Patterns of Religious Coping among Bereaved College Students

Contemporary research has suggested that bereavement is a paramount issue in college populations, a group which has historically been underrepresented in grief research (Balk. in Death studies 25:67–84, 2001; Balk et al. in Death Studies 34:459–468, 2010). Indeed, there has been a call to generate new research on grief with specific populations and age groups (Center for the Advancement of Health. in Death Studies 28:568–575, 2004). Religion is often described as a primary way that individuals cope with bereavement in particular (Frantz et al. in Pastor Psychol 44(3):151–163, 1996) and has been shown to effect college student reactions to stress in general (Merrill et al. in Mental Health, Religion & Culture 12(5):501–511, 2009). The RCOPE (Pargament et al. in J Clin Psychol 56(4):519–543, 2000, J Health Psychol 9:713–730, 2004) is a frequently used measure of religious coping, but has not been evaluated with a bereaved undergraduate population. Given that emerging adulthood is a critical developmental phase of religious identity (Fowler. in New Directions for Child Development 3(52):27–45, 1991), the current study examined the factor structure of the RCOPE within a sample of bereaved college students. An exploratory factor analysis was performed, which approximated the factor structure proposed by Pargament et al. (J Clin Psychol 56(4):519–543, 2000). However, a high correlation between the positive and negative religious coping subscales (r = 0.71) detracted from the predictive utility of Pargament et al.′s (2000) two overarching subscales. Therefore, an exploratory factor analysis with an orthogonal rotation was used to identify two uncorrelated subscales (adaptive religious coping and maladaptive religious coping). This new two-factor, 39-item version of the RCOPE was found to demonstrate good internal consistency (α > 0.8) as well as convergent and discriminant validity. The interaction between religious coping strategies and core beliefs about the predictability of the world is explored, and directions for future research and clinical practice are suggested.     

New Directions for Clergy Experiencing Stress: Connecting Spirit and Body

This paper describes an online course on self care based on current research on clergy stress by Francis et al. (Pastoral Sciences/Sciences Pastorales 24(2):101–120, 2005), motivation by Miller and Rollnick (2012), self compassion by Barnard and Curry (Pastoral Psychology 61(2):149–163, 2012), will power by Baumeister and Tierney (2011), and habits by Duhigg (2012). This practical theological learning experience connects body and spirit by integrating an authentic spirituality into one’s daily experiences of coping with stress. Students shared Google document journals about implementing spiritual practices and a stress-relieving habit. Self reflection and peer support fostered a practical theological process of change in their lived theology of values, beliefs, and spiritual practices. Espoused values and beliefs were incorporated into spiritual and self care practices fostering compassion. This lived theology of compassion revealed and counteracted embedded values and beliefs, notably about God’s judgment.     

Gender Schemas, Gender Roles, and Expressive Writing: Toward a Process-focused Model

Range and Jenkins (2010) timely and compelling review of Pennebaker’s (1989, 1993) Expressive Writing Paradigm (EWP) provides a valuable framework for conceptualizing the role of gender-related variables in EWP studies, and for examining these variables in the context of gender schema theory, social role theory, and gender socialization theory. This comment contributes to Range and Jenkins efforts by integrating their analysis with: 1) findings regarding multimodal assessment of individual differences and outcomes; and 2) process-focused studies of participants’ responses to different psychological assessment tools. When multimodal assessment procedures are coupled with experimental manipulations that differentially impact different measures, researchers’ understanding of the benefits of trauma writing will increase and the efficacy of disclosure interventions in applied settings will be enhanced.     

Differentiation of Self, Stress, and Emotional Support as Predictors of Psychological Distress

We explored the relations among stress, emotional support, and differentiation of self from the family of origin as predictors of psychological distress in a sample of 200 college students. First, we investigated the discrepant findings of Murdock and Gore (Contemp Fam Ther 23: 319–335, 2004) and Skowron et al. (J Couns Dev 82: 69–78, 2004) regarding the relationships among stress, differentiation, and symptoms (a question of mediation vs. moderation). Second, we examined the role of emotional support in concert with stress and differentiation. When both stressful events and perceived stress were measured, differentiation of self was found to be a significant partial mediator of their effects on psychological distress. Emotional support was also found to partially mediate the relationship between differentiation of self and psychological distress. Differentiation of self partially mediated the relationship between actual and perceived stress, and perceived stress partially mediated the relationship between differentiation of self and psychological distress.     

Looking back or moving on: How regulatory modes affect nostalgia

Nostalgia is defined as the remembrance of prior experiences that are self-relevant, involve close others, and carry a predominantly positive affective tone (Wildschut et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 91:975–993, 2006). Given nostalgia’s palliative function for coping with negative affect and self-threats (Sedikides et al. in Curr Dir Psychol Sci 17:304–307, 2008), the present research explores a psychological construct related to greater experience of nostalgia: regulatory mode. According to regulatory mode theory (Kruglanski et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 79:793–815, 2000; Higgins et al. in Adv exp soc psychol 35:293–344, 2003), assessment is the aspect of self-regulation focused on evaluation, whereas locomotion is focused on goal progress. We hypothesized that emphasis of the assessment mode on evaluation would promote nostalgia, while emphasis of the locomotion mode on progress would prevent it. These predictions were corroborated in two studies that assessed regulatory modes as individual difference factors (Study 1) and induced them experimentally (Study 2). Implications of these findings for the self regulation process are considered.     

Ambivalent Sexism and Religion: Connected Through Values

Sexist attitudes do not exist in a limbo; they are embedded in larger belief systems associated with specific hierarchies of values. In particular, manifestations of benevolent sexism (Glick and Fiske 1996, 1997, 2001) can be perceived as a social boon, not a social ill, both because they are experienced as positive, and because they reward behaviors that maintain social stability. One of the strongest social institutions that create and justify specific hierarchies of values is religion. In this paper, we examine how the values inherent in religious beliefs (perhaps inadvertently) propagate an unequal status quo between men and women through endorsement of ideologies linked to benevolent sexism. In a survey with a convenience sample of train passengers in Southern and Eastern Poland (N?=?180), we investigated the relationship between Catholic religiosity and sexist attitudes. In line with previous findings (Gaunt 2012; Glick et al. 2002a; Ta?demir and Sakall?-U?urlu 2010), results suggest that religiosity can be linked to endorsement of benevolent sexism. This relationship was mediated in our study by the values of conservatism and openness to change (Schwartz 1992): religious individuals appear to value the societal status quo, tradition, and conformity, which leads them to perceive women through the lens of traditional social roles. Adhering to the teachings of a religion that promotes family values in general seems to have as its byproduct an espousal of prejudicial attitudes toward specific members of the family.     

Sociocultural and Psychological Links to Men’s Engagement in Risky Body Change Behaviors

The present theory-driven, empirical evaluation examined cross-sectional influences on men’s engagement in risky body change behaviors. The study tested a slightly revised version of the Tripartite Influence Model (Thompson et al. 1999) with a sample of 156 male undergraduate students from the Midwestern Region of the United States. Participants completed measures pertaining to body image and health-risk behaviors. Consistent with the Tripartite Influence Model (Thompson et al. 1999), individual psychological variables mediated the association between sociocultural influences and muscularity-oriented body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction mediated the relation between psychological variables and engagement in body change behaviors. Theoretical models developed to explain body change behaviors among women may be applicable to men when constructs are assessed in ways that are relevant to men.     

Tempo and Temperament: A Music Lesson on the Significance of Time for the Art of Pastoral Care

This article will focus on the relationship between tempo and temperament and the power of music to facilitate healing, especially for individuals who struggle with temperament or mood disorders, by examining briefly how individuals diagnosed with depression may be helped by listening to or performing music as a form of treatment. Current research into the “science” of music is providing concrete evidence for the reality that musicians and music therapists have long intuited to be true–music does have the capacity to facilitate healing by influencing brain activity and altering moods (Cambell and Doman 2011; Levitin 2007, 2008; Mannes 2011; Powell 2010; Pruyser 1983; Rose 2004). Insofar as music is an integral part of most worship traditions, it provides a common ground for conversation that may seem more natural and less formidable to ministers and lay people alike than the structures of conventional counseling or care-giving relationships, especially for those who have a tendency to be suspicious of all things psychological.     

Addressing Conceptual Confusions About Evolutionary Theorizing: How and Why Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism Do Not Oppose Each Other

This commentary is a rejoinder to the Buss and Schmitt (2011) and Eagly and Wood (2011) commentaries concerning how evolutionary psychology and feminism might fit together. This rejoinder provides one path toward uniting these perspectives in psychological literature by accomplishing three tasks. First, this rejoinder addresses and removes conceptual confusions offered by Buss and Schmitt (2011) concerning the philosophy of science and psychology research. Second, this rejoinder fits evolutionary psychology perspectives into a correctly understood philosophy of science for psychology. Third, enacting Eagly and Wood’s (2011) suggestions, this rejoinder connects evolutionary psychology and feminism by expanding Tate and Ledbetter’s (2010) stepwise model for understanding the simultaneous contributions of evolutionary and developmental factors to psychological phenomena. Thus, by removing conceptual roadblocks, this rejoinder provides a scaffold for fruitful discussions concerning the interplay of evolutionary psychology and feminist perspectives when characterizing gender differences and similarities.     

Disrupting the Coloniality of Being: Toward De-colonial Ontologies in Philosophy of Education

This essay works to bridge conversations in philosophy of education with decolonial theory. The author considers Margonis?? (1999, 2011a, b) use of Rousseau (1979) and Heidegger (1962) in developing an ontological attitude that counters social hierarchies and promotes anti-colonial relations. While affirming this effort, the essay outlines a coloniality of being at work in Rousseau and Heidegger through thier reliance on the colonial conceptualization of African Americans and Native Americans as savage and primitive. The essay turns to decolonial theory and the work of Maldenado-Torres (Cult Stud 21(2?C3):240?C270, 2007, 2009) to highlight how a decolonial attitude complicates, yet enriches Margonis?? philosophical framework.     

What is Psychological Well-Being, Really? A Grassroots Approach from the Organizational Sciences

Research on psychological well-being (PWB) in organizational settings is now facing two major challenges. First, conceptual confusion surrounds PWB (Danna and Griffin 1999; Diener 1994; Ryff 1989), and the debate about the superiority of concurrent hedonic, eudaimonic, and integrative approaches is still open. Second, researchers in the organizational sciences mainly study context-free PWB while measuring organizational correlates, despite contextualized non-cognitive measures having proven their incremental validity over context-free measures (e.g. English 2001; Hunthausen et al. 2003). In an attempt to address these issues from a new perspective, an inductive approach was proposed. To confer good content validity to our model of PWB at work (PWBW), a preliminary bottom-up qualitative phase was carried out. On this basis, a quantitative study was conducted. From the 80 manifestations of PWBW obtained, a new instrument was generated and administered to 1,080 workers, supplemented by measures of context-free PWB and distress, of positive and negative affect, and of life satisfaction. Exploratory factor analyses revealed that PWBW can be conceptualized through 5 dimensions, namely, Interpersonal Fit at Work, Thriving at Work, Feeling of Competency at Work, Desire for Involvement at Work, and Perceived Recognition at Work. The questionnaire showed satisfactory internal consistency. Correlational analyses support the “related but distinct” nature of PWBW with regard to context-free hedonic and eudaimonic PWB dimensions and psychological distress indicators. In sum, the study led to the development of a grounded conceptualization of PWBW based on a work frame-of-reference and tied to a reliable and valid measure.     

The importance of perceived autonomy support for the psychological health and work satisfaction of health professionals: Not only supervisors count, colleagues too!

Previous studies show that supervisors?? autonomy-supportive style predicts greater psychological health (Baard et al. in J Appl Soc Psychol 34:2045?C2068, 2004; Blais and Brière 1992; Lynch et al. in Prof Psychol Res Pract 36:415?C425, 2005) and lower psychological distress (Deci et al. in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 27:930?C942, 2001). The goal of the present study is to extend these results and investigate the contribution of colleagues?? perceived autonomy support in the prediction of health professionals?? work satisfaction and psychological health. The combined impact of supervisors?? and colleagues?? perceived autonomy support is also examined. A sample of 597 health professionals from the province of Quebec (Canada) completed a questionnaire, which included measures of perceived supervisors?? and colleagues?? autonomy support and outcome variables. Results confirm that supervisors?? and colleagues?? perceived autonomy support predict health professionals?? work satisfaction and psychological health. Results also show that colleagues?? perceived autonomy support adds to the prediction of health professionals?? work satisfaction, subjective well-being, and suicidal ideation above and beyond supervisors?? perceived autonomy support.     

Locomotion and the preference for multi-tasking: Implications for well-being

The notion that locomotion concerns with moving from state to state (Higgins et al., Advances in experimental social psychology, Academic Press, New York, NY, 2003; Kruglanski et al., J Pers Soc Psychol 79:793–815, 2000) will instill a positive disposition toward multi-tasking was explored in three studies. Study 1 demonstrated the existence of the hypothesized link between locomotion and multi-tasking in a sample of university students. Study 2 showed that a person-situation fit in organizations based on this preference affects employees’ sense of well being. Finally, Study 3 conceptually replicated the results of Study 2 and demonstrated that the fit effects on well-being from the relation between locomotion and multi-tasking hold when both these variables are manipulated experimentally. These results support the basic idea that individuals with strong locomotion concerns benefit from activities more when they are performed simultaneously rather than sequentially.     

New Directions for Research on the Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes: Response to Commentaries

We frame our response to the commentaries by Cheryan (2011), Lane (2011), and Shapiro and Williams (2011), in terms of two broad points made by Lane (2011). First, we agree that the various constructs that we termed “math attitudes”—including math-gender stereotypes, math anxiety, math self-concepts, and achievement motivation in math—are in fact distinct (Gunderson et al. 2011b). Nevertheless, we argue that investigating common mechanisms underlying the transmission of these constructs from adults to children is a productive approach because it can lead to general interventions to boost children’s performance and dispositions toward math. Second, we argue that research on the development of gender-related math attitudes exists at the intersection of multiple research areas, including research on attitudes (broadly defined), math, gender, social learning, and child development, and that drawing on well-developed theories in these areas can lead to novel research questions and predictions. The three excellent commentaries broaden the scope of our article on gender-related math attitudes to include the transmission of implicit attitudes from adults to children, stereotype threat, and gender roles in math-related careers (Cheryan 2011; Gunderson et al. 2011b; Lane 2011; Shapiro and Williams 2011).     

Importing Logics

The novel notion of importing logics is introduced, subsuming as special cases several kinds of asymmetric combination mechanisms, like temporalization [8, 9], modalization [7] and exogenous enrichment [13, 5, 12, 4, 1]. The graph-theoretic approach proposed in [15] is used, but formulas are identified with irreducible paths in the signature multi-graph instead of equivalence classes of such paths, facilitating proofs involving inductions on formulas. Importing is proved to be strongly conservative. Conservative results follow as corollaries for temporalization, modalization and exogenous enrichment.     

Color and cognitive penetrability

Several psychological experiments have suggested that concepts can influence perceived color (e.g., Delk and Fillenbaum in Am J Psychol 78(2):290–293, 1965, Hansen et al. in Nat Neurosci 9(11):1367–1368, 2006, Olkkonen et al. in J Vis 8(5):1–16, 2008). Observers tend to assign typical colors to objects even when the objects do not have those colors. Recently, these findings were used to argue that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable (Macpherson 2012). This interpretation of the experiments has far-reaching consequences: it implies that the way we think of objects determines how we see them, thus threatening the role of perception in justifying beliefs. In this paper, I show that the psychological findings can be accounted for without admitting cognitive penetrability. An underestimated but key feature of the experiments is that observers had to judge colors in borderline cases, in conditions of reduced acuity, or on the basis of color-concepts instead of matching. Such judgments are sensitive to the form of bias that Tversky and Kahneman (Science 185:1124–1131, 1974) have termed ‘anchoring’. Adopting a suggestion from Raffman (Philos Rev 103(1):41–74, 1994), I argue that the way subjects in the experiments think of the objects could affect their color judgments without altering their color experiences.     

Comparing Three Methods to Measure a Balanced Time Perspective: The Relationship Between a Balanced Time Perspective and Subjective Well-Being

The goals of this study were to determine the relations between having a balanced time perspective (BTP) with various measures of subjective well-being (SWB) and to test how various operationalizations of a BTP might impact the relation between having a BTP and SWB. We operationalized a balanced time perspective using: (a) Drake et al.’s Time Soc 17(1):47–61, (2008) cut-off-point method, (b) Boniwell et al.’s J Posit Psychol 5(1):24–40, (2010) suggestion of using a hierarchical cluster analysis, and (c) a deviation from a balanced time perspective (DBTP; Stolarski et al. Time Soc, 2011). The results demonstrated that having a BTP is related to increased satisfaction with life, happiness, positive affect, psychological need satisfaction, self-determination, vitality, and gratitude as well as decreased negative affect. Also, the DBTP was the best predictor of SWB. We discuss why individuals with a BTP are likely to be happier in life.     

Method,Models, and Scholarly Types: Reflections on Thesis and Dissertation Writing in Pastoral Theology

This article concerns the methodological issues confronted by pastoral theology students in their writing of a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. I introduce H. Richard Niebuhr’s (1951) identification of five models (rejection, accommodation, synthesis, dualism, and conversionist) for relating the theological and psychological resources used in their writing. Then, by means of Rudolf Arnheim’s art theory (1986, 1988, 1996), I identify three additional models (convergence, juxtaposition, and structural uniformity) and note their affinities with and complications of three of Niebuhr’s models (synthesis, dualism, and accommodation). I argue that these complications can play a positive role in the writing of a thesis or dissertation as they promote a fuller engagement with the empirical reality that is the focus of study. I also note David W. Galenson’s (2006) view that his typology of artists as conceptualists and experimentalists is applicable to scholars and suggest that awareness of which type is most characteristic of oneself may enable one to minimize the frustrations that one is likely to experience in writing a thesis or dissertation. I conclude with a brief discussion of Erik H. Erikson’s consideration of Martin Luther’s redefinition of work in Young Man Luther (chapter 5) and suggest that it makes the case for understanding thesis and dissertation writing as an exercise in liberated craftsmanship.     

Margaret R. Miles’ Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter: An Eriksonian Perspective

My perspective on Margaret R. Miles’s Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter is informed by Erik H. Erikson’s life cycle model (Erikson 1950, 1959, 1963, 1964, 1968a, b, 1982; Erikson and Erikson 1997) and, more specifically, by my relocation of his life stages and their accompanying human strengths (Erikson 1964) according to decades (Capps 2008). I interpret Miles’s account of her life from birth to age forty as revealing the selves that comprise the composite Self (Erikson 1968a) that come into their own during the first four decades of the life cycle, i.e., the hopeful, willing, purposeful, and competent selves