The selectivity of nonmaterial beliefs in interpreting life events

An experimental study addresses the propositions that nonmaterial beliefs, including supernatural powers and transcendental moral laws, function to enhance comprehension of life events, and perform this function selectively. Informal surveys of newspaper articles and two pilot experiments consistently indicated that the beliefs in fate, God, luck, chance, just reward, and just punishment are elicited to explain life events that are difficult to explain in material terms, and are more or less specialized in the life events they explain. In a final experiment, a sample of U.S. university students (N=103) was presented with 12 life event cases designed to match the belief specializations and asked to interpret freely. Analysis of the reliably coded spontaneous comments confirmed both predictions. In addition, subjects who personally held a given nonmaterial belief used it more selectively than those who did not. Finally, employing the same design and measures, a sample from North India replicated the major U.S. findings. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creative Thinking

Life, and therefore evolution, is a creative process; creativity is not an attribute of a few gifted people. The way we think obscures this truth. Three ways of dealing with a problem are creativity, calculation, and choice. Creativity can occur when a single idea is held in two contradictory frames of reference. Thus to be creative we have to put aside our usual ways of thinking, which are based on either/or. When we put aside this way of thinking we will see that things do not change: they are change.     

Transitions of Athletes: Developmental and Preventive Perspectives

Common anticipated and unanticipated transitions faced by athletes are examined from the perspectives of developmental psychology and a model of adult transitions developed by Nancy Schlossberg. Factors contributing to dysfunctional response to transitions associated with athletic careers are identified and discussed. Preventive strategies, targeting athletes at risk of experiencing dysfunctionality in such transitions, are examined, and illustrative programs described.     

Interrelationships Among Name Desirability, Name Uniqueness, Emotion Characteristics Connoted by Names, and Temperament

The subjects in Study 1 (the target group) provided their names and data on their own temperaments. The subjects in Study 2 rated the target group's names on uniqueness and desirability. The subjects in Study 3 rated the temperament qualities connoted by the names given by the target group. The name uniqueness and desirability scales had high reliabilities and correlated -0.44, showing that more unique names were less desirable. The qualities of pleasantness and dominance, which were connoted by a person's name, were judged very reliably. Names that connoted psychological health versus maladjustment (pleasant/ unpleasant temperament) were indeed associated with pleasant/unpleasant temperament attributes. The pleasantness and dominance connoted by names enhanced the desirability of those names, whereas greater unpleasantness and submissiveness were connoted by more unique names.     

Susan Smiled: On Explanation in Family Therapy

The contemporary psychotherapist is exposed to a variety of conceptual models and paradigms. These are usually presented as opposing truths in different doctrinal schools, but actually they are all valid from one point of view or another. And, accordingly, they are all tactically useful at some point or another. I thought it was important to say this, but I did not want to write a dry, academic paper on the subject. So I will tell a clinical story that weaves the threads into a fabric.     

The contemptuous separation: Facial expressions of emotion and breakups in young adulthood

The importance of studying specific and expressed emotions after a stressful life event is well known, yet few studies have moved beyond assessing self‐reported emotional responses to a romantic breakup. This study examined associations between computer‐recognized facial expressions and self‐reported breakup‐related distress among recently separated college‐aged young adults (N = 135; 37 men) on four visits across 9 weeks. Participants' facial expressions were coded using the Computer Expression Recognition Toolbox while participants spoke about their breakups. Of the seven expressed emotions studied, only Contempt showed a unique association with breakup‐related distress over time. At baseline, greater Contempt was associated with less breakup‐related distress; however, over time, greater Contempt was associated with greater breakup‐related distress.