A Comprehensive Decision Approach for Rubber Tree Planting Management in Africa

The main objective of this study is to settle a rigorous field of decision analysis for rubber tree clones selection. Nowadays, there does not exist any process based upon a rigorous method to select the best clone to be plant in order to get the highest return on investment. The only known selection method is to use the experience of different protagonists acting in the plantation. So, we need a tool that takes into account very important criteria in order to achieve the main objective. This goal is achieved by using multicriterion analysis methods to the clone selection. The ranking procedure uses Elimination and Choice Expressing the Reality (ELECTRE III). For each criterion, indifference and preference thresholds are determined after establishing the relative importance of each criterion including rubber tapping, cumulative production during 15 years, cumulative production between 15 and 25 years, wind resistance, disease resistance, physiological resistance, grafting and quality of the rubber. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional reactions to scandals: When does moral character make a difference?

A scandal can evoke public outrage when it is widely publicized and involves an individual who is perceived to have a high level of cultural representativeness. Two experiments showed that when the scandalous target's moral character was highlighted, emotional responses towards the target were least negative when the scandal was widely circulated and when the target was seen as a representative of his culture. These results suggest that when a cultural symbol is implicated in a widely‐circulated scandal, the negative emotions directed towards the scandalous individual can be alleviated when the public remains confident in his or her commitment to morality.     

Awakening: Career Opportunities After the Storm

Immediately following natural disasters, basic needs are provided; however, the long‐term needs of individuals are neglected. The narrative approach (Brott, 2001; Cochran, 1997) to career counseling is offered as a method to assist survivors of natural disasters to tell their story and create new meaning related to their career paths.     

Embodied Cultural Cognition: Situating the Study of Embodied Cognition in Socio‐Cultural Contexts

Embodiment research has demonstrated that cognition is grounded in bodily interactions with the environment and that abstract concepts are tied to the body’s sensory and motor systems. Building upon this embodiment perspective and advancing our understanding, we discuss the extension of embodied cultural cognition. We propose that some associations between bodily experiences and abstract concepts are not randomly formed; rather, the development of such associations is situated in a socio‐cultural context, informed by cultural imperatives, values, and habits. We draw evidence supporting this view of embodied cultural cognition in body–mind linkages manifested in construal of emotions, time perception, person perception, social power, and moral reasoning. To further extend this research avenue that synthesizes the studies of embodied cognition and culture, we also suggest potential future research directions inspired by this view. This embodied cultural cognition account is useful in understanding and organizing accumulating discoveries of cultural variations in embodiments; it also highlights the social situatedness of embodied cognition and is, therefore, highly compatible with theorizing and research in social and cultural psychology.     

The role of encoding strategies in the verbal memory performance in patients with schizophrenia

Background. Verbal learning and memory is often compromised in patients with schizophrenia who prefer encoding words in order of their presentation (serial clustering) rather than using semantic categories (semantic clustering). Method. One hundred and four in‐patients with schizophrenia were assessed twice with the California Verbal Learning Test. Results. Patients showed significantly less semantic than serial clustering at both assessment times. Usage of encoding strategies were not stable over time. An increase in semantic clustering improved recall and recognition performance. Conclusions. Patients with schizophrenia should be taught to use the more effective encoding strategy of semantic clustering in order to improve their memory performance.     

Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach

This paper contests traditional psychological understandings of resilience through reference to a research project exploring resilience in the lives of disabled people. The paper briefly historically locates individualistic accounts of resilience (which have often been unhelpful in the lives of disabled people) and then moves into more recent social constructionist theories of this phenomenon. This latter perspective necessarily locates resilience in a network of resources including material resources, relationships, identity, bodies and minds, power and control, community participation, community cohesion and social justice. We argue that the recognition of resilience as a relational product is important and in tune with attempts to make psychology less an individualistic encounter and more a community intervention. However, disabled people, their politics and the development of critical disability studies, contest and challenge normative ideas of what it means to live with a resilient network of resources. In this sense disability offers new and exciting ways of addressing resilience.     

Tobacco use and health in young adulthood

In this prospective longitudinal study, the authors investigated the association between lifetime tobacco use and subsequent health problems by age 30. The authors interviewed a community group of 749 participants from upstate New York at mean ages of 14, 16, 22, and 27 years. Daily tobacco use during any of the time periods, as well as the number of periods of daily tobacco use, were significantly associated with increased risk for respiratory ailments, neurobehavioral and cognitive problems, and general malaise. The results suggested that daily tobacco use, either during childhood, adolescence, the early 20s, or a combination of those times, predicted health problems by age 30. Effective smoking prevention programs that begin in childhood are imperative to prevent the occurrence of later health problems.     

Smoking among New Yorican adolescents: time 1 predictors of time 2 tobacco use

The authors identified longitudinal relationships between early risk and protective factors from the domains of family, personality, and peer influences and later tobacco use in Puerto Rican adolescents living in New York. Aspects of the ethnic minority experience as moderators of familial risk and protective factors were investigated. Participants were 282 female and 276 male Puerto Rican adolescents interviewed twice, 5 years apart. The authors used hierarchical regression analyses to identify a model with direct and indirect paths. Family, personality, peer, and early smoking domains were directly related to later adolescent smoking. Partial mediation occurred. The authors identified risk-protective and protective-protective interactions between variables from the ethnic minority experience and family domains. Interventions to reduce smoking among Puerto Rican adolescents should focus on multiple contexts, including aspects of the ethnic minority experience.     

Ethnicity, Culture, and Group Psychotherapy

Ethnicity and culture have great therapeutic import in the practice of group psychotherapy, especially given the increasing diversity of the population of North America, and this issue has not received appropriate recognition in the literature. In this paper these terms are defined, and the literature is reviewed. Ethnicity, culture, and psychopathology are discussed, focusing on treatment issues including transference, countertransference, resistance, group cohesion, group process, and multi-ethnic groups. The group therapist must be knowledgeable about ethnic and cultural issues in the lives of the group members in order to promote group cohesion and therapeutic effectiveness. The recognition and exploration of ethnic/cultural differences enhances the work of the group. Recommendations for treatment are discussed.     

Book reviews

The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Rodney Stark, 1996 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press xiv + 247 pp., US$24.95, £16.95 ISBN 0–691–02749–8

Church Watch: Christianity in the Countryside. Leslie J. Francis, 1996 London: SPCK 248 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04951–3

Strategic Church Leadership. Robin Gill & Derek Burke, 1996 London: SPCK vii + 96 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04901–7

’Nice When They Are Young’: Contemporary Christianity in Families and Schools. Mairi Levitt, 1996 Aldershot: Avebury viii +171 pp., £32.50 ISBN 1–85972–388–8

Die Sekten‐Kinder. Kurt‐Helmuth Eimuth, 1996 Freiburg: Herder Verlag 239 pp., DM 19.80 (pb) ISBN 3–451–04397–1

The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama Explores the Heart of Christianity—and of Humanity. H.H. The Dalai Lama, 1997. London: Rider xiv + 207pp., £9.99 (pb) ISBN 0–7126–7275–3

Scientists as Theologians: A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke & John Polkinghome. John Polkinghorne, 1996 London: SPCK 95 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04945–9

Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Dinesh Bhugra, ed., 1996 London, New York: Routledge 236 pp., £50.00, US$65.00 ISBN 0–415–08955–7 (hb)

Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions. Peggy Morgan & Clive Lawton, eds, 1996 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 278 pp., £14.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7486–0709–9

Religious Institutions and Women's Leadership: New Roles Inside the Mainstream. Catherine Wessinger, ed., 1996 Columbia: University of South Carolina Press x +434 pp., US$24.95 ISBN 1–57003–073–1

Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. June Campbell, 1996 London: Athlone Press 225 pp., £17.95 ISBN 0–485–11494–1

Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin America, Catholicism in Eastern Europe. David Martin, 1996 London: SPCK 96 pp., £7.99 ISBN 0–281–04999–8

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Soviet State (1939–1950) Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, 1996 Edmonton, Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press 310 pp., Ca$39.95(hb) ISBN 1–895571–12‐X

Qur'an, Liberation & Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression. Farid Esack, 1997 Oxford: Oneworld Publications xii + 288 pp., 3 Appendices + Glossary + Bibliography; £14.99, US$22.95 ISBN 1–85168–121–3

A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: The Silent Revolution Studies in Religion and Society Volume 34 Pink Dandelion, 1996 Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press xxxiv +417 pp., £59.95 ISBN 0–7734–8807–3

Counting the Days to Armageddon: The Jehovah's Witnesses and The Second Presence of Christ Robert Crompton, 1996 Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 160 pp., £22.50 ISBN 0–2276–7939

Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft. James R. Lewis, ed., 1996 Albany, NY: State of New York University Press vi + 423 pp., US$19.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7914–2890–7

The Divine Versus The Asurian: An Interpretation of Indo‐European Cult and Myth. Michael York, 1995 Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications 635 pp., US$94.95 ISBN 1–57309–029–8