James M. Donovan

The Effects of Sex and Sexual Orientation on Attractiveness Judgments: An Evolutionary Interpretation

Abstract If attractiveness judgments reflect biologically important reproductive criteria, men should base judgments of potential partners on objective physical criteria more than do women; homosexuals and heterosexuals of the same sex should perceive attractiveness in the same terms, regardless of sex-object choice. To test this theory, photographs of men and women (20 each) were presented to members of four subject groups, solicited on an opportunistic basis. Subjects were asked to rank the sets of photographs separately on the dimensions of physical attractiveness and general social attractiveness. We found some sex differences across sexual orientation. There was less variation among men than women (heterosexual and homosexual) in evaluating the “good looks” of sex objects. Heterosexual and homosexual men ranked younger sex objects higher than older ones on “good looks.” Heterosexual but not homosexual women ranked older sex objects higher. Sex had little effect on “social attractiveness” rankings, nor did putative age. These findings are interpreted as generally consistent with the existence of average sex differences in evaluative mechanisms that reflect different reproductive interests. Only further research, however, can identify the developmental origins of such differences.

Validation of a Portuguese Form of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale

To translate Templers Death Anxiety Scale into the Brazilian Portuguese Escala de Ansiedade de Morte, linguistic validity was first established by back-translation and calculating bilingual split-half reliability coefficients. Even-numbered items achieved a minimally adequate .59, while the odd-numbered items attained a satisfactory .91. The internal consistency of the Escala (.77) matches that found for the original scale. The construct validity was tested by replicating the interactions of the English form with (1) the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, (2) the Purpose-in-Life Test, and (3) Levensons measure of locus of control. The Escala performed as expected, save for some difficulty with the locus of control measure.

Gender, sexual orientation, and truth‐of‐consensus in studies of physical attractiveness

Truth‐of‐consensus methodology presently holds that sex differences in perceptions of physical attractiveness are negligible and may be routinely ignored during prescaling. No determination has been made in the literature of the effects of sexual orientation on this perceptual process. The data presented herein suggest that while sex and sexual orientation of judge are largely irrelevant to prescaling of female stimuli, these variables are important when judging male stimuli. In particular, male homosexuals and male heterosexuals differ significantly in ranking male facial photographs. Thus, experimenters wishing to treat attractiveness levels as known quantities should control for this difference, especially when using a small number of judges for prescaling.

A Brazilian Challenge to Lewis's Explanation of Cult Mediumship

Recruitment into peripheral possession trance cults has been explained as attempts to compensate for socio-economic deprivation and jural impotence. This model, best developed by I. M. Lewis, is reviewed and its predictions are tested against two types of Brazilian data. Firstly, national census figures of religious affiliation are compared with measures of socio-economic stress for a diachronic analysis. A second, synchronic analysis involves 62 respondents in Rio de Janeiro who completed questionnaires on socio-economic status, cultic affiliation, and perceptions of stress and gender inequality. The results offer only weak support for Lewiss original model, which may therefore profit from supplementation from other theoretical perspectives.

Skating on Thin Intermediation: Can Libraries Survive?

ABSTRACT Predictions about the end of libraries point to a real crisis, but assign the wrong cause. Libraries will not be displaced by technology like Google, but can be undermined by librarians’ own reactions to patron demand for Google-like experiences. Librarians can respond with a “weak model” that prioritizes the satisfaction of patrons, or a “strong model” that recognizes higher values rooted in the status of librarianship as a profession. Although recent trends favor the dominance of the weak model, only by embracing the strong model can librarians survive the challenges that threaten libraries.

A Library is Not the Books: An Ethical Obstacle to the Digital Library

Casual and thoughtful speakers alike frequently use “library” as though it were the collective noun for “book”: A herd of cows, a murder of crows, a library of books. In practice it matters little whether “book” is understood as a specific physical artifact of ink and paper, or whether it refers more generically to any information-containing entity. The consistent point appears to be that in the presence of a sufficient number of those items, a library necessarily rises into existence.This implied relationship proves critical to debates over the implications of digital formats for libraries. If libraries are reducible to their books (however understood), then a fundamental change in books requires a similarly radical reaction from libraries. In that view, to the extent traditional books themselves are an endangered medium, then so too must be libraries, given that they are mere “warehouses” of books. To resist such inevitable changes not only betokens an unhealthy conservatism, but worse, an irrational denial of the fundamental relationship between books and libraries.This article, however, offers three independent demonstrations that libraries cannot be reduced to their books. The library is not an additive category, but rather an emergent concept greater than the sum of its parts. Books may typically and traditionally serve as building blocks for libraries, but the presence of books of any definition is not sufficient for something to be recognized as a “library.” Breaking this link raises serious consequences for the format debates. If physical books do not make the library, then less so can digital books. The challenge will then shift to identify what must be present to create a library other than information-containing entities, and then to inquire whether these additional qualities can be achieved in the digital environment. The “digital library,” in other words, remains to be proved as an intelligible idea, whatever its technological possibility. The conclusion offered here is that such alchemy is not impossible, but highly unlikely.

Reinterpreting Telepathy as Unusual Experiences of Empathy and Charisma

Telepathy is often dismissed because it is judged to be contrary to the accepted facts of social psychology. This article argues that what is called telepathy may require nothing more than empathy and charisma and is reducible to these sociopsychological constructs. Two studies explore this hypothesis. In the first the proposed relationship is used to explain the sheep-goat effect. In the second study scores on charisma and empathy are used as direct predictors of telepathy scores. The results in combination support the interpretation of telepathy as phenomenologically impressive social psychological events which in Jess dramatic instances are termed empathy and charisma.

Order Matters: Typology of Dual-Degreed Law Librarians

To a great extent, law librarianship has regarded the dual-degreed librarian as too familiar and uncomplicated to merit extended attention. The present discussion challenges this assumed simplicity. The goal of professional education is to work on deeper personal levels to create a particular identity and to inculcate specific values necessary to the successful practice of the vocation. Such fundamental effects are neither easily erased nor superseded by a later professional indoctrination. Understood in this way, professional education produces an outcome that defies the commutative property. Order matters. Librarians who go to law school (i.e., “libyers”) should be discernible from lawyers who attend library school (“lawbrarians”), with consequences for the practice of law librarianship. Using data describing members of the American Association of Law Libraries, this study tests the hypothesis that, given the fundamental levels at which professional enculturation operates, when an individual undergoes professional formation more than once the values of the first training regime will typically have the more profound impact on the general personality.

Becoming Director: An Internal Candidate's View

Within the literature on moving into library directorships, the track of the internal candidate is largely ignored. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap through description and analysis of the experiences of a successful inside candidate for the position of law library director.

A Library Romantic’s Reply to Richard Danner

ABSTRACT In this brief response to Richard A. Danners “Skating with Donovan: Thoughts on Librarianship as a Profession,” the author finds new reasons to doubt the merits of a “weak” model of librarianship that overemphasizes user demands at the expense of professional ethical commitments to collect, organize, and preserve.