Models for Ministry: The Spiritual Needs of the Frail Elderly Living in Long-Term Care Facilities

ABSTRACT

Litte information has been available pertaining to the spirituality of the institutionalized elderly. This paper presents the self-perceived spiritual needs of the elderly living in long-term-care facilities. Additional information is presented indicating the clergy's perceptions of these needs.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with resident council members from three nursing homes in western North Carolina. The following three domains of spirituality were covered: (1) relationship to God; (2) relationship to church; and (3) relationship to community. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with these residents' pastors and other clergy members who minister in these three facilities. Data collected from these interviews indicates a variation between the residents' self-perceived spiritual needs and the clergy's perceptions of these needs.

Data analyses suggested a three-step process of the resident's spiritual journey in the nursing home. This process provided a model describing the spiritual journey of the nursing home resident.     

A Comparative Analysis of the Psychological Literature on Collaboration Between Clergy and Mental-Health Professionals—Perspectives from Secular and Religious Journals: 1970–1999

A search of the psychological literature was conducted to obtain a better understanding of the issues surrounding collaboration between clergy and psychologists. An electronic search of PsycINFO for 1970–1999 ultimately yielded 52 articles in secular journals and 37 articles in religiously oriented journals that discussed collaboration. Whereas interest in collaboration peaked in religious journals during the 1980's, the number of articles on collaboration appearing in secular journals increased significantly from 1970 to 1999. Content analysis confirmed six major themes about collaboration found by A. J. Weaver, K. J. Flannelly, L. T. Flannelly, and J. E. Oppenheimer (2003). One of the most common themes was the clergy's role as frontline mental-health workers, which was mentioned significantly more often in secular than religious journals. The need for greater education and knowledge was also mentioned significantly more often in secular than religious journals. Insufficient knowledge or education was frequently seen as an obstacle to collaboration. Other factors affecting collaboration are discussed.     

“NO CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLE”

The period of the Boer, or South African, War (1899–1902) has generated remarkably little interest amongst scholars of Anglo-Jewish history. Historians of British anti-Semitism have found fruitful ground in the controversy of alleged Jewish culpability for the war and the amplified climate of anti-Jewish (ostensibly anti-immigrant) sentiment. But, while telling us a great deal about how some segments of the British public regarded Jews, these studies have done little to illuminate how British Jews themselves thought and behaved. This article will make a first step towards redressing these imbalances, using Jewish sermons as a case study for understanding the established community's response to the war. Though a climate of insecurity undoubtedly existed, I will argue that the clergy's unflinchingly martial posture—which was representative of elite Jewish opinion as well—was not simply defensive or reactive. The clergy also saw the war as providing an ideal opportunity to express genuine gratitude and patriotism, showcase Jewish contributions to the nation and enhance Jewish inclusion. My examination of their rhetoric illustrates how these communal representatives attempted to balance the imperative of self-defence with the quest for fuller integration.     

Matching bias and set sizes: A discussion of Yama (2001)

Yama (2001) has presented an ingenious series of experiments in which he attempts to separate two accounts in the literature of the cause of “matching bias” in conditional reasoning. One account is that the bias arises from the way in which people process negations and the other is that it is due to the larger set sizes associated with negative propositions, rather than negation per se. Yama's experiments show influences of both negation and set size, from which he concludes that both factors contribute to the matching bias that is normally observed. In this note, it is argued that this conclusion is at odds with other findings in the literature, particularly those investigating implicit negation as the cause of the bias. Introducing explicit negations has been shown to remove matching bias completely and not partially, as Yama's account must predict. A possible reconciliation is proposed in terms of subtle contextual differences introduced by Yama's experiments.     

Retirement Planning for Clergy: Need and Content

ABSTRACT

Retirement is seen as one of the most critical transitions in the life cycle. This fact is no less true for religious leaders. After years as the “chief executive officer” of several congregations, many clergy find adjustment to retirement to be a difficult task-emotionally, financially, and socially. Different from many professionals, clergy see their “calling” to their vocation, the ministry, to be a lifetime commitment. Given these factors, retirement can bring drastic changes in the clergy's life–his/her self-identity, sense of importance and value as an individual and as a member of society, relationships with family and friends, financial status, and living arrangements. Yet few denominations provide opportunities for preretirement education for their religious leaders; therefore many clergy make little or no preparation for retirement. This paper looks at pertinent issues related to retirement for clergy. Objectives and content areas for preretirement education are suggested.     

Assumed race moderates spontaneous racial bias in a computer‐based police simulation

We demonstrated that playing the roles of different outgroup races can elicit extrapersonal racial bias associated with respective racial groups. In a modified version of a computer‐based police simulation, the police officer's race was visually manipulated to be either Black or White. Korean participants made quick decisions whether to shoot targets (Black or White, armed or unarmed) on screen. Comparison of behavioral bias in the task revealed that, as expected, playing the role of a White police officer was associated with a stronger bias against Black targets compared to playing a Black police officer's role. The result suggests that when a social category is activated, one's race‐related behavior can reflect one's beliefs about the biases that members of that category hold.     

Epistemological and ethical assessment of obesity bias in industrialized countries

Bernard Lonergan's cognitive theory challenges us to raise questions about both the cognitive process through which obesity is perceived as a behaviour change issue and the objectivity of such a moral judgment. Lonergan's theory provides the theoretical tools to affirm that anti-fat discrimination, in the United States of America and in many industrialized countries, is the result of both a group bias that resists insights into the good of other groups and a general bias of anti-intellectualism that tends to set common sense against insights that require any thorough scientific analyses. While general bias diverts the public's attention away from the true aetiology of obesity, group bias sustains an anti-fat culture that subtly legitimates discriminatory practices and policies against obese people. Although anti-discrimination laws may seem to be a reasonable way of protecting obese and overweight individuals from discrimination, obesity bias can be best addressed by reframing the obesity debate from an environmental perspective from which tools and strategies to address both the social and individual determinants of obesity can be developed. Attention should not be concentrated on individuals' behaviour as it is related to lifestyle choices, without giving due consideration to the all-encompassing constraining factors which challenge the social and rational blindness of obesity bias.     

Personal involvement and the evaluation of group products

This research examined favouritism in group product evaluations as a function of personal involvement. After being divided into groups on an arbitrary basis, subjects worked at a group brainstorming task. Some subjects then assessed the merits of their own group's product relative to that of an outgroup's product, whereas other subjects assessed the merits of an ingroup's product relative to that of an outgroup's product. In both conditions, a significant bias was observed such that owngroup and ingroup products were rated as superior to outgroup products. Moreover, this bias was equally strong regardless of whether subjects were appraising a product they had personally helped create. The implications of the findings for understanding the antecedents of group bias are considered.     

Case for Non‐Biased Intelligence Testing Against Black Africans Has Not Been Made: A Comment on Rushton,Skuy, and Bons (2004)

This reply reviews the conceptual, methodological, and statistical foundations of Rushton, Skuy and Bons' article in this journal that compared Black Africans, Whites and East Indians on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, and concluded that the Raven's is an unbiased test. Through a technical re‐analysis of both the internal and external validity criteria for test bias using data reported in the Rushton et al. paper, we demonstrate that the Raven's Matrices test is in fact biased against Black Africans. We take issue with several additional elements of Rushton et al.'s study, including the use of non‐equivalent groups in test samples. We briefly review Rushton's racial‐realist research agenda and show that the assumption of test bias is central to advancing that agenda. Industrial/organizational and occupational psychologists should critically analyze and re‐evaluate the science employed in Rushton's racial‐realist research and also should better understand the ethical and social implications of accepting his reports of research findings on test bias and White–Black IQ differences as established scientific facts.     

Collaboration Between Clergy and Mental Health Professionals: A Review of Professional Health Care Journals From 1980 Through 1999

Given the frontline role of community clergy in mental health care, this study examined how collaboration with clergy was viewed by mental health and other health professionals outside of the religious community. Searches of health care journals on Medline and PsycINFO yielded 44 articles from non‐religious journals from 1980 through 1999 that specifically addressed collaboration between clergy and mental health professionals. Seven themes were identified through content analysis, including the benefits of collaboration to each profession, the need to increase the clergy's knowledge about mental heath, and the importance of referrals. Discussion about interdisciplinary referrals significantly increased over time, r_ø (1, N = 44) = .31, p < .05).     

Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes1

Both Black and White jurors exhibit a racial bias by being more likely to find defendants of a different race guilty than defendants who are of the same race. Sommers & Ellsworth (2000, 2001 ) found that salient racial issues in a trial reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. We examined if race salience could reduce White juror racial bias, even for individuals who reported high levels of racism. Making race salient reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. Jurors' racist beliefs were only associated with the verdict when the defendant's race was not made salient. This finding suggests that the effects of individual prejudice toward a Black defendant can be reduced by making the defendant's race salient.     

Early group bias in the Faroe Islands: Cultural variation in children's group-based reasoning

Recent developmental research demonstrates that group bias emerges early in childhood. However, little is known about the extent to which bias in minimal (i.e., arbitrarily assigned) groups varies with children's environment and experience, and whether such bias is universal across cultures. In this study, the development of group bias was investigated using a minimal groups paradigm with 46 four- to six-year-olds from the Faroe Islands. Children observed in-group and out-group members exhibiting varying degrees of prosocial behaviour (egalitarian or stingy sharing). Children did not prefer their in-group in the pretest, but a pro-in-group and anti-out-group sentiment emerged in both conditions in the posttest. Faroese children's response patterns differ from those of American children [Schug, M. G., Shusterman, A., Barth, H., & Patalano, A. L. (2013). Minimal-group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members. Developmental Science, 16(1), 47–55], suggesting that intergroup bias shows cultural variation even in a minimal groups context.     

Blaming the Same-Sex Victim in HIV-Prevention Messages: Further Examination of the Self-Protective Similarity Bias

It has been demonstrated recently that men will judge their own (threat-relevant) personalities and sexual practices as safer than another man's if that man's HIV status is believed positive compared to negative or is unknown (Gump & Kulik, 1995). The present experiment was designed to expand our understanding of the moderators and mediators of this recently documented 'self-protective similarly bias.' College students (N=150) participated in a 2 (Sex of Participant) x 2 (Sex of Model) x 3 (Serostatus: Positive, Negative, Unknown) x 2 (Threat Relevance of Item) factorial design with repeated measures on the last factor. Results indicated that the similarity bias specifically occurs with same-sex models. Analyses of self-ratings and model ratings suggest that the similarity bias was more a functions of 'blaming' or devaluing the victim than of inflated ratings of the participant's own safety characteristics. Finally, although this bias reduced perceived personal susceptibility and was specific to same-sex models, intentions to adopt safer sexual practices were raised by all HIV-positive models regardless of sex concordance.     

Perceived ingroup entitativity and intergroup bias: an interconnection of self and others

Campbell's (1958) concept of ingroup entitativity is reformulated as a perceived interconnection of self and others. A 2 (intergroup relations: competitive, neutral)×3 (intragroup interaction: low, medium, high) between-subjects design was used to examine (1) the effects of intergroup and intragroup relations on perceived ingroup entitativity and (2) the relation between ingroup entitativity and intergroup bias. Regardless of the relations between groups, members who experienced intragroup interaction had stronger perceptions of ingroup entitativity and stronger representations of the aggregate of ingroup and outgroup members as two separate groups than members who lacked intragroup interaction. Furthermore, perceptions of ingroup entitativity mediated the effect of the salience of the intergroup boundary on behavioral intergroup bias. These results call into question the ‘intergroup’ nature of group based phenomena. An ingroup entitativity framework is presented that locates the source of group-based phenomena (e.g. intergroup bias) in intragroup processes. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Truth and bias in daily judgments of support receipt between romantic partners

The perception that a partner is supportive, tied to beneficial relational and personal outcomes, may be shaped by reality (the partner's actual support) but is often also biased. Using T. V. West and D. A. Kenny's (2011) truth‐and‐bias model, the balance between truth and one bias type—the tendency to maintain perceived mutuality by projecting one's own supportiveness onto one's partner—was examined. It was hypothesized that this balance will be altered by the behavior's psychological significance and by the scope of the behavior being judged. In a 35‐day diary, 80 couples reported perceived and provided emotional/practical support. Participants' judgments included less biased projection when they addressed behaviors of lower emotional significance or greater contextual specificity.     

Scientific Communication and Stereotype Change1

The aim of this experiment is to examine whether communicating the results of social psychological research improves out‐group stereotypes and diminishes in‐group bias. The experimental material consisted of 2 communications: one described Hamilton and Gifford's (1976) experiment on illusory correlation (Experiment 1); the other described Sherif's (1966) studies on summer camps. The results of the present experiment show that knowledge of Sherif's findings had no effect on evaluations, whereas an awareness of the experiment on illusory correlation produced a boomerang effect, accentuating, rather than diminishing, in‐group bias. A second experiment revealed that the persuasive power of a scientific message on stereotypes depends on whether in‐groups and out‐groups are cogni‐tively present in the message acquisition phase.     

Religious Affiliation and Employment Bias in the Labor Market

Religious affiliation and employment bias is examined in Athens, Greece by implementing an experimental field study. Labor market outcomes (occupation access, entry wage, and wait time for call back) are assessed for three religious minorities (Pentecostal, evangelical, and Jehovah's Witnesses) compared to the religious majority (Greek Orthodox). Results indicate that religious minorities experience employment bias as measured by access to job interviews, entry wages, and wait time for call backs. Moreover, religious minorities face greater constraints on occupational access in more prestigious jobs compared to less prestigious jobs. Occupational access and entry wage bias is highest for religious minority women. In all cases, Jehovah's Witnesses face the greatest bias; female employers offered significantly lower entry wages to Jehovah's Witnesses than male employers.     

Group Psychotherapy by Florence B. Powdermaker and Jerome D. Frank

Subjective countertransference can sharply limit any group leader's effectiveness. However, a therapist can use the group itself to identify such a bias and to remove it as an influence. A five-step method for doing this is presented. These steps begin with introspection but hinge upon the analyst's turning to the group for the vital information that, in the end, clarifies the analyst's own perceptions and helps him or her free the group from the harmful effects of any bias.     

Group-serving attributions across intergroup contexts: Cultural differences in the explanation of sex-typed behaviours

This research attempted to integrate Tajfel's (1978) social identity theory with self-presentational concerns by exploring attributions about perceived group differences in behaviour. As such, it dealt with group-level rather than individual-level attributions, exploring whether bias in making such verbal attributions varied as a function of the interviewer's group identity and the presence of an ingroup audience. Undergraduate men and women at The Chinese University of Hong Kong rated the appropriateness of ingroup-favouring and outgroup-favouring explanations for male-typed and female-typed behaviors in a face-to-face interview. A group-serving bias was found for female-typed behaviours, but only when the same-sex audience was absent. A conceptual replication of the experiment was run in the United States to examine the possible cultural basis for the Chinese moderation of favouritism in the audience condition. The group-serving bias was more robust for the American undergraduates, extending across male- and female-typed behaviours and also across audience conditions, It was argued that these cultural differences in attributional bias appear to reflect the strength of the movement for women's liberation and norms surrounding the avoidance of conflict in the United States and Hong Kong.