En-Gendering the Couple-Deity Relationship: Clinical Implications of Power and Process

Spiritual practices are increasingly accommodated by therapists working with religious couples. While research documents potential benefits, spiritual practices such as prayer may invoke an interpretive couple-God relationship distorted by pathogenic processes in one or both spouses. A survey administered to 78 religious couples examined the influence of power/gender as it relates to couples’ harmful triangulation with Deity. Results suggest that harmful triangulation with Deity does occur to some degree in couple relationships, that there are significant differences by gender, and that spouses’ tendencies to triangulate are correlated with one another. We discuss these results from a systemic-feminist perspective, and offer some clinical applications for working with religious couples.

Ego-involving and frame of reference effects of tracking on elementary school students’ motivational orientations and help seeking in math class

The author extrapolated from both achievement goal and reference group theories to predict that relative to untracked settings, tracking (a) highlights the importance of ability relative to others and will thus increase students’ ego orientations and reluctance to ask the teacher for help and (b) creates different contexts for social comparison and will thus undermine help seeking among high achievers but may enhance help seeking among low achievers. A quasi-experimental study compared students at ages 10–12 in elementary schools that either tracked students only in math (N  =  337) or did not track students in any subject (N  =  594). Students completed self-report measures of achievement goals and help seeking in math class. Results confirmed that, over all levels of ability, tracking increased ego and work avoidance goals and did not affect task goals. Tracking undermined help seeking among high achievers, but did not enhance help seeking among low achievers. In addition to revealing some hitherto unstudied costs of tracking, the results highlight the importance of considering grouping practices in research on student motivation and strategies and of applying theory and research on student motivation to understanding the influences of tracking.

Reconnecting to Spirituality: Christian-Identified Adolescents and Emerging Adult Young Men’s Journey from Diagnosis of HIV to Coping

Spirituality is important to holistic health, yet little is known about its impact on young people with HIV. To address this knowledge deficit, a grounded theory study used semi-structured interviews of 20 Christian-identified adolescent and emerging adult gay males and one perinatally infected male. This study revealed that, to cope with HIV health issues, participants used a process of reconnecting with their spirituality. In order to successfully reconnect with their spirituality, study participants reported a need to re-embrace and re-engage in spiritual practices, hold onto hope, believe they are normal, and commit to beliefs and practices despite rejection from the church.     

Between Synergy and Conflict: Balancing the Processes of Organizational and Individual Resilience in an Afghan Women’s Community

This paper examines individual and organizational resilience processes among members of The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, (RAWA), an Afghan women's underground resistance organization located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 1977, RAWA has used humanitarian and political means to educate, serve, and motivate women and to advocate for peace, secular democracy, and human rights. The authors analyzed 110 qualitative interviews, collected in Pakistan and Afghanistan between December 2001 and July 2002. An iterative coding framework identified processes of resilience and domain specific stressors (risks) and resources (protective factors) at the individual and organizational level. Further analysis found that these process codes clustered by function into components of an operational model of individual and organizational resilience. While individual and organizational resilience are described by the same model, these two levels of resilience were found to operate in synergy as well as in conflict. Although this paper explores a unique setting, we argue that a better understanding of resilience processes in general will come from increased attention to context.     

An fMRI study of long-term everyday memory using SenseCam

We used a novel automatic camera, SenseCam, to investigate recognition memory for real-life events at a 5-month retention interval. Using fMRI we assessed recollection and familiarity memory using the remember/know procedure. Recollection evoked no medial temporal lobe (MTL) activation compared to familiarity and new responses. Instead, recollection activated diverse regions in neocortex including medial prefrontal cortex. We observed decreased activation in anterior hippocampus/ anterior parahippocampal gyrus (aPHG) at 5 months compared to a 36-hour retention interval. Familiarity was associated with greater activation in aPHG and posterior parahippocampal gyrus (pPHG) than recollection and new responses. Familiarity activation decreased over time in anterior hippocampus/aPHG and posterior hippocampus/pPHG. The engagement of neocortical regions such as medial prefrontal cortex at a 5-month delay, together with the reduced MTL activation at 5 months relative to at 36 hours is in line with the assumptions of Consolidation theory. SenseCam provides a valuable technique for assessing the processes that underlie remote everyday recognition memory.     

The neural correlates of everyday recognition memory

We used a novel automatic camera, SenseCam, to create a recognition memory test for real-life events. Adapting a 'Remember/Know' paradigm, we asked healthy undergraduates, who wore SenseCam for 2 days, in their everyday environments, to classify images as strongly or weakly remembered, strongly or weakly familiar or novel, while brain activation was recorded with functional MRI. Overlapping, widely distributed sets of brain regions were activated by recollected and familiar stimuli. Within the medial temporal lobes, 'Remember' responses specifically elicited greater activity in the right anterior and posterior parahippocampal gyrus than 'Know' responses. 'New' responses activated anterior parahippocampal regions. A parametric analysis, across correctly recognised items, revealed increasing activation in the right hippocampus and posterior parahippocampal gyrus (pPHG). This may reflect modulation of these regions by the degree of recollection or, alternatively, by increasing memory strength. Strong recollection elicited greater activity in the left posterior hippocampus/pPHG than weak recollection indicating that this region is specifically modulated by the degree of recollection.     

The Role of Death Qualification in Venirepersons' Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defense1

Three hundred venirepersons from the 12^th Judicial Circuit in Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: one question that specified participants' level of support for the death penalty; one Witt death‐qualification question; a case scenario that included a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case; verdict and sentencing preferences; a 16‐item measure that required participants to rate their receptiveness to the insanity defense on a 6‐point Likert scale; and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death‐qualified venirepersons, when compared to excludables, were more likely to endorse certain insanity myths, find the defendant guilty, and sentence the defendant to death. Legal implications are discussed.