Engineering academic performance with selective retrieval: the benefits of implied ability

Research on retrieval fluency suggests that, under different recall constraints, recalling past failures might be as effective as past successes for engineering task performance. In the current study, students recalling three instances of academic success correctly answered more items on a knowledge task than those recalling nine instances. Other students, asked to recall nine instances of failure, answered more items correctly than those recalling three failures and more than those recalling nine successes. This pattern was partially mediated by the assessments of one's ability as compared with other students. The results are interpreted as extending previous research in retrieval fluency by suggesting that the ease of retrieving task‐related instances informs individuals about their comparative ability that, in turn, influences performance.     

Group Therapy Abroad

Abstract

Writing in a narrative tradition, the authors report on the 14th and final convening of the Boston-Threshold Group–sponsored annual Northern Ireland Group Psychotherapy Conference. “It Can Be Done: The Power of the Group to Bear the Unbearable.” They provide context and leadership perspectives on the history of the conference and the planning of its final meeting. Associations to the opening plenary presentation of the play Rounding Third, by Richard Dresser, as performed by the Red Well Theater Group, link themes of power sharing, trauma, containment, and hope to the here-and-now experience of the conference participants. Personal meanings attributed to the conference tradition and its ending are shared.     

The Search for Mathematical Creativity: Identifying Creative Potential in Middle School Students

The identification of creative potential in mathematics poses many challenges. Much of the research into the identification of mathematical creativity has focused on the development of measurement instruments. Scoring of these instruments is time consuming and subject to scorer interpretation, limiting their use. This study sought a simpler means to obtain indicators of creative potential in mathematics. Existing instruments were used to explore the relationship between mathematical creativity and mathematical achievement, attitude towards mathematics, self-perception of creative ability, gender, and teacher perception of mathematical talent and creative ability. Data were gathered from 89 7th graders in a suburban Connecticut school. The regression model predicted 35% of the variance in mathematical creativity scores. Mathematical achievement was the strongest predictor accounting for 23% of the variance. Student attitudes towards mathematics, self-perception of their own creative abilities, and gender contributed the remaining 12% of variance. Interpretation of the relative importance of the independent variables was complicated by correlations among them.     

Sadhu Sundar Singh and his critics: An episode in the meeting of East and West

Robert Alun Jones, The Secret of the Totem: Religion and Society from McLennan to Freud. New York, Columbia University Press, 2005, 347 pp. £32/$49.50, ISBN 0 231 13438 X.

Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, 392 pp., $38.50/$25.50, ISBN 0 8122 3764 1.

Laurence Coupe, Kenneth Burke on Myth. New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, xivD206 pp., $85, ISBN 0 415 93640 3.

Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Sacred Geography: Shamanism Among the Buddhist Peoples of Russia. Bibliotheca Shamanistica, vol. 12. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó , 2004, xivD323 pp., $87.89, ISBN 963 05 81140.

Jeanne Shami, John Donne and Conformity in Crisis in the Late Jacobean Pulpit. Cambridge, Brewer, 2003, xD318 pp., $85, ISBN 0 85991 789 4.

Gavin Flood, The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, xiiiD288 pp., $75.00 (hardback), ISBN 0 521 84338 3, $29.99 (paperback), ISBN 0 521 60401 X.     

A common whore and her relations

This paper engages in a critical discussion of Wouter Hanegraaff's book Western Esotericism and the Academy (2012), acknowledging its importance but also focusing on some points that appear problematic. Particular attention is given to the concept of ‘Platonic Orientalism,’ the concept of ‘form of thought,’ and the theoretical basis for a satisfactory etic definition of ‘Western esotericism.’ Hanegraaff claims that his book offers a solid argument for understanding Western esotericism ‘ultimately’ as a ‘historiographical concept,’ rather than as a ‘form of thought.’ This claim is questioned in the paper.     

Dialogue and faith

‘Dialogue’ between members of differing traditions is nowadays replacing polemics, debate, and monologue preaching of traditional missionary policy. Terms in which it can be conducted have not yet, however, been widely found. It will be illuminating to discover whether among diverse groups conversation in the terms propounded here could prove fruitful, or at least mutually intelligible. This will be a highly significant test of the theory, expecially in view of the possible importance of this activity for the world's future religious development.1 W. Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Mentor ed. New York 1964), p. 177.      

THE BRUNO KLOPFER,WALTER G. KLOPFER,AND MARTIN MAYMAN AWARDS

The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test was administered to 190 eleven-year-old, sixth grade children (86 boys, 104 girls) by students under the supervision of the author. Means and standard deviations for the outgoing and incoming, positive and negative, categories were calculated for ‘Father’, ‘Mother’, ‘Nobody’, ‘Next Oldest Sibling’ and ‘Next Youngest Sibling’, boys and girls being treated separately. The ‘norms’ for boys are compared with “clinic”, “delinquent” and “non-reading” groups. Some important and statistically significant differences are noted between these groups.     

Intelligence is associated with criminal justice processing: Arrest through incarceration

Findings flowing from empirical research consistently indicate that IQ is associated with criminal involvement, with persons of relatively lower IQ being more likely to engage in various types of crime when compared with persons of relatively higher IQ. As with all research, however, there are a number of limitations with the existing literature that may bias the IQ–crime connection in unknown ways. Specifically, previous research has generally analyzed sub-samples drawn from non-nationally representative samples, has relied on a narrow range of criminal justice measures, has not fully examined whether the IQ–crime link is observed across demographic subgroups, and has not always ruled out the effects of potential confounds. The current study is designed to overcome the most serious of these limitations and offer new evidence of the link between IQ and criminal involvement. Analysis of data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) provides strong evidence indicating that IQ and crime are linked even after addressing various shortcomings of previous research. Limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are offered.