1/28/2020 0 Comments Policy in Theory and PracticeWhat is the social administrative tradition? Social administration developed when the welfare state was undergoing a period of growth, when there was a high level of optimism about its potential achievements and a high degree of consensus about the fundamentals such as Education, the National Health Services, and public housing. Social administration was concerned with social needs and problems, and with the response to the problems; social policy. It became regarded as the natural provider of welfare, apparently at the expense of others. Social administration is linked to the growth and development of welfare services, which have existed since the turn of the century, but were expanded and consolidated in the 1940s. It adopts a rational approach to solving social problems, which are often thought of as having an objective existence. Social services provided by the state were viewed as the proper method for causing progressive change. Fabianism was a movement designed to promote democratic socialism. The impact of Fabianism, as a coherent set of ideas, held that socialism in Britain was well-matched with the institutions of state and should, therefore, be implemented through a parliamentary system. Supporters of Fabianism wanted to utilise academic knowledge on social problems to create pressure on the state to research and conduct in-depth analysis in order to influence welfare reforms. The ideological and empirical alliances with Fabianism were associated with a concern regarding policy action; specifically what is done by policy action and how it is done, rather than why this is done. Two hugely prominent members of the Fabian Society were Sydney and Beatrice Webb. This couple believed that collective provision for welfare through the state was essential in order to develop a British capitalist society. Social policy in Britain became more concerned with the practical issues of education for experimental research on recognized problems – social administration tradition. During the decades of the 1960’s and 1970’s the view of Social administration as social policy became discredited, and since then a more holistic approach to social policy developed. What is meant by liberal welfarism? Liberalism welfarism is about protection of the individual in terms of freedom, markets and kind limits the state. Welfare in liberal philosophy is not something that is provided but something that is achieved and developed through the free and independent actions of a free will. The welfare of each individual promotes the well-being of the entire society by increasing the sum total of freedom in which its members live. Liberalism promotes equality of opportunities that is rooted in an inequality of outcomes. Freedom is intrinsically linked to responsibility, so as the state takes over in the role of providing welfare for the population a diminished freedom also means diminished individual responsibility. This is damaging to society, and in order to minimise the damage the state must take a less central role. It was thought that the state should refrain from interfering in economic processes such as income policies, laws regarding minimum wage and employment protection legislation, which in turn would decrease the role of trade unions in economic and political life. This forms the foundation for a legal background which enables individual freedom along with economic prosperity, and has been of great influence in economic, political and social welfare. The economic policy of laissez-faire was an attitude in which the government refused to interfere. This eventually began to give way to a new collective ideal called new-liberalism, which imagined the state playing a positive in the enhancement of social problems. New liberalism led to a transformation in the nature of and relations between the state and the market. Explain the parliamentary policy-making process. Within the parameters of British state, the central state may be considered to be crucial as it is where many decisions are made. Constitutionally Britain operates a tripartite division of powers between the legislature, the judiciary and the executive. Crucial to this is the role of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, which are pivotal in the making of policy. The job of the legislature is to debate and consider the introduction of new laws. Members of parliament exercise the power through the system of Parliamentary committees, where they are able to question Ministers and senior Civil Servants. New legislation passes through the laborious process of First, Second and Third Readings in the House of Commons, interspersed with detailed discussion of a Bill’s content at the Committee stage. A Bill will then receive consideration from the House of Lords, and during this process the MP’s and Lords from the government and the opposition have the opportunity to question and debate the principles and provisions of new legislation, and to suggest amendments. Finally a Bill receives Royal Assent and passes into law as an Act of Parliament. Detail the New Right critique of the welfare state. During the 1970’s both the Conservative and Labour Party attempted to halt the apparent economic decline, yet neither were successful. Both parties experiences an increase of radical activity in the far wings of the party. The ‘New Right’ formed as a branch of the Conservative Party, campaigning for a break from the previous reliance on Keynesianism as part of economic and social policy.From 1979-1997, Britain was governed by a Conservative Party that was under Thatcher’s leadership and was inspired by the New Right, and was rooted in economic liberalism combined with social conservatism. According to the work of the theorist Friedman Britain began to build up a neo-liberal analysis of state welfare during this time. His main argument was that public expenditure was being driven up by the increase of state intervention within welfare services. This interfered with the operation of the market economy. The New Right arguing that free welfare services only encouraged useless people to become dependent upon benefits and provided no incentive for families to protect themselves and their welfares through savings. The Conservatives tried to shift the costs of welfare through changes in taxation and the benefits system, burdening the poor and disadvantaged, and this served only to increase the amount of citizens who were in need of state support. This was further intensified by policies that sought to achieve wage discipline through mass unemployment. Neo-liberals wanted to roll back the state and reduce the role of the government, with the aim to restoring Britain’s international competitiveness. Welfare benefits were seen as detrimental to labour market flexibility, as they kept up wages. Bibliography Alcock, C, Payne,S, Sullivan, M, 2004, Introducing Social Policy, Essex, Pearson. Baldock, N, et al, 2012, Social Policy, 4edt, Oxford, Oxford University Express. Loney, M, Boswell, D, Clarke,J, 1988, Social Policy & Social Welfare, Milton Keynes, Open University.
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Cause of Hamlet's Distractions: Feelings and Passions          Throughout Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, feelings and passion are an enormous distraction for the main character Hamlet. Hamlet tends to act as though he were an adolescent rather than a grown man. He acts very immature, sarcastic, and takes action, before thinking it out, in the heat of anger. The abilities to love, control one's actions, and to subdue one's depression are signs of becoming mature however, Hamlet, a grown man, has a difficult time controlling these abilities. Although Hamlet may be a man who has come of age nevertheless he tends to identify with the likes of an adolescent because of his irrational actions.         In addition, Hamlet has a particular problem controlling his love for Ophelia as well as controlling his actions. It is apparent that Hamlet loves Ophelia in his own special manner when he says: “To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified/ Ophelia--/â€(II, ii, 116-117) Although he may love her with all his might, as he tells Laeretes,:               I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers               Could not with all their quantity of love               Make up my sum. (V,i, 264-266)  Hamlet is too immature to love her enough to trust her in their relationship. This trust that he is lacking will give him the ability to hand Ophelia the ke... ...nt, Hamlet only takes action when he becomes angry or furious with someone or something.         Being a young immature, mouthy, extreme youth Hamlet is much like an adolescent and very unlike an adult. His incapacity to love someone maturely, his rudeness and sarcasm towards older people, and his reacting only during times of anger is exactly how an adolescent would act for these qualities tend to be prominent the teenage years. Hamlet's actions have become more and more accepted over time however, his actions then were only accepted then because of his ability to act mad. Had Hamlet acted like that always his behavior would be very unacceptable to society. Hamlet although an adult will forever be remembered as an immature, irrational, adolescent.     Â
Capgras Delusion: Impaired Face Recognition Process
Capgras delusion, the belief that somebody is replaced by an imposer. First, this study examines whether Capgras patients, compared to controls, have an impaired face recognition process. Patients show to be hyporesponsive to familiar faces and show to have a decreased activity in brain areas, such as the prefrontal, lateral temporal and mesial temporal regions. The second part of this study examines the belief reasoning processes in patients compared to controls. Patients show an impairment in their belief reasoning process and this is linked to an impairment of the right lateral prefrontal cortex. The goal is to see whether Capgras patients have an impaired face-recognition process and an impaired belief-evaluating process, associated with the brain activity, compared to control participants. The main objectives Showing that Capgras patients have an impaired face recognition process because they are hyporesponsive to familiar faces, by measuring reaction times of the recognition of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Showing that, because certain areas in the brain are responsible for face recognition, Capgras patients have impairments in certain brain areas, such as the prefrontal, lateral temporal and mesial temporal regions (by measuring the BOLD activity in these areas), to experience Capgras delusions, because they are hyporesponsive to familiar faces. Showing that, because according to Colthearts two factor theory, Capgras patients have a decreased reasoning-evaluation process, Capgras patients have an impaired reasoning process. This study also wants to show that this reasoning process is associated with the right lateral prefrontal cortex (by measuring the BOLD activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex) and that Capgras patients should show in impairment in this area. This study is seeking to expand research on which processes are damaged in people who experience Capgras delusions, looking at two theories. Experiment 1 and 2 are about damage to the face recognition system. In experiment 1we argue that patients are hyporesponsive to familiar faces by looking at their reaction times in the recognition of familiar and unfamiliar faces. In experiment 2, an fMRI scan measures the brain activity while participants look at familiar and unfamiliar faces. It is predicted that Capgras patients will show impairments in areas that are involved in face recognition, such as the prefrontal, lateral temporal and mesial temporal regions. The second theory, the two factor theory, suggests that delusions are a result of an impairment of belief evaluation processes. Experiment 3 wants to link this impairment in belief reasoning to the right prefrontal lateral cortex. Capgras patients are expected to show a decreased activity, measured by an fMRI scan, in this area while they do a belief reasoning task. This will indicate that Capgras patients have impaired face recognition processes and impaired belief reasoning processes and these processes are linked to several impairments in the brain. Delusional misidentification syndromes (DMS) are psychiatric disorders distinguished by the fact that they all involve some deviation from normal processes of recognising people (Ellis Young, 1990, p239). A specific DMS is the Capgras syndrome. The Capgras syndrome is characterized by the patient insisting that others, usually those quite close emotionally, have been replaced by doubles, impostors or robots (Ellis et al., 1997, p 1058). For example, a man could think his mother is replaced by an imposer. Mostly the duplicated people, are people very close to the patients (Todd et al., 1981) and the patients often show conflicting feelings of love and hate for the duplicated relatives (Enoch Trethowan, 1991). Most of the patients who are suffering from Capgras syndrome have some evidence of brain abnormalities (Joseph, 1985). Bauer (1984, 1986) introduced the dual recognition route. He suggests that there are two routes of facial recognition, the ventral and the dorsal route. The ventral route runs from the visual cortex to the temporal lobes and is the conscious recognition route. The dorsal route runs from the visual cortex to the limbic system and is the affective response route. Ellis Young (1990) proposed that Capgras delusion is a mirror-image of prosopagnosia, the inability to recognise previous familiar faces, mostly following brain damage (Sorger et al., 2007). They suggested that in Capgras delusions, the affective response route is damaged, which means that patients will consciously recognise the person, but they wont have an affective response that is associated with familiarity, but they do have an intact ventral route. In 1997 Ellis et al. did study on face recognition in Capgras patients. They found that unlike the control participants, who showed significant differences, that Capgras patients showed no difference in skin conductance response (SCR) to familiar and unfamiliar faces, which means that they are hyporesponsive to familiar faces and thus that Capgras patients have a breakdown in familiarity processing. Coltheart (2007) worked further on this idea and proposed that if you can answer the next two questions, we can have a possible explanation for the delusion. Where did the delusion come from? and Why does the patient not reject the belief? (Coltheart, 2007, p1044). This called this the two factor theory of delusions. He proposed that there had to be two neuropsychological deficits. First, what is responsible for the content of the delusion and secondly, what is responsible for the persistence of the belief, which means that there needs to be damage in the right hemisphere, because it is involved in belief evaluation. They argued that the right temporal-parietal regions and the right frontal lobe are very important in the belief evaluation. In 2011, Coltheart et al. explained that via abductive inference we make propositions. These propositions have to survive a belief-evaluation process to be adopted as a belief. According to Coltheart et al. (2011) this belief evaluation process is damaged in Capgras patients. This study wants to look at both views, the impairments of face recognition and the impairments to belief evaluation processes. Experiment 1 and 2 focuses on face recognition, whether experiment 3 focuses on the belief evaluation process. First of all, usually reaction times are significantly faster for familiar faces than for unfamiliar faces (Balas, Cox Conwell, 2007). Because of the hyporesponsiveness to familiar faces (Ellis et al., 1997), Capgras patients are expected to have no significant difference in reaction time between familiar and unfamiliar faces. Secondly, according to Ellis et al. (1997), Capgras patients should have an impairment in their face recognition. One study found a reduced neural activity in the face recognition system in a case of Capgras delusion (Thiel et al., 2013). Another study found higher activity in the left superior parietal and biletral middle frontal gyrus in familiar faces (Rossion et al., 2001). Activations in the prefrontal, lateral temporal and mesial temporal regions were associated with recognition of famous faces (Leveroni et al., 2000). This would mean that Capgras patients, who are hyporesponsive to familiar faces (Ellis et al., 1997), would show an increased activity in these areas. In experiment 3, the belief evaluation process is tested. Coltheart et al. (2011) suggested that the impairment in Capgras patients in the belief evaluation process is associated with right lateral prefrontal cortex pathology. Evidence was found for a dynamic neural system for reasoning in the lateral/dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (Goel Dolan, 2003). In an fMRI study, they found a role of the lateral prefrontal cortex in modulation of reasoning by beliefs (Goel Dolan, 2003). They found that correct logical reasoning showed an increased activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex. This means that, according to Colthearts two factor theory (2010), that Capgras patient would show a decreased activity in this area, because of their impairments in the belief evaluation system. Participants and design: This study will recruit a sample of 10 Capgras patients and 10 healthy age-matched controls. Participants will receive fees for participating. They will be provided with an informed consent. This study exists out of two experiments. In the first task participants will be provided with pictures of familiar and unfamiliar faces (in Capgras patients familiar faces of the persons they replace with imposers and in controls with family members) while reaction time is measured and an fMRI scan is taken. In the second experiment, the right lateral prefrontal cortex activity is measured with an fMRI scan while the participants look at familiar and unfamiliar faces and at the same time are asked questions about these persons in a belief-reasoning task. Stimulus materials and procedure: In the first experiment, participants were asked to sit in 0.5 m in front of a screen. Each trial started with a cue image of a familiar or an unfamiliar face for 500 ms. After an interinterval of 500 ms, a picture that matched the cue image was shown together with a picture that didnt match (left and right). The participants were asked via button presses to show which picture matched the cue image, as rapid and accurately as possible. All stimulus presentation responeses were analysed with the Matlab Psychophysics Toolbox. This task was taken from Balas, Cox Conwell (2007). In the second experiment, before the participants will be asked to enter the fMRI, they will be instructed about the task. This study uses the task Ellis et al. (1997) used, for testing the identification of familiar faces. When they are in the fMRI, they will see pictures of their family members (for the Capgras patients, including the persons they think are replaced by imposers) or unfamiliar pictures. They got to see 10 familiar faces and 20 unfamiliar faces in random order. For each face the participant was asked to respond if the face was familiar to them or not, while the fMRI scan measured their blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) activity in their brain. In experiment 3, the participants were asked again to enter the fMRI scan. We used the belief reasoning task (Appendix: Picture 1) of Sommer et al. (2007). In both of the conditions, the first four pictures are the same. In the true belief task the girl comes back in the room and sees that the boy puts the ball into the basket. In the false belief task, she comes back in the room after he putted the ball in the basket. The response picture (red) was the same in both condition. In 50% of the trials, the girl, based on her belief, looked for the ball in the expected box and in the other 50% in the unexpected box. The participants needed to decide if Betty, based on her belief, made the expected or unexpected choice by key pressing, while the BOLD activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex was measured. In experiment 1 we expect that Capgras patients will show no significant difference in reaction times to familiar or unfamiliar faces, because of their hyporesponsivess to familiar faces (Ellis et al., 1997), compared to normal controls who are expected to have reaction times faster for familiar faces than for unfamiliar faces (Balas, Cox Conwell, 2007). In experiment 2 we expect Capgras patients to have a decreased activity in the prefrontal, lateral temporal and mesial temporal regions compared to controls, because of their impairment in face recognition (Ellis et al., 1997). In experiment 3, we expect patients to have a decreased activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex while they do the belief reasoning task, because of Colthearts suggestion that Capgras patients have a damaged belief evaluation process. This study will benefit psychologist who have studied Capgras delusion, because the causes are still very vague and not that many studies have been done on Capgras. It will also benefit Capgras patients. . It can be useful for patients suffering from schizophrenia and dementia because Capgras syndrome is often associated with these disorders. It can help create treatments by knowing the origins in the brain while patients experience these hallucinations. This study focus on more theories, which makes it easier to understand this delusion. |