Reactions of Arab-Palestinians in Israel Toward an In-group Member Mixing Hebrew or English With Arabic

Code-mixing with a dominant language can appeal to members of linguistic minorities because it signals bilingual proficiency, modernity, and social mobility. However, it can also pose a threat to the minority’s group vitality and distinctiveness. In Study 1 ( N = 208), Palestinian citizens of Israel (a linguistic and national minority) listened to a recorded message by a fellow group member, either in pure Arabic or in Arabic mixed with Hebrew or English. Code-mixing elicited negative evaluations. In Study 2 ( N = 276), Arabic mixed with Hebrew was crossed with messages on the relations with the Jewish–Israeli majority. Speakers who advocated full independence from the majority or an impartial view, but expressed linguistic dependency on Hebrew through code-mixing lost credit. Identification with the national group affected the effects in both studies. The implications of code-mixing for identity-related processes and its potential use as a social barometer for intergroup relations are discussed.

Are patients who call a primary care office referred to the emergency department by non-healthcare personnel without the input of a physician?

Objective.We hypothesized that a significant percentage of patients who are referred to the Emergency Department (ED) after calling their primary care physician’s (PCP) office receive such instructions without the input of a physician.Methods.We enrolled a convenience sample of stable adults at an inner-city ED. Patients provided written answers to structured questions regarding PCP contact prior to the ED visit. Continuous data are presented as means ± standard deviation; categorical data as frequency of occurrence. 95% confidence intervals were calculated.Results.The study group of 660 patients had a mean age of 41.7 ± 14.7 years and 72.6% had income below $20,000/year. 472 patients (71.51%; 67.9%–74.8%) indicated that they had a PCP. A total of 155 patients (23.0%; 19.9%–26.4%) called to contact their PCP prior to ED visit. For patients who called their PCP office and were directed by phone to the ED, the referral pattern was observed as follows: 31/98 (31.63%; 23.2%–41.4%) by a non-health care provider without physician input, 11/98 (11.2%; 6.2%–19.1%) by a non-healthcare provider after consultation with a physician, 12/98 (12.3%; 7.7%–20.3%) by a nurse without physician input, and 14/98 (14.3%; 8.6%–22.7%) by a nurse after consultation with physician. An additional 11/98, 11.2%; 6.2–19.1%) only listened to a recorded message and felt the message was directing them to the ED.Conclusion.A relatively small percentage of patients were referred to the ED without the consultation of a physician in our overall population. However, over half of those that contacted their PCP’s office felt directed to the ED by non-health care staff.

The Final Hours: A Linguistic Analysis of the Final Words of a Suicide

A journal, two suicide notes, and two tape recordings from a young man who took his own life were analyzed by applying a computer program to analyze texts. The analysis indicates a calming trend from the journal entries to the suicide notes to the tape recordings, with an additional increase in positive emotions expressed from the first recorded message to the second recording made just an hour or two before his death. The usefulness of this approach for understanding the psychodynamics of suicidal behavior is discussed.

The Use of a Recorded Message for Gaining Assistance with Street Crossings for Deaf–Blind Travelers

A printed card requesting help in crossing streets was compared to a continuous loop tape recording carrying the same message to determine which would be the more efficient way for a deaf-blind traveler to obtain assistance from other pedestrians. Significantly more assistance was obtained when the tape-recorded message was used.

Mistake

A sketch by Czechoslovakia's top banned playwright Václav Havel, the well-known Czech playwright, was released from prison in March 1983, after he had served almost four years on charges of ‘subversive activities against the Socialist state’ of Czechoslovakia. The ‘subversive activities’ were his signature on the Charter 77 manifesto (he was one of the three original spokesmen of Charter 77), his membership of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS) and his numerous plays and essays which, in his own country, appear only in samizdat editions. (Some of his works, including his play ‘Audience’, have been published in Index on Censorship. Our previous issue, Index 6/1983, contained the first interview given by Havel to a foreign journalist after his release from imprisonment. The following sketch is Havel's first literary work written since leaving prison. Its world première took place at the end of November 1983 in Stockholm and is published here by permission of Rowohlt Theater-Verlag, Reinbek. The Stockholm performance was introduced by Václav Havel himself, the tape-recorded message he sent from Prague being played to the audience. The message appears on page 15.

Attractiveness and Personality Warmth: Evaluations of Paintings Rated by College Men and Women

To explore how physical attractiveness, warmth of personality, and sex of the evaluator might influence evaluations of a person's painting, 32 subjects in four groups of equal numbers of males and females rated four paintings. Subjects were presented with a picture of the supposed artist which had been previously rated as to physically attractive or unattractive and a tape-recorded message by the artist conveying either warmth or coldness. Each artist was paired with a painting presented before the group. The variables were counterbalanced to avoid position effect. Physical attractiveness and warmth of personality can influence the evaluation of that person's production. No significant sex difference was found. The interaction between the artist's warmth of personality and attractiveness of the artist was significant, indicating that physical attractiveness and warmth of personality for a female may have a more favorable influence on her production than any other combination of the variables studied.