lay attributions and help-seeking behaviour, and to identify possible barriers to genetic counselling and testing. Qualitative ethnographically informed methodology involving semi-structured interview was used as a method to uncover latent beliefs held by the families who are represented by the subjects. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 informants of Chinese ethnicity, who had been recruited through two major Sydney familial cancer clinics. We report the attributions of cancer in general, then on inheritance, kinship, genes and genetics and then focus on the way in which these beliefs come together around hereditary cancer. The majority of informants, despite high acculturation and belief in biomedical explanations about hereditary cancer, also acknowledged the influence of traditional family Chinese beliefs, where ‘inheritance’ and ‘genetics’ were related to retribution for ancestral misdeeds and offending ancestors. Extensive mismatch of attributes and beliefs were identified in those who attended the clinic and senior family members, creating barriers to optimal service utilisation. Three traditional patterns of beliefs were identified: (a) father and mother contributed in equal share to one's genetic makeup, linked to the ying-yang theory; (b) the dominance of life force ( yang chi) and the shaping of genes were transmitted through the paternal line; and (c) natural and supernatural forces operated in the cause of hereditary cancer. The study provided guidance for clinical practice. Exploration and acknowledgement of family beliefs, regardless of cultural background and therefore avoiding stereotyping, can enable the clinician to work with the whole family—those who hold Western attributions, those who maintain traditional notions of genetics and inheritance, and those who incorporate both into their belief systems—and provide effective clinical services. Further ethnographic studies are needed, focusing on the Chinese groups who do not attend the clinic and those with lower acculturation and educational levels.

Towards a non-Darwinian Theory of Institutional Change

The paper emphasizes two flaws in mainstream economics: the failure to understand actual human behavior in many real contexts and the failure to take account of transaction costs. By emphasizing the role of knowledge, institutions, transaction costs and path dependence, new institutional economics has provided a powerful answer to these shortcomings. Nevertheless, a number of questions remain open. In particular, path dependence is far from being a continuous process. Its dynamics and its irregularities are by and large unexplained. Hence, a strong need for a convincing evolutionary theory of environmental change. This article does not deny the validity of the Darwinian view applied to the theory of the firm and of competition in a free-market economy. The paper, however, maintains that the natural-selection process that characterizes the Darwinian approach is ill suited to describe economic evolutionary processes. It is shown that a combination of functional analysis and natural selection may indeed be a better solution, for it solves some of the puzzles raised by public choice theory without violating the fundamental tenets of the new institutional economics approach. Still, although this combined view may well explain why the institutional features are retained by the system, it does not clarify why they are introduced in the first place. A third possibility is put forward in the second part of the paper, where a new evolutionary theory is suggested. Within this framework, agents are assumed to behave according to their preferences within the existing rules of the game. At the same time, new ideas and sometimes new ideologies may influence their behavioral patterns. The combination between needs and ideologies generates environmental change, especially if so-called ‘ideological entrepreneurs’ are able to transform latent and shared beliefs into an institutional project and enforce it.

Playing in the White Man's Yard Reflections on Jane Flax's The American Dream in Black and White—The Clarence Thomas Hearings

This essay engages Jane Flax's The American Dream in Black and White: The Clarence Thomas Hearings through an elaboration of both the manifest and latent beliefs that mine the actions of a promising man of color, and a powerful group of men who sit in judgment of him. Noting the role assumed by gender politics in this drama, the author highlights Max's lucid commentary on the progress of the American dream, as women and people of color still serve as dispensable commodities for the men of the mainstream.

Action learning and action science: Are they different?

Kurt Lewin's referral to action research as a way to conduct systematic inquiry into group phenomena gave rise to the so-called 'action technologies.' Two of the most popular action technologies that emerged from action research are action learning and action science, both of which seek to help individuals by making them become more effective in achieving useful action. While action learning operates within the framework that people learn most effectively when working on real-time problems that occur in their own work setting, action science is based on the notion that people can improve their interpersonal and organizational effectiveness by examining the latent beliefs that spur their actions. Organization development facilitators must strive to examine both technologies for them to better understand respective methods and their possible effects.

A Test of Whether Negative Emotional Priming Facilitates Access to Latent Dysfunctional Attitudes

The mood-state hypothesis (Persons & Miranda, 1992) proposes that dysfunctional beliefs are stable in nature but that reporting such beliefs depends on current mood state. It further proposes that access to latent dysfunctional beliefs gained through negative emotional priming will augment the prediction of depressed mood reactions. To test these ideas, recovered-depressed (RD) and never-depressed (ND) college students were assigned to one of three mood-induction conditions: positive induction, negative induction, no induction. Dysfunctional beliefs were assessed in each condition. Approximately one week later, subjects returned for a second session in which they imagined themselves in various situations and rated how depressed or happy each situation would make them feel. Results were contrary to the moodstate hypothesis. That is, the mood induction did not differentially facilitate access to dysfunctional attitudes, nor were mood-induced dysfunctional attitudes differentially predictive of depressed mood reactions. Instead, consistent with Beck's original diathesis-stress model, dysfunctional attitudes were directly predictive of depressed mood reactions to negative, but not positive, imagined events. Overall, these findings suggest caution in attempts to use negative emotional priming to enhance the prediction of depressed mood reactions.

Sociotropy, autonomy, stress, and depression in Cushing syndrome.

Cognitive theory ascribes nonendogenous depression to latent dysfunctional beliefs activated by stressors impinging upon core values (e.g., rejection for a sociotropic person). To address ambiguities in past tests of the theory, this study measured personality (Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale) and recent stressors (Life Experience Survey and Hassles Scale) among 14 Cushing syndrome patients and 12 controls. Patients scored nonsignificantly higher in sociotropy, and sociotropy correlated positively with depression among patients. Because depression in Cushing syndrome presumably results from biological dysfunction rather than from the interaction of personality and relevant stressors, these results imply that sociotropy may be a consequence of depression as opposed to a contributory cause. There was no congruence between personality and types of stressors reported, which suggest that mood-dependent recall does not account for past evidence of congruence.