The HCT Index: a typology and index of health conspiracy theories with examples of use

Background: Conspiracy theories regarding vaccination programmes, medical side effects, and cover-ups by governments or pharmaceutical companies are prevalent in many countries and have highly detrimental and far-reaching effects on people’s wellbeing. For research and policymaking in public health, it is vital to understand the nature, construction and dissemination of these health conspiracy theories (HCTs). Inspired by tale typologies developed in folkloristics, this paper presents a typology and index of international HCTs as a tool for researchers to identify and categorise the HCTs they come across, and to provide a pool of examples of HCTs which could be used in various fields of research. To illustrate this, two studies are also presented (Study 1 and Study 2). Methods: HCTs were collected from relevant academic literature, news journalism, a survey of known health-related, general conspiracy theorist websites, and web searches based around known HCTs. From this, 14 core types were identified, and a numbered index was constructed with brief descriptions, examples, and motifs. Study 1 is a survey of HCT exposure and belief in the UK. Study 2 is a focus group discussion of health rumours in rural Sri Lanka including discussion of HCTs. Results: The HCT Index provides valuable insights into the international dissemination of HCTs. Study 1 found that familiarity with and belief in HCTs were high: 97% of Britons are familiar with at least one HCT and 49% of Britons believed that at least one HCT was likely to be true. Study 2 highlighted concerns over threats to fertility and about how to verify information that falls outside of typical experience. Conclusions: The HCT Index provides a useful framework for future cross-cultural research. As a typology it encompasses a wide range of beliefs which can be more effectively categorized and compared and, ultimately, challenged.

A QUESTION OF RECOGNITION AND REDISTRIBUTION: UNDERSTANDING DOM AND MUSAHAR CASTES OF BIHAR

The paper attempts to look into the issues of marginalisation and exclusion of Dom and Musahar castes of Bihar from the perspective of recognition and redistribution as argued by political theorist Nancy Fraser. She explains that a theory of social justice must be constructed and articulated in a way in which redistribution and recognition play equal and interwoven parts. Issues of marginalisation and exclusion of Dom and Musahar castes are discussed here as denial of recognition for these groups that have been subordinated for centuries by the caste structures, and, as disparities in redistribution, that has resulted in gross inequality of opportunities, wealth and income. Non-recognition/misrecognition and mal-distribution are the typical experience of Dom and Musahar that are marginalized and excluded. The data and discussion of this paper is based on the research entitled “Social Psychology of Marginalisation and Exclusion: A Study of Dom and Musahar Communities of Bihar” (2016-18)

Infant Eye Gaze While Viewing Dynamic Faces

Research using eye tracking methods has revealed that when viewing faces, between 6 to 10 months of age, infants begin to shift visual attention from the eye region to the mouth region. Moreover, this shift varies with stimulus characteristics and infants’ experience with faces and languages. The current study examined the eye movements of a racially diverse sample of 98 infants between 7.5 and 10.5 months of age as they viewed movies of White and Asian American women reciting a nursery rhyme (the auditory component of the movies was replaced with music to eliminate the influence of the speech on infants’ looking behavior). Using an analytic approach inspired by the multiverse analysis approach, several measures from infants’ eye gaze were examined to identify patterns that were robust across different analyses. Although in general infants preferred the lower regions of the faces, i.e., the region containing the mouth, this preference depended on the stimulus characteristics and was stronger for infants whose typical experience included faces of more races and for infants who were exposed to multiple languages. These results show how we can leverage the richness of eye tracking data with infants to add to our understanding of the factors that influence infants’ visual exploration of faces.

Where “the blood boils:” Hans Christian Andersen’s sojourn in Naples

When in 1834, during his Grand Tour of Europe, Hans Christian Andersen set foot in Naples, he was immediately won over by the exuberant vitality of the Neapolitan people. The Parthenopean city, where he “was exposed to sensuality as a daily temptation” (Rossel, “Hans Christian Andersen” 24 and “Do You Know the Land” 95), also awakened Andersen’s more repressed instincts. From this experience he drew material for his most autobiographical novel, Improvisatoren (1835; The Improvisatore), whose protagonist tries to and succeeds in resisting the seductions of Neapolitan sensuality. If on the one hand the Danish author underwent the typical experience of the Northern traveller visiting the South and, more specifically, Naples, enjoying its openness and gaiety, on the other hand he never completely abandoned himself to Southern allures, upholding his moral and religious beliefs against a city that continuously attempted to wholly seduce him. The present paper aims to retrace Andersen’s first journey to Naples—where, by the writer’s own account, “the blood boils” (The Diaries of Hans Christian Andersen 85)—as a voyage into a tempting sensuality, contextualizing it within the wider context of nineteenth-century travelling experience in the city by Northern travellers.

The Role of Food and Culinary Heritage For Postdisaster Recovery: The Case of Earthquake in the Marche Region (Italy)

The aim of this study is to analyze the role of food and gastronomy in expanding the tourism sector in the territory of Marche region (Italy), hit by major earthquakes in 2016 and 2017. One of the first actions taken by individuals, municipalities, institutions, and nonprofit associations was to set up e-commerce initiatives to sell local food and wine products in order to support farms and businesses affected by the earthquake. Five e-commerce companies were interviewed to understand the level of involvement of local actors and the importance of food and gastronomy in the recovery phase. They indicated a need for more initiatives similar to these to promote sustainable development and proposed that the tourism sector could be drawn into a collaboration with food and wine producers and sellers, so as to offer consumers and tourists a more complete and typical experience of the Marche region. Finally, they felt that the efforts of local communities must be supported by cooperation from the regional and national government.

Racial Hybridity

This paper explores some possible contributions analytical psychology may make to theorising racial hybridity. Already a ‘hybrid psychology’, Lu suggests that analytical psychology is particularly well-positioned to speak to the specific experiences and challenges posed by multiraciality. In particular, Lu critically reflects on his hopes, fears, and fantasies that have arisen with the birth of his multiracial children, which may in turn act as a springboard to greater depth psychological reflections on the unique and equally ‘typical’ experience of raising mixed-raced children. Such concerns have been articulated by others such as Bruce Lee, who faced the challenge of raising multiracial children amidst a backdrop of racism in the Unites States. This paper critically assesses possible ways in which racial hybridity may be theorised from a Jungian perspective and argues that a Post-Jungian approach must reflect the flexibility and fluidity of hybridity itself.

“Shoot! Can We Restart the Interview?”: Lessons From Practicing “Uncomfortable Reflexivity”

Failure is a typical experience in research, but it is largely taboo in published studies. In recent years, however, we can observe a small yet growing body of literature on failure in qualitative research to address this gap. In this article, I contribute my experiences of failed interviews in a mixed-methods study in Germany to this body of literature and highlight some aspects of failure that have not yet received enough attention. First, in my example, it was not only one interview or a few interviews that failed; rather, it seemed that the whole study failed in design due to particular methodical decisions. Second, failed research presents an intellectual challenge, but it also produces emotional and social trouble because failed research might be attributed to a failed researcher. This may be one reason failure is so damaging for one’s well-being and so difficult to share. Nevertheless, practicing some form of “uncomfortable reflexivity” (Pillow, 2003) via qualitative, close analysis helped me navigate the research process, gain methodical insights and substantive results. Third, I share lessons that might be useful for other researchers: reading literature on failure, the search for a safe and supportive space, and analyzing failure as closely and early as possible.

Navajo Speech and Language Evaluation

The case study highlights the importance of culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment of young Navajo/American Indian children and the importance of alternative assessment procedures to support appropriate diagnoses and recommendations. The case also illustrates systemic issues that result in lack of coordinated care, appropriate diagnosis, and lack of American Indian speech-language pathologists who understand linguistic and cultural differences. The case is based on a typical experience when clinicians who are not familiar with the Navajo language perform speech-language evaluations in Navajo-speaking communities.

Emblematic Mechanisms and Psychoanalysis

In the paper the parallels between the emblematic “mechanisms” of signification and the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud as well as Carl Gustav Jung have been studied. The Austrian psychiatrist has discovered template schemes that become a visual delineation, the blueprint for developing his scientific vocabulary, methodology, classification of psycho-emotional behavioral types in mythological plots. The Eros and Thanatos images handling, the exploitation of mythical tales about Oedipus and Electra, Prometheus, Narcissus, and many other ones to specify the behavioral complexes denote the presence of “emblematic methodology” in the formation of psychoanalytic conceptions and categories. His interpretations of famous mythological plots are boiled down to emblematic reduction. Carl Gustav Jung frequently selected symbolic notations as his research targets, which were a denotative space for expressing internal mental receptions and historic constellations of cultural axiology. In his writings we see the intention to assemble the concepts of image (iconic) and socio-cultural idea (conventional) into a sole compound that syncretically denote unity of meaning. Such an arrangement of iconic-conventional interdetermination is often significative elbowroom in Jung the decoding of which may allow to discern complex mental reflections. Notwithstanding the fact that he considers a symbol to be the standard unit of cognitive-cultural experience “conservation”, its functional semantics definition is fulfilled in emblematic patterns. This emblematic-cognitive form is not only a method of determining the initial images-ideas of the unconscious, “the mythological figures” of inner conflicts, typical experience of generations, but also the principle of justification and expression of his theory conceptual foundation. To a certain extent, it is an element of the Swiss psychologist’s scientific thinking style and language.

The Text Anxiety in Relation to Academic Achievement of Kasturiba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) Students – A Study

Test anxiety is a typical experience in classrooms, changing the performance of students from school for college, as a whole being adults who must take job-related exams. Test anxiety can also move termed as anticipatory anxiety, examination anxiety that occurs in a situation like facing the exam. Indeed, there is a stirred upstate in physiological level causing over-arousal, tension and somatic symptoms and psychological level causing poor attention, deterioration in perception and thought fluency this can lead to worry, dread, fear of failure, and catastrophic experiences before or during test situations among the students. In this context, the research attempted to study the present problem, i.e., Text Anxiety about Academic Achievement of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya(KGBV) students. For the study, the researcher identified 100 students studying (8th and 9th standard) in KGBV schools of Kuppam and Gudipalle Mondal of Chittor district of Andhra Pradesh.