When “Living Stories” Encounter the Living Word

This article focuses on biblical forms (psalms, proverbs, and parables) and story genres (inspirational, paradoxical, and miraculous) that inform the pastoral counseling process in ways that make the stories of our lives become more vivid. It does so primarily by examining Donald Capps’ contributions in Living Stories and Biblical Approaches to Pastoral Counseling by studying the living stories in juxtaposition to the biblical forms.     

A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of the Association Between Family Income and Offspring Conduct Problems

The study presents a quasi-experimental analysis of data on 9,194 offspring (ages 4–11 years old) of women from a nationally representative U.S. sample of households to test the causal hypotheses about the association between family income and childhood conduct problems (CPs). Comparison of unrelated individuals in the sample indicated a robust inverse association, with the relation being larger at higher levels of income and for male offspring, even when statistical covariates were included to account for measured confounds that distinguish different families. Offspring also were compared to their siblings and cousins who were exposed to different levels of family income in childhood to rule out unmeasured environmental and genetic factors confounded with family income as explanations for the association. In these within-family analyses, boys exposed to lower family income still exhibited significantly higher levels of CPs. When considered in the context of previous studies using different designs, these results support the inference that family income influences CPs, particularly in males, through causal environmental processes specifically related to earnings within the nuclear family. This research was supported by grant R01-MH070025 to Benjamin B. Lahey. The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Indiana University. Resubmitted to the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology on April 21, 2008 and October 20, 2008.     

Internet Daters’ Body Type Preferences: Race–Ethnic and Gender Differences

Employing a United States sample of 5,810 Yahoo heterosexual internet dating profiles, this study finds race–ethnicity and gender influence body type preferences for dates, with men and whites significantly more likely than women and non-whites to have such preferences. White males are more likely than non-white men to prefer to date thin and toned women, while African-American and Latino men are significantly more likely than white men to prefer female dates with thick or large bodies. Compatible with previous research showing non-whites have greater body satisfaction and are less influenced by mainstream media than whites, our findings suggest Latinos and African Americans negotiate dominant white idealizations of thin female bodies with their own cultures’ greater acceptance of larger body types.     

Meta-analysis of family-centered helpgiving practices research

A meta-analysis of 47 studies investigating the relationship between family-centered helpgiving practices and parent, family, and child behavior and functioning is reported. The studies included more than 11,000 participants from seven different countries. Data analysis was guided by a practice-based theory of family-centered helpgiving that hypothesized direct effects of relational and participatory helpgiving practices on self-efficacy beliefs and parent, family, and child outcomes. Results showed that the largest majority of outcomes were related to helpgiving practices with the strongest influences on outcomes most proximal and contextual to help giver/help receiver exchanges. Findings are placed in the context of a broader-based social systems framework of early childhood intervention and family support.     

Nature and nurture: Williams syndrome across cultures

This study is concerned with ways in which children with Williams syndrome (WS), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder arising from a hemizygous deletion in chromosome band 7q11.23 including the gene for elastin (ELN) and approximately 20 surrounding genes, are affected by social mores of vastly differing cultures: the United States and Japan. WS presents a compelling model for the investigation because its genetic phenotype is well defined and results in an uneven cognitive profile as well as a social phenotype typical of the syndrome including overt over-friendliness toward strangers. While a number of research groups have been studying the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of individuals with WS in various countries, there have not been studies to date that explore the social phenotype in WS across different cultures. This study examines the ways in which social behavior in WS, stemming from specific genetic underpinnings, might be mediated by cultural expectations. We conducted a cross-cultural study using an instrument that measures aspects of sociability commonly found among people with WS. Quantitative analyses revealed a significant effect of diagnostic category in that in both countries, children with WS were rated as significantly higher in global sociability and more likely to approach strangers than were their normal counterparts. There was also an effect of culture, in that regardless of category, WS and normal children in Japan were rated lower than their counterparts in the US. We suggest that the excessively social phenotype of children with Williams syndrome, although markedly present across cultures, appears to vary in its intensity by culture. This is an intriguing illustration of interactions between nature and nurture.     

Depression, anxiety, and perceived hassles among entering medical students

This study investigated depression and anxiety among students who were entering medical school prior to the onset of their medical curriculum. Entering students reported financial, day-to-day, academic, and time hassles as concerns. Interestingly, the population characteristics of gender, marital status, and ethnicity impacted the type of self-reported hassles indicated by the students. Measurements of depression and anxiety indicated that entering medical school students' emotional status resembles that of the general population. The results suggest that it is the rigors of the medical curriculum that may play an important role in the increased prevalence of depression and anxiety for students during their medical education. Further, students who are entering medical field already have concerns about medical school and are in the process of anticipating the necessary adjustment to the challenges ahead of them. Preventative programming efforts should begin early in medical education and address a wide variety of concerns from academic, to interpersonal relationships and financial worries.     

Financial aspirations,financial success,and overall life satisfaction: who? and how?

Nickerson et al. (2003, Psychological Science 14, pp. 531–536) demonstrated in a longitudinal study that the negative relation between aspirations for financial success and subjective well-being found by other researchers was mitigated by high household income. The present study first refined the analysis in Nickerson et al. (2003) and then explored two additional issues: (a) who aspires to financial success? and (b) how is financial success achieved? Analysis indicated that individuals with strong financial aspirations are socially inclined, confident, ambitious, politically conservative, traditional, conventional, and relatively less able academically, but not psychologically distressed. Financial success is achieved via the job and, for women only, via marriage. Financial aspirations influence job income both by influencing choice of occupation and by influencing job income within occupation; however, achieving financial success depends on having the personal resources to do so. Women with strong financial aspirations tend to marry for money (or money-making potential) regardless of their work status; men with strong financial aspirations do not.     

Experiential simulations of negated text information

We investigated the question of whether comprehenders mentally simulate a described situation even when this situation is explicitly negated in the sentence. In two experiments, participants read negative sentences such as There was no eagle in the sky, and subsequently responded to pictures of mentioned entities in the context of a recognition task. Participants' responses following negative sentences were faster when the depicted entity matched rather than mismatched the negated situation. These results suggest that comprehenders simulate the negated situation when processing a negated sentence. The results thereby provide further support for the experiential-simulations view of language comprehension.     

Impaired auditory attention skills following middle-ear infections.

The present study investigated auditory attention skills in a sample of children with non-chronic otitis media with effusion (OME). Twenty children with repeated episodes of OME but not found in the need for myringotomy and insertion of ventilating tubes were compared to 20 control children with no known episodes of OME based on parental reports and medical records. Mean age during assessment was 9 years, and none of the children showed signs of impaired language functions and with normal general cognitive abilities. They were assessed with dichotic listening CV-syllables (DLCV-108) free recall and directed attention tasks. The control children showed the expected right ear advantage during free recall and the directed right condition, and demonstrated a shift toward a left ear advantage during the directed left. The children with a history of OME showed a predominant right ear advantage across all three tasks. Although some change in ear accuracy occurred across tasks, impaired auditory attention skills were found following a history of middle ear infections. These results replicate those reported earlier from a sample of children with persistent otitis media with effusion, and suggest that treatment with ventilating tubes does not appear to make any difference in the development of auditory attention skills, whereas occurrence of OME must be considered when testing auditory attentional skills as a part of a neuropsychological assessment.