Spiritual development in church schools—a survey of Welsh head teachers’ perceptions

A questionnaire to assess views about spiritual development was completed by 112 of the 174 head teachers of church primary schools in Wales. The findings indicated that despite the seemingly ambiguous nature of the term ‘spiritual development’, head teachers had clear views about its meaning. While most head teachers emphasised the need for pupils to engage in their own personal spiritual search, their views differed in the extent to which they felt that promoting spiritual development meant encouraging pupils to adopt Christian beliefs. While the age and sex of head teachers was found to have no significant impact on their views; and the location and category of the school for which head teachers were responsible had only a limited impact on their view, the language of the school and the religiosity of the head teacher had a considerable impact on views regarding these matters.     

The role of child adrenocortical functioning in pathways between interparental conflict and child maladjustment

This study examined the interplay between interparental conflict and child cortisol reactivity to interparental conflict in predicting child maladjustment in a sample of 178 families and their kindergarten children. Consistent with the allostatic load hypothesis (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), results indicated that interparental conflict was indirectly related to child maladjustment through its association with individual differences in child cortisol reactivity. Analyses indicated that the multimethod assessment of interparental conflict was associated with lower levels of child cortisol reactivity to a simulated phone conflict between parents. Diminished cortisol reactivity, in turn, predicted increases in parental reports of child externalizing symptoms over a 2-year period. Associations between interparental conflict, child cortisol reactivity, and child externalizing symptoms remained robust even after demographic factors and other family processes were taken into account.     

Change blindness and eyewitness testimony

The authors explored the relevance of research on change blindness to eyewitness identification and testimony under intentional and incidental memory conditions. Participants (N = 80, 40 men and 40 women) viewed a video enactment of a burglary in which the identity of the burglar changed at the halfway point of the film. Half of participants were briefed to remember the content, and the other half were not. All were tested for the recall of the content, awareness of the change, and ability to identify either or both of the burglars. Some 61% of participants did not notice the identity change. Rates of detection were significantly higher in participants in the intentional condition, who also recalled significantly more detail from the film. Awareness of change was also significantly related to content recall scores and accuracy of identification of both burglars. The results illustrate the interrelation between the eyewitness and change blindness literatures.     

Can't stop believing: inhibitory control and resistance to misleading testimony

Why are some young children consistently willing to believe what they are told even when it conflicts with first‐hand experience? In this study, we investigated the possibility that this deference reflects an inability to inhibit a prepotent response. Over the course of several trials, 2.5‐ to 3.5‐year‐olds (N = 58) heard an adult contradict their report of a simple event they had both witnessed, and children were asked to resolve this discrepancy. Those who repeatedly deferred to the adult's misleading testimony had more difficulty on an inhibitory control task involving spatial conflict than those who responded more skeptically. These results suggest that responding skeptically to testimony that conflicts with first‐hand experience may be challenging for some young children because it requires inhibiting a normally appropriate bias to believe testimony.     

Does Proximity Matter in Promoting Interfaith Dialogue?

This paper explores the role of physical proximity of places of worship in facilitating interfaith dialogue. The research focuses on a religious cluster within the Greater Toronto Area, which emerged due to incremental zoning changes over time. Using key informant interviews as the method and Allport’s contact hypothesis as the guiding theoretical framework, it explores the effects of proximity and contact (interaction or encounters) on intergroup relations. The findings suggest that physical proximity is not a strong factor in facilitating interfaith dialogue initiatives. However, proximity does seem to have an effect in creating a space for interactions and encounters to occur, which can lead to attitudinal shifts concerning the religious “other.”     

Efficacy of neurostimulation to treat symptoms of Mal de Debarquement Syndrome. A preliminary study using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation

Mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS) is a rare and poorly understood condition of perceived continual motion. Using a multiple‐case design (n = 13; 8 f; 63.5 ± 12.6 years), this study investigated the efficacy of eight 20‐min sessions, over 4 weeks, of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the dorsolateral pre‐frontal cortex. Compared to sham, rTMS demonstrated improvement in balance and confidence in daily living activities. rTMS shows promise for the treatment of MdDS. However, larger trials with longer intervention periods are required.     

The Role of Temperament in Children's Reliance on Others as Sources of Information

By 3 years of age, children generally have a firm understanding of others' reliability, but there is considerable variation among individual children. Little attention has been paid to factors that influence such individual differences. This study addressed this by assessing the relation between reliability understanding and temperament in children approaching their third birthday. We measured children's ability to judge a speaker's trustworthiness and to selectively learn new information from a reliable informant. Observer ratings provided assessments of children's activity, task orientation, and affect/extraversion. Significant associations between selective trust and the temperament dimension of affect/extraversion were found, along with associations between selective trust and gender and language ability. This indicates that the ability to ascertain whether a speaker is a reliable person from whom to learn is related to several individual child characteristics. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.