Abuse History, World Assumptions, and Religious Problem Solving

At a Christian university, 167 subjects completed questionnaires measuring worldview assumptions, religious problem solving, physical and emotional abuse, and subjects' beliefs about whether they had been "abused." Results indicated that worldview assumptions were not related to actual abuse histories. Instead, such assumptions were related to the subjects' beliefs that they had been abused. Subjects who believed that they had been abused had more negative views of the impersonal world, people, and themselves; they were also more likely to see events as random. Both actual abuse history and subjects' beliefs that they had been abused were related to religious problem-solving styles. Finally, problem-solving styles were related to various worldview assumptions. Results are discussed in terms of previous research on abuse and in the psychology of religion.     

Precursors of Vocational Psychology in Ancient Civilizations

The authors examine philosophical theories produced by two ancient civilizations (Eastern Mediterranean and Chinese) for applications to an applied psychology of work and conclude that they possessed recognizably “modern” elements of an effective vocational psychology.     

Effect of two experimental sets on sleep structure.

The effect of four perceptual sets--First Night in a sleep laboratory, Second Night in a sleep laboratory, Shock Avoidance Night, Reward Night--on the distribution of sleep was examined with 12Ss. Both the shock avoidance and the reward conditions gave results similar to those characteristically found in the First Night Effect, i.e., increases in Stage 0, Stage 1, the latency to Stage 4, the number of Awakenings, and the number of Stage Changes coupled with a decrease in Stage 1-REM. The observed effects, however, were minimal and were interpreted as giving evidence for the sturdiness of the sleep process.     

Perceptual learning in visual category acquisition

The attribute structure of a set of dot patterns was studied by having subjects segment (parse) the dots of each pattern into parts or subunits by drawing circles around groups of dots from each pattern. These parsing data were obtained for subjects who had no prior experience with the patterns and for subjects who had previously learned to identify the patterns as members of one of four categories. Analyses of the parsing data indicated that category learning increased the salience of large subunits that were similar in orientation for patterns that were members of the same category. This evidence for perceptual learning was obtained even when the category training procedure required learning to identify the patterns individually, suggesting that attribute abstraction and item learning are not incompatible. It was also obtained without an increase in overall intersubject agreement. The latter result led us to question the usefulness of intersubject agreement as an index of category knowledge.     

Why women fail/succeed in ministry: Psychological factors

A study was made of the most and least successful women minister graduates of Christian Theological Seminary since 1959. Significant differences were found in several scales of the CTMM, the ACL and the MMPI. These indicated, for example, higher intelligence, a better self-image, more openness to feelings and to general human faults plus alternative viewpoints, more leadership ability and ability to take charge of their own lives, for the more successful women. Implications for helpful interventions were discussed.Dr. Cardwell is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling and Director of the Pastoral Counseling Service at Christian Theological Seminary, 1000 West 42nd Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46208.