Intrinsic religiosity protects believers from the existential fear of a human Jesus

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the role of internalised religious beliefs in defending against existential concerns aroused from a creaturely Jesus. Prior work has found that biologically human traits (e.g., vomiting, sweating, etc.) can increase death concerns when applied to both humans and a god. Intrinsic beliefs, however, have been shown to reduce mortality awareness. In the current study, religious participants were primed with thoughts of either a human or neutral Jesus followed by a single item measure about fear of death. A moderated regression analysis found that whereas high intrinsic individuals were buffered from existential concerns, low intrinsic individuals experienced a greater fear of death when primed with a human Jesus. These results replicate prior work within terror management theory and the psychology of religion suggesting that internalised beliefs serve a protective function against existential anxieties.     

Breaking ground,hitting ground: A Sure Start rapid response service for parents and their under fours

This paper describes a project aimed at taking an under fours' counselling and parent support service into a neighbourhood characterized by particularly high levels of deprivation and ethnic diversity. Referrals to the local CAMHS showed a high level of disturbance in school aged children and adolescents in this area. However, children under 4 years were strikingly under-represented in referral statistics, suggesting the need to make our service more accessible to this group. The project took the form of a once-weekly clinic run in a community centre. Differences in ways of engaging and working with the families in order to make the service accessible and ‘user friendly’ are described. So, too, is a protocol developed in order to support the worker in thinking through the many anxiety raising situations to be responded to in dealing with severely deprived families living in extremely stressful situations. Three clinical examples illustrate that a major value of this initiative was in increasing the worker's understanding of ethnic and cultural differences and of how to work with them. The service also helped to promote good liaison between statutory and voluntary agencies. The project was established initially under the auspices of Sure Start, a government sponsored scheme for enriching developmental opportunities of under fours and their parents in deprived areas. After running for 18 months, it will be funded through mainstream resources, as an example of the kind of innovative work with hard to reach populations encouraged by the guidelines given in the new National Service Framework for Children in England.     

A Community’s Response to Suicide Through Public Art: Stakeholder Perspectives from the Finding the Light Within Project

Suicide is a preventable public health problem and a leading cause of death in the United States. Despite recognized need for community-based strategies for suicide prevention, most suicide prevention programs focus on individual-level change. This article presents seven first person accounts of Finding the Light Within, a community mobilization initiative to reduce the stigma associated with suicide through public arts participation that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2011 through 2012. The stigma associated with suicide is a major challenge to suicide prevention, erecting social barriers to effective prevention and treatment and enhancing risk factors for people struggling with suicidal ideation and recovery after losing a loved one to suicide. This project engaged a large and diverse audience and built a new community around suicide prevention through participatory public art, including community design and production of a large public mural about suicide, storytelling and art workshops, and a storytelling website. We present this project as a model for how arts participation can address suicide on multiple fronts—from raising awareness and reducing stigma, to promoting community recovery, to providing healing for people and communities in need.     

Personality Dimensions as Common and Broadband-Specific Features for Internalizing and Externalizing Disorders

Several researchers have suggested that the nature of the covariation between internalizing and externalizing disorders may be understood better by examining the associations between temperament or personality and these disorders. The present study examined neuroticism as a potential common feature underlying both internalizing and externalizing disorders and novelty seeking as a potential broad-band specific feature influencing externalizing disorders alone. Participants were 12- to 18-year-old twin pairs (635 monozygotic twin pairs and 691 dizygotic twin pairs; 48 % male and 52 % female) recruited from the Colorado Center for Antisocial Drug Dependence. Genetic and nonshared environmental influences shared in common with neuroticism influenced the covariation among distinct internalizing disorders, the covariation among distinct externalizing disorders, and the covariation between internalizing and externalizing disorders. Genetic influences shared in common with novelty seeking influenced the covariation among externalizing disorders and the covariation between major depressive disorder and externalizing disorders, but not the covariation among internalizing disorders or between anxiety disorders and externalizing disorders. Also, after accounting for genetic and environmental influences shared in common with neuroticism and novelty seeking, there were no significant common genetic or environmental influences among the disorders examined, suggesting that the covariance among the disorders is sufficiently explained by neuroticism and novelty seeking. We conclude that neuroticism is a heritable common feature of both internalizing disorders and externalizing disorders, and that novelty seeking is a heritable broad-band specific factor that distinguishes anxiety disorders from externalizing disorders.     

The Representation of Immigrants in Federal,State, and Local Government Work Forces

Public sector employment of immigrants can increase their economic assimilation and potentially improve their treatment by government. Yet, as we show using Census data from 1990, 2000, and 2009–2011, immigrants are substantially underrepresented in federal, state, and local governments. To understand why, we use logit analysis for federal and for state and local government employment in each time period to test whether immigrants’ weaker educational attainment and English proficiency, lower probabilities of being citizens and military veterans, and different age, gender, and race/ethnicity distributions can explain that underrepresentation. Disparities in education and preferential government treatment of veterans are factors, but citizenship requirements appear to be the major obstacle to immigrant employment in the public sector.     

Dislocation multiplication in bcc molybdenum: A dislocation dynamics simulation

Plastic deformation of Mo single crystals is examined by direct simulation of dislocation dynamics under stress. Initial dislocation populations are made to mimic real dislocation microstructures observed in transmission electron microscopy cross-sections of pure annealed Mo single crystals. No a priori sources for dislocation multiplication are introduced, and yet multiplication takes place through a sequence involving aggregation of grown-in superjogs, bowing of screw dislocation segments and fast lateral motion of edge segments, producing a large number of elongated loops and a characteristic cross-grid pattern of screw dislocations.     

Recovery in Memory Function,and its Relationship to Academic Success,at 24 Months Following Pediatric TBI*

While a number of research papers have reported findings on memory deficits following traumatic brain injury (TBI), only limited studies have monitored the recovery of these skills over time. The present study examined memory ability and its effect on academic success in a group of children who had sustained a mild, moderate, or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Results showed that the severe TBI group exhibited greater deficits on memory tasks, irrespective of modality, in the acute, 6-, 12-, and 24-month postinjury stages, in comparison to mild and moderate TBI groups. Performance on academic measures was dependent on both injury severity and task demands. Preinjury academic ability and verbal memory indices best predicted academic success.     

Structure and Etiology of Co-occurring Internalizing and Externalizing Disorders in Adolescents

Several studies suggest that a two-factor model positing internalizing and externalizing factors explains the interrelationships among psychiatric disorders. However, it is unclear whether the covariation between internalizing and externalizing disorders is due to common genetic or environmental influences. We examined whether a model positing two latent factors, internalizing and externalizing, explained the interrelationships among six psychiatric disorders (major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder) in adolescents, and whether there are common genetic and environmental influences on internalizing and externalizing latent factors. Multivariate behavior genetic analyses of data from 1162 twin pairs and 426 siblings ascertained from the general population via the Colorado Center for Antisocial Drug Dependence (CADD) were conducted. We found support for a model positing two latent factors (internalizing and externalizing). These factors were moderately heritable and influenced by significant common genetic and nonshared environmental influences. These findings suggest that co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in adolescents results from both genetic and environmental influences.