The role of religion in heart-transplant recipients' long-term health and well-being

While religion has long been recognized clinically to provide important coping strategies in the face of serious health problems, there has been little systematic consideration of its role in organ transplant recipients' long-term reactions and adjustment to this experience. This study examines these issues through qualitative and quantitative evaluation of longitudinal data collected from 40 adult heart recipients followed during their first year post-transplant. Large proportions of recipients expressed strong beliefs and were able to increase religious participation over the 12-month study period. They delineated specific ways in which their faith had provided them support, as well as ways in which the transplant experience itself further strengthened their beliefs. We found empirical evidence that recipients with strong beliefs who participated in religious activities had better physical and emotional well-being, fewer health worries, and better medical compliance by the final 12-month assessment. The findings suggest the development of specific nursing, social-service, or pastoral-involvement strategies, continuing staff education about the role of religion in patient care. The implications of such interventions for maximizing quality of life in transplant recipients are discussed.This study was funded by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health.     

Cerebral asymmetry in autonomic conditioning to facial expressions: Sex differences

In the present experiment, sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry during classical conditioning to emotional stimuli are reported. 125 subjects (62 females and 63 males) were shown a slide of a happy face in the right (or left) visual half field (VHF), and simultaneously a slide of an angry face in the left (or right) VHF. Eight groups were formed by the combination of male and female subjects; left and right VHF positions of the angry/happy faces; and the administration/omission of the shock unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Dependent measures were skin conductance responses recorded from both hands. The results during extinction showed a significant larger SCR magnitude to the shock compared to the no-shock groups only for the female subjects. CS position during conditioning was also important in revealing differential responding to either the happy or angry faces. A right hemisphere effect was found for the angry face CS for both the male and female subjects, however with a greater difference for the females.     

Recursive messages in quantitative communication

The article concerns quantitative messages as opposed to "classifying" messages described in traditional communication theory. Recursive statements are an important part of quantitative messages. The structure and function of recursive statements are analysed. The mathematical principle of recursion is briefly outlined and the article offers a general method of analysing quantitative communication in terms of simple computer simulation. The relationship between recursive and paradoxical communication is pointed out. Finally, the possible application of recursive messages in therapy is discussed.     

Adding a baby to the equation. married and cohabiting women's relationship satisfaction in the transition to parenthood

The trajectory of relationship satisfaction among married and cohabiting women in their transition to parenthood was compared in a potential sample of 71,504 women taking part in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Prospective longitudinal data were collected in 4 waves over a 2-year period starting 6 months prebirth. Results from latent curve models suggested that married and cohabiting women experience similar negative change in relationship satisfaction during the transition to parenthood. However, cohabiting women start off and stay less satisfied throughout the transition period, suggesting the presence of a negative cohabitation effect that prevailed after controlling for various covariates. Extending investigation on the cohabitation effect to the transition to parenthood, and replicating it in a Scandinavian context, is discussed in relation to the understanding of what causes the cohabitation effect, and its clinical implications.     

The revenge of the Jinns: spirits, Salafi reform, and the continuity in change in contemporary Ethiopia

The point of departure for this article is a story about jinns taking revenge upon people who have abandoned earlier religious practices. It is a powerful account of their attempt to free themselves from a past viewed as inhabited by evil forces and about the encounter between contemporary Salafi reformism and a presumed disappearing religious universe. It serves to prove how a novel version of Islam has superseded former practices; delegitimized and categorized as belonging to the past. The story is, however, also an important source and an interesting entry-point to examine the continued relevance of past practices within processes of reform. Analyzing the story about the jinns and the trajectory of Salafi reform in Bale, this contribution demonstrates how the past remains intersected with present reformism, and how both former practices and novel impetuses are reconfigured through this process. The article pays attention to the dialectics of negotiations inherent to processes of reform and points to the manner in which the involvement of a range of different actors produces idiosyncratic results. It challenges notions of contemporary Islamic reform as something linear and fixed and argues that such processes are multifaceted and open-ended.     

Differences in cognitive control in children and adolescents with combined and inattentive subtypes of ADHD

The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder-combined subtype (ADHD-C) and predominantly inattentive subtype (ADHD-PI) to direct their attention and to exert cognitive control in a forced attention dichotic listening (DL) task. Twenty-nine, medication-naive participants with ADHD-C, 42 with ADHD-PI, and 40 matched healthy controls (HC) between 9 and 16 years were assessed. In the DL task, two different auditory stimuli (syllables) are presented simultaneously, one in each ear. The participants are asked to report the syllable they hear on each trial with no instruction on focus of attention or to explicitly focus attention and to report either the right- or left-ear syllable. The DL procedure is presumed to reflect different cognitive processes: perception (nonforced condition/NF), attention (forced-right condition/FR), and cognitive control (forced-left condition/FL). As expected, all three groups had normal perception and attention. The children and adolescents with ADHD-PI showed a significant right-ear advantage also during the FL condition, while the children and adolescents in the ADHD-C group showed a no-ear advantage and the HC showed a significant left-ear advantage in the FL condition. This suggests that the ADHD subtypes differ in degree of cognitive control impairment. Our results may have implications for further conceptualization, diagnostics, and treatment of ADHD subtypes.     

The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes

Sörqvist, P. & Sætrevik, B. (2010). The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 357–362. Most previous studies of updating processes have not been able to contrast processes of substituting items in memory with other concurrent processes. In the present investigation, we used a new task called “number updating” and an fMRI protocol to contrast the activation of trials that require item substitution (adding a new item to the working memory representation and suppressing an old item) with trials that involve no substitution (discarding the new item). Trials that require item substitution activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the posterior medial frontal cortex and the parietal lobes, areas typically seen activated for working memory tasks in general. Trials that do not require substitution activated the anterior medial frontal cortex. Studies examining executive functions have associated this area with cognitive conflict, and may represent suppression of the substitution processes.     

Psychometric properties of the Type D scale (DS14) in Norwegian cardiac patients

Bergvik, S., Sørlie, T., Wynn, R. & Sexton, H. (2010). Psychometric properties of the Type D scale (DS14) in Norwegian cardiac patients. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. The combination of negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI) – the Type D Personality – is associated with poor outcomes in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. A Norwegian translation of the standard instrument measuring Type D (DS14) was tested on 432 CAD patients receiving coronary revascularization treatment. Factor analysis produced two factors with high inter‐item reliability, indicating that the Norwegian DS14 has acceptable psychometric properties. Eighteen percent were classified as Type D, lower than has been reported elsewhere. Type D was associated with anxiety, depression, and passive coping. NA correlated positively with depression, anxiety, and passive coping. SI correlated positively with depression and anxiety, and negatively with active coping. The prevalence of Type D was higher among women, and negatively correlated with time since treatment. The variation in Type D prevalence among studies needs further elucidation as does the predictive power of continuous scoring of the Type D trait.