African American Children’s Racial Discrimination Experiences and Mental Health

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The current study examined how African American children’s experiences of perceived personal racial discrimination and perceived vicarious racial...     

Spirituality in Occupational Therapy: Do We Practice What We Teach?

This mixed-method study examined the responses of 97 occupational therapists on the subject of spirituality in occupational therapy practice. The inclusion of spirituality into the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework (2008) implies that clinicians address spirituality as a component of client-centered practice. This research revealed a gap between education, theory, and practice as evidenced in the quantitative and qualitative data. Although occupational therapy is intended to be holistic, therapists require a more complete understanding of what spirituality is and what the role of the occupational therapist is when addressing spirituality in evaluation or treatment. The discussion of this research provides information for future occupational therapy educators and educational programs as they seek to incorporate the construct of spirituality into curricula.     

Family Therapy with Couples and Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease

Family therapists are increasingly called upon to work with individuals and families with medical issues, but often do not have sufficient background on the issue to be most helpful. The purpose of this paper is to help family therapists understand Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and its impact on the individual and his or her family. PD is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder in the United States, following Alzheimer’s disease (Hirtz et al., Neurology 68:326–337, 2007). According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, approximately 60,000 individuals are diagnosed with PD every year, and approximately one million Americans are currently living with PD. In this paper, we provide an overview of PD based on research and the second author’s many years of providing services for individuals with PD, as well as offer specific recommendations for providing family therapy using narrative, solution-focused and emotionally focused therapy based on the first author’s work as a family therapist with individuals, groups, and couples dealing with PD.     

Sources and Types of Confidence Identified by World Class Sport Performers

This study identified the sources and types of confidence salient to 14 (7 male, 7 female) successful World Class athletes. Nine sources of confidence were identified: Preparation, performance accomplishments, coaching, innate factors, social support, experience, competitive advantage, self-awareness, and trust. A testament to the multi-dimensional nature of sport confidence, six types of sport confidence were also identified: skill execution, achievement, physical factors, psychological factors, superiority to opposition, and tactical awareness. Gender was related to both the sources of confidence and the subsequent types of confidence experienced by the athletes. For example, females placed more importance on good personal performances than males who derived confidence from winning. Results were discussed in the context of previous sport confidence literature and implications for sport psychology and coaching practices were drawn.     

Fear and loving in social hierarchy: Sex differences in preferences for power versus status

Famous thinkers throughout history from Nepos to Machiavelli have had strong opinions about whether it is better to be feared or loved. A related debate continues today about whether it is preferable to have power or status, a distinction between resources and respect. Across three studies, I find that men desire power more than women do, whereas women desire status more than men do. Furthermore, the extent to which hierarchical differences are seen as fair and legitimate increases the desirability of status, but power legitimacy does not affect the desirability of power. This research indicates that people perceive and value power and status distinctly, and provides additional evidence that confounding the two theoretically or empirically may distort our understanding of psychological responses to social hierarchy.     

Perceived Patient Responsibility and Belief in a Just World Affect Helping

Three experiments reported here uniquely test the effectiveness of warm versus competent advertising strategy as a function of congruence with other elements of the advertising context. These are product involvement (Experiment 1, n = 96), consumers’ smartphone anxiety (Experiment 2, n = 60), or self-versus other-profitability (Experiment 3, n = 100). As expected, the “golden quadrant” (optimum warmth and competence for advertising effectiveness) does shift: Competence is more important for high-involving products, but warmth wins for highly anxious participants or when the highly involving service is accompanied by people-focused appeals. An expansion of the stereotype content model is discussed in the context of the congruity principle.     

“Why Do You Stand Looking Up Toward Heaven?” New Testament Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium

Apocalyptic narrative and apocalyptic expectation are integral to the logic of the gospel. This essay surveys and critiques three unsatisfactory strategies for reinterpreting the gospel in non-apocalyptic terms: the Johannine "vertical" eschatology of union with Christ, the Jesus Seminar's construction on a non-apocalyptic Jesus, and N. T. Wright's reading of synoptic apocalyptic passages as a symbolic references to events that occurred already in the first century. Christian theology cannot dispense with a future-oriented apocalyptic eschatology. Seven reasons for this claim are set forth and explained. The concluding part of the essay suggests that the difficulty of accepting apocalyptic eschatology has often been overstated and observes that "intratextual" Christian theology will necessarily interpret the story of Jesus in apocalyptic categories.     

Structural-equation models of current drug use: are appropriate models so simple(x)?

The simplex and common-factor models of drug use were compared using maximum-likelihood estimation of latent variable structural models in two samples: a sample of 226 high school students, using ratio-scale measures of current drug use, and a sample of 310 industrial workers and 811 college students, using ordinal-scale measures of current drug use. Latent variables of alcohol, marijuana, enhancer hard drugs, and dampener hard drugs were specified in a series of structural models. Contrary to previous findings with cumulative drug-use data, the common-factor model provided a more acceptable representation of the observed current-use data than did the simplex model in both samples. In addition, the similarity of results across both of these samples supports recent contentions by Huba and Bentler (1982) that quantitatively measured variables are not necessarily superior to qualitative, ordinal indicators in latent variable models of drug use.