Teaching the Bible and Film: Pedagogical Promises,Pitfalls, and Proposals

This article begins by recognizing the increasing use of film in Religion, Theology, and Bible courses. It contends that in many Biblical Studies (and Religious Studies and Theology) courses, students are neither taught how to view films properly, nor how to place films into constructive dialogue with biblical texts. The article argues for a specific pedagogical approach to the use of film in which students learn how to view a film closely, in its entirety, on its own terms, and in its own voice. Viewing a film in this manner by attending to its aesthetic integrity is a prerequisite for constructing a fruitful dialogue between films and biblical texts. The essay concludes with three specific examples of what this approach might look like. Two responses follow the essay; Erin Runions of Pomona College considers two additional learning goals we might consider, and Richard Ascough of Queens University at Kingston helpfully distinguishes a range of possible pedagogical goals for introducing film into the Biblical Studies classroom.     

Assessing Normal and Abnormal Personality Functioning: Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-Report,Observer, and Performance-Based Methods

Three clinical psychologists were asked to rate the MAPS figures in terms of how much social withdrawal from people the usage of the type of figure would represent if it were used on the test. Their mean ratings were compared with the actual MAPS test performances of normal and schizophrenic patients. The data indicated that, although, psychologists could reliably rate the amount of social withdrawal associated with the figure types, there was no difference in social withdrawal scores between normals and schizophrenics.     

Healing the Healers: A Profile of Strengths and Weaknesses of Catholic Priests in Gozo,Malta

This exploratory study of Roman Catholic secular priests examined their psycho-spiritual well-being and vocational challenges. With a 52% response rate, this population study indicated that most respondents had a balanced ministry life and healthy spirituality. However, pastoral and vocational satisfactions, together with mandated celibacy, remain contentious issues. An initial instrument was developed to discern what contributes to priests’ vocational satisfaction. Psycho-spiritual well-being, intrinsic religion, vocational frustrations, and celibacy emerged as four key domains. Results were scrutinized to determine how they could serve as a platform for a future and more robust scale. This paper also contains a discussion of the pastoral implications of this study, and how the church could be more true to its calling.     

Data Collection in a Flat World: The Strengths and Weaknesses of Mechanical Turk Samples

Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online labor system run by Amazon.com, provides quick, easy, and inexpensive access to online research participants. As use of MTurk has grown, so have questions from behavioral researchers about its participants, reliability, and low compensation. In this article, we review recent research about MTurk and compare MTurk participants with community and student samples on a set of personality dimensions and classic decision‐making biases. Across two studies, we find many similarities between MTurk participants and traditional samples, but we also find important differences. For instance, MTurk participants are less likely to pay attention to experimental materials, reducing statistical power. They are more likely to use the Internet to find answers, even with no incentive for correct responses. MTurk participants have attitudes about money that are different from a community sample's attitudes but similar to students' attitudes. Finally, MTurk participants are less extraverted and have lower self‐esteem than other participants, presenting challenges for some research domains. Despite these differences, MTurk participants produce reliable results consistent with standard decision‐making biases: they are present biased, risk‐averse for gains, risk‐seeking for losses, show delay/expedite asymmetries, and show the certainty effect—with almost no significant differences in effect sizes from other samples. We conclude that MTurk offers a highly valuable opportunity for data collection and recommend that researchers using MTurk (1) include screening questions that gauge attention and language comprehension; (2) avoid questions with factual answers; and (3) consider how individual differences in financial and social domains may influence results. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health Promotion in International Documents: Strengths and Weaknesses from the Perspective of Community Empowerment

Informed by a community psychology perspective, which takes an integrated and systemic, or holistic view of health and health promotion, this study presents quali‐quantitative analysis of health documents, produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) over the last 30 years. Textual analysis facilitated the identification of the typical specificities of international WHO health promotion documents, highlighting the lexical contexts of health promotion, particularly in relation to responsibilities for health and the concept of community health. Further, this textual analysis demonstrated how these understandings of health and health promotion have evolved over the last 30 years. Drawing on theory from within the field of community psychology, the changes proposed throughout international WHO documentation in conceptualizations of health and health promotion and in defining strategies to achieve the stated goals of health promotion are discussed critically. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于动态评估的取样法:经验取样法

研究结果的普适性是心理学研究的黄金标准之一.为达到此目标,研究者不断创造生态效度更高,也更具现实意义的研究方法.通过在现实情境下对被试多次重复测量进行数据收集的研究方法——经验取样法(experience sampling method),一经提出就备受研究者的青睐.文章在综合介绍经验取样法的概念、实施过程和数据处理的基础上,比较和阐述了该方法的优劣势,以及该方法的主要应用领域.文章最后对经验取样法的应用领域和未来发展作了展望.     

CACREP: Precursors,Promises, and Prospects

National accreditation of counselor education has taken on new meaning. The profession has a recognized accrediting body within the community of higher education. This article recounts the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) precursors, its founders' aspirations, and its prospects for influencing the professionalization of counseling as a discipline.     

Prevention of Mental Disorders: Promises, Limitations, and Barriers

In the past few years, the field of psychology has seen a dramatic increase in interest in the prevention of mental disorder and emotional difficulties. This special series provides some excellent examples of the promises held by a- variety of prevention programs. At the same time, the papers in this volume highlight several important issues to consider and barriers to the implementation of prevention programs. This discussion paper explores the themes and issues raised by these papers and considers some of the lessons to be extracted for research into and implementation of prevention programs across mental health.     

Repetitive Thought Impairs Sleep Quality: An Experience Sampling Study

Although previous research has suggested that presleep negative cognitive activities are associated with poor sleep quality, there is little evidence regarding the association between negative thoughts and sleep in real-life settings. The present study used experience sampling and long-term sleep monitoring with actigraphy to investigate the relationships among negative repetitive thought, mood, and sleep problems. During a 1-week sampling period, 43 undergraduate students recorded their thought content and mood eight times a day at semirandom intervals. In addition to these subjective reports, participants wore actigraphs on their wrists in order to measure sleep parameters. Analyses using multilevel modeling showed that repetitive thought in the evening was significantly associated with longer sleep-onset latency, decreased sleep efficiency, and reduced total sleep time. Furthermore, impaired sleep quality was significantly associated with reduced positive affect the next morning, and decreased positive affect was indirectly associated with increased repetitive thought in the evening. These findings suggest the existence of a self-reinforcing cycle involving repetitive thought, mood, and impaired sleep quality, highlighting the importance of cognitive and emotional factors in enhancement and maintenance of good-quality sleep.     

Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses of Experience Sampling

This paper uses the Experience Sampling Method data drawn from a national sample of American youth. It examines the proximal environmental factors as well as behaviors and habits that correlate to personal happiness. Momentary-level scores show that reported happiness varies significantly both by day of week and time of day. Furthermore, particular activities are associated with varying degrees of happiness. School activities rate below average scores in happiness, while social, active and passive leisure activities are above average. Particular companions also correlate to differing level of happiness. Being alone rates the lowest levels of happiness, while being with friend corresponds to the highest. Person-level averages of happiness suggest that both higher social class and age correlate with lower levels of happiness, while gender and race do not. Paradoxically, youth who spend more time in school and social activities are happier than those who spend less. Unexpectedly, students who spend more time pleasure reading report lower levels of happiness. Finally, feeling good about the self, excited, proud, sociable, active as well as being in the conditions for flow experience are the strongest predictors of trait happiness.