Luther and the Eucharistic Controversy

Luther wrote That These Words of Christ … Still Stand Firm to teach people what they should believe about the Lord's Supper and to refute the arguments of his opponents. Luther saw the devil as responsible for the rejection of Christ's substantial presence in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. The disagreement concerning the eucharist rested on the opposing exegesis of key Scripture texts and had implications for Christology and the understanding of the relationship between theology, science, and human reason. Luther believed that his opponents taught a heretical position that endangered people's souls, and so their ideas could not be tolerated.     

Predictors of Appraisal and Psychological Well-Being in Alzheimer's Disease Family Caregivers

The objective of this study was to test a model of stress, appraisal, and adaptation in 114 family caregivers of patients diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (white non-Hispanic, N = 64; Hispanic-American, N = 50). Results of structural equation analysis show that appraised caregiver burden played a central role in determining the psychological well-being of family caregivers. The findings indicate that this mediating variable, negative caregiver appraisal, was predicted by increased functional limitations and behavioral disturbances in the patient, poorer perceived physical health, and lower levels of perceived emotional support. Contrary to a priori hypotheses, functional limitations in the patient also exhibited a direct association with caregiver depression. Further, patient cognitive impairment and caregiver ethnicity were not related to caregiver appraisal. Overall, these results support the role of appraised burden in mediating the relationships between caregiving factors and the adaptational outcome of depression. The implications of these findings, limitations of the study, and future directions are discussed.     

Aural and Visual Sources of Validity in Structured Employment Interviews

This study tests effects of aural and visual cues on the validity of structured interviews. We recorded simulated job interviews with 40 managers from three utility companies on videotape. Supervisors provided performance ratings. Undergraduate research participants (N = 194) saw and heard the videotapes, heard them without the picture, or saw them without the sound and rated interviewees accordingly. Approximately 6 participants rated each interviewee in each condition of cue availability. Performance ratings and participants′ pooled ratings correlated .36 when they could hear and see the interviews, .33 when they could only hear the interviews, and .32 when they could only see the interviews. Interview ratings based on sight alone correlated .53 with interview ratings based on sound alone. One explanation is that aural cues, visual cues, and supervisory performance ratings all reflect true differences between interviewees in traits related to management effectiveness. Another is that interviewers and supervisors make the same mistakes when interpreting implications of aural cues and visual cues for management effectiveness.     

Imageability and body–object interaction ratings for 599 multisyllabic nouns

We collected imageability and body–object interaction (BOI) ratings for 599 multisyllabic nouns. We then examined the effects of these variables on a subset of these items in picture-naming, word-naming, lexical decision, and semantic categorization. Picture-naming latencies were taken from the International Picture-Naming Project database (Szekely, Jacobsen, D’Amico, Devescovi, Andonova, Herron, et al. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 247–250, 2004), word-naming and lexical decision latencies were taken from the English Lexicon Project database (Balota, Yap, Cortese, Hutchison, Kessler, Loftis, et al. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445–459, 2007), and we collected semantic categorization latencies. Results from hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that imageability and BOI separately accounted for unique latency variability in each task, even with several other predictor variables (e.g., print frequency, number of syllables and morphemes, age of acquisition) entered first in the analyses. These ratings should be useful to researchers interested in manipulating or controlling for the effects of imageability and BOI for multisyllabic stimuli in lexical and semantic tasks.     

Feedback Seeking Among Developmental Assessment Center Participants

This study examined 189 newly hired supervisors in the transportation industry who completed a developmental assessment center. The results showed that those who performed poorly in the assessment center, particularly on interpersonal dimensions, were less likely to initiate a scheduled feedback telephone call with an assigned coach. Implications and future research ideas are discussed.     

Gender Roles and Self-Esteem: A Consideration of Environmental Factors

Much empirical research has examined the psychological well-being of individuals with varying gender role orientations. This research has typically shown masculinity to be a strong correlate of self-esteem and femininity to be relatively unrelated to self-esteem. This research has often failed to consider the relative environmental influences impacting this process. This study examines the relationships of masculinity and femininity to self-esteem and environmental presses for each of these sets of behavioral characteristics. Results indicate a stronger press for masculine characteristics than feminine characteristics. The person-environment interaction suggests that a masculine environment may place women who are low in masculinity at particular risk for low self-esteem. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.     

Irrational beliefs and self-esteem: Predictors of depressive symptoms in children?

The role of self-esteem and irrational beliefs in predicting depressive symptoms in 965 children aged 8 to 13 years was investigated using multiple regression analysis. The results provided empirical support for a cognitive basis for depression in a large non-clinical sample. Three irrational beliefs together with self-esteem accounted for 28% of the variation in childhood depressive symptoms. For boys, 24% of variation in depressive symptoms was attributed to two irrational beliefs and self-esteem, whilst for girls 32% of variation was accounted for by three irrational beliefs and self-esteem. Global beliefs about self as a person were found to be predictive of depressive symptoms in conjunction with irrational beliefs. Therapeutic implications are discussed. Currently, Dr. Burnett is Senior Lecturer in Research Methods within the School of Learning and Development at the Queensland University of Technology as well as Director of the Research Concentration in Cognition in Learning and Development.