Religiosity and psychological distress among blacks

The influence of religion on mental well-being has been the subject of controversy for a long while. Yet little is known about this relationship among black Americans. Using a probability-based sample of 451 urban black Americans, this study examines gender differences in religiosity and explores the ramifications for mental health. Findings indicate that females are more religious than males as evidenced by their greater participation in organizational forms of religious practice such as meetings and other gatherings. However, for both males and females, religiosity varied significantly by age and by marital and parental status. On the other hand, there were no differences in religiosity according to levels of education, income, and employment status for either males or females. With regard to mental health, greater religiosity was associated with fewer depressive symptoms for both males and females. Further, in the event of stressful circumstances, the influence of religion on mental well-being for females was direct, while religious involvement appeared to have an indirect or stress- buffering effect for males.     

A latent-trait based reliability estimate and upper bound

An estimate and an upper-bound estimate for the reliability of a test composed of binary items is derived from the multidimensional latent trait theory proposed by Bock and Aitkin (1981). The estimate derived here is similar to internal consistency estimates (such as coefficient alpha) in that it is a function of the correlations among test items; however, it is not a lowerbound estimate as are all other similar methods.An upper bound to reliability that is less than unity does not exist in the context of classical test theory. The richer theoretical background provided by Bock and Aitkin's latent trait model has allowed the development of an index (called here) that is always greater-than or equal-to the reliability coefficient for a test (and is less-than or equal-to one). The upper bound estimate of reliability has practical uses—one of which makes use of the greatest lower bound.     

A model for police officer burnout

This article presents an empirically derived model of police officer burnout based on 199 male police officers. A brief review of research on police officer stress is also provided.This chapter is a summary of research conducted by Dr. Alan M. Goodman for his doctoral dissertation entitledA Model for Police Officer Burnout, June 1983, California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego.Alan M. Goodman, Ph.D. obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego, California. In addition, Dr. Goodman is a School Psychologist and is a consultant to several school districts in Southern California. Dr. Goodman has been employed in both inpatient and outpatient mental health settings. Most recently, Dr. Goodman has been a Registered Psychologist at Catholic Community Services in San Diego where he conducted individual, conjoint and family therapy sessions for a varied socioeconomic population, including city service personnel.Dr. Goodman has conducted extensive observations of police officers on the job through the Ride-A-Long program in which non-police personnel may accompany police officers on a particular shift of duty. In addition, he has consulted with numerous police chiefs regarding the various high-risk factors for those police officers who may be experiencing burnout and stress. In addition, intervention strategies in order to alleviate these feelings were discussed with these officials.     

Characteristics and treatment of batterers

This article summarizes the substantial research conducted in the last decade concerning the characteristics of batterers. While certain characteristics appear to be associated with these abusers, no specific profile has emerged. Treatment programs have focused on anger management, improving communication, improving self-esteem, changing beliefs, and stress management, but research has not determined the effectiveness of these programs. Various approaches for treating abusers are presented in this article, including psychoeducational groups for batterers and conjoint therapy for couples. The legal system's use of diversion programs for referral/sentencing of batterers is also discussed as an important method for reducing spouse abuse.     

The effects of spatial phase on reaction time to spatially filtered images

Summary Many studies of visual perception have used periodic stimuli such as sine-wave gratings and checker-board patterns. It is well known that reaction time (RT) to such stimuli increases with increasing spatial frequency and decreasing contrast. While this is the case with periodic stimuli it is not clear that these relationships obtain for aperiodic stimuli such as natural scenes. A digitized image of an object (a vase) was submitted to two-dimensional Fourier analysis. Four pairs of spatial frequency band-limited images were created for each image. Each pair consisted of a normal-phase (NP) and a scrambled-phase (SP) version, with the magnitude spectrum and space-averaged luminance the same within each pair. Filter band-widths were 1 octave wide. Manual RT was measured for onset and offset of each spatially filtered image. Mean RT for SP images increased significantly with increasing spatial frequency, while no other significant differences were found with the NP images. This suggests that the temporal processing of complex, aperiodic images is influenced by the spatial frequency and contrast of local regions within the image, rather than by the space-averaged contrast of the entire image, and cannot be predicted by global estimates of contrast and spatial frequency.     

Research note: Peak velocity timing invariance

Summary Subjects used arm movements to move a dot on a visual display into a predefined target area. Measures of the peak velocity values and the timing of the peaks were taken for the initial (preplanned) and the immediately subsequent (corrective) phases of movement. In both phases the value of the maximum velocity depended on task parameters such as amplitude. However, the time of the peak of each phase relative to its onset was invariant. Some implications of these observations for the nature of motor programs are discussed.     

“Girl,” “woman,” “guy,” “man”: The effects of sexist labeling

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of sexist labeling. Sixty males and 60 females were asked to evaluate an artist and a series of paintings on a variety of cognitive and affective measures. For half the subjects, the artist was identified as a male with either a high status label (man), a low status label (guy), or a neutral label (person); for the other half of the subjects, the artist was identified as a female with either a high status label (woman), a low status label (girl), or a neutral label (person). The findings indicated that for the female artist, the low and high status labels had an equally negative effect on subjects' judgments; for the male artist, the low and high status labels had an equally positive effect on subjects' judgments. There were no significant differences between male and female subjects. The social and psychological implications of the findings are discussed.The present study is based in part on a paper presented at the meetings of the Western Psychological Association held in San Diego, California, April 1979, in collaboration with Ms. Julie Horowitz.     

TV commercials as achievement scripts for women

This study suggests that sex stereotypes implicitly enacted, but never explicitly articulated, in TV commercials may inhibit women's achievement aspirations. Men and women (N=180) viewed locally produced replicas of four current, sex-stereotyped commercials, or four replicas that were identical except that the sex roles were reversed, or (control) named their favorite TV programs. All subjects then wrote an essay imagining their lives “10 years from now.” The essays were coded for achievement and homemaking themes. Women who viewed traditional commercials deemphasized achievement in favor of homemaking, compared to men and compared to women who had seen reversed role commercials. The reversed role commercials eliminated the sex difference in net achievement focus. Control subjects were indistinguishable from their same-sex counterparts in the traditional condition. The results identified some social changes needed to make “equality of opportunity” a social reality for women as well as men.     

Measuring the effects of demand characteristics on the Beck Depression Inventory responses of college students

To determine whether Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) responses could be influenced by an instructional set or by changing the item order, 198 college students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: instructions designed to facilitate or inhibit responding, along with standard vs. reordered symptom questions. A 2×2 ANCOVA found a main effect only for the inhibitory message. The suppression of scores by the inhibitor instructional set suggests caution regarding possible demand characteristics when using the BDI with this population and should be further studied with clinically symptomatic samples.     

Cognitive abilities and left-handedness: An interaction between familial sinistrality and strength of handedness

The present study demonstrates that there are substantial differences in cognitive ability between different subsets of left-handers. The verbal and mathematical Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of 86 left-handed undergraduates were examined as a function of familial sinistrality, strength of left-handedness, and sex. The results revealed that there was an interaction between familial sinistrality and strength of handedness in terms of aptitude: for the weakly to moderately left-handed there was no relationship between familial sinistrality and performance, whereas for the strongly left-handed a positive history of familial sinistrality (FS+) was associated with significantly lower aptitude when compared with subjects without a history of familial sinistrality (FS−). In addition, the strongly left-handed FS− group was superior to the other three groups, particularly in verbal aptitude.