Obstacles to Personal Creativity between Brazilian and Mexican University Students: A Comparative Study

The study focused on personal obstacles to creativity between 385 Brazilian and 305 Mexican university students. The Obstacles to Personal Creativity Inventory, designed and validated by Alencar (1999b), was administered to these students. The results indicated that Lack of Time/Opportunity was the most frequent obstacle. Significant differences were observed between Brazilian and Mexican students in the cluster of obstacles named Lack of Motivation, and between male and female students in the cluster of obstacles named Inhibition/Shyness. The results point to several obstacles to personal creativity which are common among university students. These obstacles should be known by those involved in education in order for them to help students to be less susceptible to obstacles that hinder their creativity.     

Visuomotor tracking abilities of speakers with apraxia of speech or conduction aphasia

This investigation examined the visuomotor tracking abilities of persons with apraxia of speech (AOS) or conduction aphasia (CA). In addition, tracking performance was correlated with perceptual judgments of speech accuracy. Five individuals with AOS and four with CA served as participants, as well as an equal number of healthy controls matched by age and gender. Participants tracked predictable (sinusoidal) and unpredictable signals using jaw and lip movements transduced with strain gauges. Tracking performance in participants with AOS was poorest for predictable signals, with decreased kinematic measures of cross-correlation and gain ratio and increased target-tracker difference. In contrast, tracking of the unpredictable signal by participants with AOS was performed as well as for other groups (e.g. participants with CA, healthy controls). Performance of the subjects with AOS on the predictable tracking task was found to strongly correlate with perceptual judgments of speech. These findings suggest that motor control capabilities are impaired in AOS, but not in CA. Results suggest that AOS has its basis in motor programming deficits, not impaired motor execution.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?     

Depicting a Liminal Position in Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis: The Work of Rod Watson

This paper provides a provisional examination of Rod Watson's work and contributions to EM/CA/MCA, in part through a critique of misrepresentations of his arguments in secondary accounts of his work. The form of these misrepresentations includes adumbration and traducement of his arguments. Focusing on the reflexivity of category and sequence and turn-generated categories, we suggest that his analytic position within ethnomethodological fields is unique and remarkable, yet largely unacknowledged. We argue that a re-examination of the body of Watson's work makes relevant explicit and appropriate acknowledgement of his contributions through his unconventional approach and his extension of prior works in novel and stimulating directions.     

Moving Beyond the Individual: Examining the Effects of Domestic Violence Policies on Social Norms

To be effective, criminal justice policies should affect the underlying social norms for which the policies were enacted. This study sought to determine whether public perceptions of criminal justice policies on domestic violence affected social norms. Two waves of data were collected via a telephone survey where a random probability sample of 973 residents was drawn from 4 communities. A structural equation model was tested and confirmed. Results provided strong support for the hypothesis that perceptions of criminal justice policies have direct effects on attitudes toward criminal justice response, and indirect effects on victim-blaming attitudes, both underlying social norms related to domestic violence. The enactment of criminal justice policies, therefore, may have an impact beyond victims and perpetrators and lead to a transformation of the community through the emergence of new social norms. Public awareness campaigns designed to disseminate criminal justice policies may be instrumental in provoking social change.     

Human Chances for Happiness: A Review of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud referred to his Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud 1930/1961) as an “inquiry concerning happiness.” In this article we discuss what he has to say about happiness. We focus on the reasons he gives for why lasting happiness is impossible to realize; his view that human beings tend to give precedence to the reduction of suffering over the desire for happiness; his suggestion that the best path to follow for what degrees of happiness are realizable depends on the individual; his view that pleasurable experiences are the basis for happiness and that no pleasures are comparable to that which occurs when one’s love is reciprocated by the other; the importance he places on the conflict between genital love and aim-inhibited forms of libidinal connection; his view that civilization plays a doubtful role as far as the realization of personal happiness is concerned; and his view of the role that human aggression and the sense of guilt play in promoting the unhappiness of civilized people. We conclude by offering seven comments on Freud’s views on the chance for human happiness.     

Bioethics and Pastoral Concern: Some Possible New Directions in Pastoral Theology

This special issue of the journal is comprised of papers given at a conference in May 2011 at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston on the theme of “Social Justice and the Health Professions.” This article offers the following rationale for this special issue in particular and for pastoral theologians to contribute to bioethics in general: (1) two contemporary theological thinkers in bioethics, Karen Lebacqz and Lisa Cahill, argue that theological discussions of justice broaden and deepen discussions of justice in mainstream bioethics—thus the focus on social justice provides an area for interdisciplinary and intersectional work; (2) pastoral theologians have not, to a great extent, contributed to discussions of religion and bioethics—this has been the territory of theological ethicists, especially during the 1970s; (3) one influential pastoral theologian, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, has called for (a) a broader concern for health in pastoral theology beyond psychological health and (b) more disciplinary approaches within pastoral theology beyond psychology so as to attend to “the living human web”; and (4) one way to advance the theological contributions in bioethics is by inviting pastoral theologians to focus on matters of social justice (an established area of intersection) as identified by health professionals, thus providing (a) new areas for inquiry and (b) new theological perspectives in bioethics. This article also suggests that pastoral theologians can contribute to bioethics by focusing on both “macro” issues (issues relating to structures and groups) and “micro” issues (issues relating to persons and experiences) as a way of pursuing the topic of justice in bioethics. The bulk of this article focuses on “macro” issues, but, in closing, the author articulates how he has been addressing “micro” issues in his own work. The author argues that both of these approaches—“macro” and “micro”—are legitimate ways for pastoral theologians to express pastoral concerns in bioethics.     

Maternal Behavior Prior to Parenting as a Transgenerational Predictor of Offspring Behavior

Behavior problems influence development at multiple stages over the lifespan. The present study explores the relations between maternal behavior prior to parenting and offspring behavior problems in childhood and adolescence using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data (N = 2,820 dyads with 50.0 % male offspring and 52.2 % of ethnic/racial minority status). Index scores for behavior problems were created for mothers prior to parenting and for offspring at two time points. Path analyses indicated that maternal behavior problems prior to parenthood predicted offspring being at increased risk for behavior problems in childhood and adolescence. Mothers’ behavior had a significant influence on adolescent behavior, even after childhood behavior problems and demographic covariates were taken into account. Post-hoc analyses demonstrated the stability of behavior problems is especially strong for males. Results support a long tradition of research and the external validity of the stability of behavior problems as well as the importance of maternal behavior prior to parenthood for their future offspring across development. Clinical and policy implications are discussed.