The importance of religiosity and values in predicting political attitudes: Evidence for the continuing importance of religiosity in Flanders (Belgium)

It has often been argued that religions influence political attitudes only indirectly by their influence on the value system of believers. This value system, in turn, is supposed to be used as a guideline in forming political attitudes. Thus, in this view, it should be sufficient to focus on value orientations if one wants to examine religion's influence on political attitudes. However, results of this study among first year psychology students (n=389), show that although value orientations hold greater predictive strength than religiosity towards political attitudes in Flanders (Belgium), religiosity, even apart from values, does provide additional information in predicting political attitudes. Thus, our results suggest that, at least in Flanders, religion, even apart from values, is still a politically important force. The most important value types, as measured by the Schwartz' Value Inventory (Schwartz, 1992), and religiosity dimensions, as measured by the Post-Critical Belief scale (Desimpelaere et al., 1999), associated with political attitudes were identified. Results show that each political attitude included in this study (economic conservatism, cultural conservatism, racism and nationalism) is predicted by a more or less unique pattern of religiosity dimensions and value orientations.     

Inefficacy interim monitoring procedures in randomized clinical trials: the need to report

If definitive evidence concerning treatment effectiveness becomes available from an ongoing randomized clinical trial, then the trial could be stopped early, with the public release of results benefiting current and future patients. However, stopping an ongoing trial based on accruing outcome data requires methodological rigor to preserve validity of the trial conclusions. This has led to the use of formal interim monitoring procedures, which include inefficacy monitoring that will stop a trial early when the experimental treatment appears not to be working. For participants, inefficacy monitoring is especially important as it ensures that they are not being treated worse than if they had not enrolled on the trial. We discuss the importance of reporting with trial results the formal interim inefficacy monitoring guidelines that were utilized, and, if none were used, the reasons for their absence. A survey of two leading medical journals suggests that this is not current practice.     

Examining the Relationships Between Personality,Coping Strategies,and Work–Family Conflict

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to examine the processes through which personality characteristics may influence work–family conflict (WFC). Specifically, the mediating effects of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) behavioral stress-coping strategies on the relationship between personality characteristics and WFC were tested.     

Is interoceptive awareness really altered in somatoform disorders? Testing competing theories with two paradigms of heartbeat perception

Alterations in the perception of body signals (i.e., interoceptive awareness [IA]) are considered crucial for the development and maintenance of somatoform disorders (SFDs). However, competing theories come to different conclusions about whether IA is increased or decreased in SFDs. The present study investigated IA in 23 patients with SFDs (as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition) and in 27 healthy controls. IA was reliably assessed with two well-established heartbeat perception paradigms (heartbeat discrimination task and mental tracking task). The results of both paradigms showed no evidence for increased IA in patients with SFDs. Correlational analyses revealed that having a higher number of somatoform symptoms was significantly linked to lower (rather than higher) IA in SFDs. These findings are in line with recent cognitive approaches to SFDs that stress the importance of biased schema-guided processing of interoceptive information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Adding part-of-speech information to the SUBTLEX-US word frequencies

The SUBTLEX-US corpus has been parsed with the CLAWS tagger, so that researchers have information about the possible word classes (parts?\of?\speech, or PoSs) of the entries. Five new columns have been added to the SUBTLEX-US word frequency list: the dominant (most frequent) PoS for the entry, the frequency of the dominant PoS, the frequency of the dominant PoS relative to the entry??s total frequency, all PoSs observed for the entry, and the respective frequencies of these PoSs. Because the current definition of lemma frequency does not seem to provide word recognition researchers with useful information (as illustrated by a comparison of the lemma frequencies and the word form frequencies from the Corpus of Contemporary American English), we have not provided a column with this variable. Instead, we hope that the full list of PoS frequencies will help researchers to collectively determine which combination of frequencies is the most informative.     

Book reviews

Freud and his Early Circle: The Struggles of Psycho-Analysis. By Vincent Brome. London: W. Heinemann Ltd. 1967. Pp. xii+275. 63s.

Fundamentals of Measurement (Second Edition). By N. M. Downie. New York: Oxford University Press. 1967. Pp. xiii + 482. 52s.

Psychological Measurement and Prediction. By Paul Horst. Belmont, California: Wadsworth. London: Prentice-Hall, 1967. Pp. vii + 455. 72s.

Attention and Performance. Edited by A. F. Sanders. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co. 1967. Pp. xii + 452. £6.

Sensory Inhibition. By Georg von Bekesy. London: Oxford University Press; Princeton University Press. 1968. Pp. x + 1265. £4 Is.

Ellements of Psychophysics, Volume I. By Gustav Fechner. Transhlated by Helmut E. Adler. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Inc. 1966. Pp. xxxi + 286. 56s.

Human Information Processing. By Lawrence J. Fogel. London: Prentice-Hall. 1968. Pp. Ix + 420. 70s.

Vision and the Eye. By M. H. Pirenne. 2nd Edition. London: Chapman & Hall; New York: Barnes & Noble. 1967. Pp. xvi + 224. Hardback 50s. Paperback 25s.

The Human Operator in Complex Systems. Edited by W. T. Singleton, R. S. Easterby and D. Whitfield. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd. Pp. xx + 198. 57s. 6d. Also published as Vol. Io, No. 2, of the Journal Ergonomics.

Behavior. An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. By John B. Watson. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1967. Pp. xxi + 439. $dollar;7.95.

The Psychology of Communication. By George A. Miller. London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press. 1968. Pp. vii + 197. 35s.     

Spatial-frequency-contingent color aftereffects: Adaptation with one-dimensional stimuli

The McCollough effect was shown to be spatial-frequency selective by Lovegrove and Over (1972) after adaptation with vertical colored square-wave gratings separated by 1 octave. Adaptation with slide-presented red and green vertical square-wave gratings separated by 1 octave failed to produce contingent color aftereffects (CAEs).However, when each of these gratings was adapted alone, strong CAEs were produced. Adaptation with vertical colored sine-wave gratings separated by 1 octave also failed to produce CAEs, but strong effects were produced by adaptation with each grating alone. By varying the spatial frequency of the test sine wave, CAEs were found to be tuned for spatial frequency at 2.85 octaves after adaptation of 4 cycles per degree (cpd) and at 2.30 octaves after adaptation of 8 cpd. Adaptation of both vertical and horizontal sine-wave gratings produced strong CAEs, with bandwidths ranging from 1.96 to 2.90 octaves and with lower adapting contrast producing weaker CAEs. These results indicate that the McCollough effect is more broadly tuned for spatial frequency than are simple adaptation effects.     

Book Reviews

S idoli , M ara and B ovensiepen , G ustav (eds). Incest Fantasies and Self-Destructive Acts: Jungian and Post-Jungian Psychotherapy in Adolescence
S tevens , A nthony . Private Myths, Dreams and Dreaming
K ast , V erena . Imagination as Space of Freedom: Dialogue Between the Ego and the Unconscious
S egal R obert A. (ed.). The Allure of Gnosticism: The Gnostic Experience in Jungian Psychology and Contemporary Culture
E dinger , E dward F. The Eternal Drama: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology
H illman , J ames . Healing fiction
K napp , B ettina L. Manna and Mystery: A Jungian approach to Hebrew Myth and Legend
B lÉandonu , G Érard . Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works, 1897–1979
B roadribb , D onald . The Mystical Chorus: Jung and the Religious Dimension
S ymington , N. Emotion and Spirit: Questioning the Claims of Psychoanalysis and Religion
N egri , R. The Newborn in the Intensive Care Unit: A Neuropsychoanalytic Prevention Model
E arly , E mmett . The Raven's Return: The Influence of Psychological Trauma on Individuals and Culture     

Book reviews

G uggenbÜhl -C raig , A dolf . From the Wrong Side: A Paradoxical Approach to Psychotherapy
Z oja , L uigi . Growth and Guilt: Psychology and the Limits of Development
L angs , R obert . Doing Supervision and Being Supervised
S chaverien , J oy . Desire and the Female Therapist: Engendered Gazes in Psychotherapy and Art Therapy
P arker , R ozsika . Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence
K awai , H ayao . Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan
P riestley , M ary . Essays on Analytical Music Therapy