Faith-to-faith at the bedside: theological and ethical issues in ecumenical clinical chaplaincy.

Chaplains who serve in a clinical context often minister to patients representing a wide variety of faiths. In order to offer the best pastoral care possible, the chaplain should first possess a set of personal theological convictions as a foundation for ministry. Second, he or she needs to be sensitive to the beliefs and practices of the patients. Third, it is vital to develop a relationship of acceptance and trust not only with patients under their care, but also with family members and caregivers as well. At times, situations will arise that are purely religious or theological. In a clinical setting, however, the questions and problems that arise more often are both theological and ethical. It is beneficial for the chaplain to be involved in an ethics committee, where the specifics of each case can be discussed, and staff can offer counsel to patients and their families. This study examines issues that chaplains face at the bedside, such as terminal care, life-prolonging treatments, dementia, persistent vegetative state, and euthanasia-assisted suicide. We will discover that those who are involved in clinical pastoral ministry will be called upon to be a comforter, mediator, educator, ethicist, and counselor.     

Initial Reliability and Validity of the Life Satisfaction Scale for Problem Youth in a Sample of Drug Abusing and Conduct Disordered Youth

Responses to Life Satisfaction Scale for Problem Youth (LSSPY) items were examined in a sample of 193 substance abusing and conduct disordered adolescents. In responding to the LSSPY, youth endorse their percentage of happiness (0 to 100%) in twelve domains (i.e., friendships, family, school, employment/work, fun activities, appearance, sex life/dating, use of drugs, use of alcohol, money/material possessions, transportation, control of one's life). Results indicated that the LSSPY yielded three factor structures (i.e., Social Satisfaction, External Obligations Satisfaction, Substance Use Satisfaction), demonstrated good initial psychometric properties, and appears to be a useful instrument in the evaluation of treatment outcome in problem youth. Males were more satisfied in the Social and External Obligations domains than females, although no gender differences were indicated in Substance Use Satisfaction. Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic youths responded to LSSPY items similarly. Future directions are discussed in light of these results.     

You've got mail: Using e-mail to examine the effect of prejudiced attitudes on discrimination against Arabs

This study examined subtle forms of discrimination directed towards Arabs. Participants were sent a “lost” e-mail intended for someone else. The surname of the intended recipient was either of Arab or European descent. The e-mail stated the recipient was or was not awarded a prestigious 4-year scholarship, and that a response was required within 48 h. Participants had completed a measure of prejudiced attitudes toward Arab-Americans two weeks before they received the lost e-mail. In comparison to less prejudiced individuals, more prejudiced individuals were less likely to return a lost e-mail stating that an Arab had won a scholarship and were more likely to return a lost e-mail stating that an Arab had not won a scholarship.     

Combining standardized mean differences using the method of maximum likelihood

A maximum likelihood procedure for combining standardized mean differences based on a noncentratt-distribution is proposed. With a proper data augmentation technique, an EM-algorithm is developed. Information and likelihood ratio statistics are discussed in detail for reliable inference. Simulation results favor the proposed procedure over both the existing normal theory maximum likelihood procedure and the commonly used generalized least squares procedure.     

The “Fit” Model of Personal Control and Well-Being in Younger and Older Adults

The much studied concept of personal control has delineated separate constructs of perceived control (PC) and desired control (DC), with some findings suggesting a congruence between the two has more predictive power than considering either alone. The present study focuses on a comparison of PC and DC in two age groups. The congruence (or “fit”) model predicts that any disparity between these two constructs would be similar, regardless of age differences on either construct alone, for those who maintain a sense of well-being. Consistent with this model, although younger women reported significantly higher scores on measures of PC and DC than did older women, the groups reported equal degrees of congruence between PC and DC. In regression analysis, the congruence score also was a significant predictor of positive affect for the older group, suggesting that it is beneficial to make control adaptations with age.     

Teaching Engineering Ethics by Conceptual Design: The Somatic Marker Hypothesis

In 1998, a lead researcher at a Midwestern university submitted as his own a document that had 64 instances of strings of 10 or more words that were identical to a consultant’s masters thesis and replicated a data chart, all of whose 16 entries were identical to three and four significant figures. He was fired because his actions were wrong. Curiously, he was completely unable to see that his actions were wrong. This phenomenon is discussed in light of recent advances in neuroscience and used to argue for a change in the standard way engineering ethics is taught. I argue that engineering ethics is better taught in the form of a design course in order to maximize “somatic” learning.     

The implications of imperfect measurement for free-choice carry-over effects: Reply to M. Keith Chen’s (2008) “Rationalization and cognitive dissonance: Do choices affect or reflect preferences?”

Examinations of post-choice decision-making behavior often involve two successive choices. At time 1, participants choose between two equally attractive items. At time 2, participants choose between the unchosen item from time 1 and a new item that is roughly equal in attractiveness to the other two. The option rejected at time 1 will tend to again be rejected at time 2, a tendency often attributed to a psychological carry-over effect. Chen (2008) (Available from: http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d16b/d1669.pdf) discounts these psychological explanations. He argues that, given the time 1 choice, there is, in fact, a baserate probability of 66.7% that the initially unchosen item will be rejected again at time 2. However, Chen’s argument rests on the unwarranted assumption that the time 1 choice provides a perfectly reliable measure of subjects’ preference for the chosen item over the unchosen item. With more realistic estimates of the association between preference and choice, Chen’s statistical explanation cannot fully account for the carry-over effect. Alternative experimental methodologies that eliminate Chen’s statistical explanation are discussed.     

In pursuit of the proper null: Reply to

Chen argued that the proper null hypothesis for free-choice studies examining shifts in choice was 66.7%. Sagarin and Skowronki (2009) questioned the appropriateness of this value, noting that it was based on an unwarranted assumption that subjects always choose preferred options over less preferred options. In this paper, we respond to the points raised by Chen and Risen (2009), noting that: (a) violations of an additional unwarranted assumption (perfect transitivity) also move the proper null hypothesis towards 50%; (b) the validation of pretest measures would enable researchers to estimate an upper bound on the proper null; (c) the “blind” choice methodology proposed by Sagarin and Skowronski places the null unambiguously at 50%; and (d) Sagarin and Skowronski correctly call for null-hypothesis tests where needed. In the end, we again endorse the idea that this debate is best resolved empirically, but we believe the empirical avenues available are wider than those endorsed by Chen and Risen.     

Structural alterations of an ambiguous musical figure: The scale illusion revisited

The scale illusion (Deutsch, 1975) shows the importance of frequency range in the perceptual organization of a sequence of notes. This paper includes three experiments on the scale illusion. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that if the structure of the pattern of notes used in the original scale illusion study is altered slightly, by adding or subtracting a pair of notes from the ends of the sequence, there is a significant decrease in the rate of frequency-based responses, suggesting a weaker illusion. Experiment 3 investigated two features of the note patterns that may have led to this change. Specifically, it asked whether the decrease in the strength of the illusion is due to (1) the nature of the notes at the extremes of the frequency range and/or (2) the nature of the notes at the crossing point of the two scales. While both sources were found to affect the strength of the scale illusion, the former had a greater influence.