Scientific neo‐paganism and the extreme right then and today: From Ludendorff ‘s Gotterkenntnis to Sigrid Hunke's Europas Eigene religion

During the Weimar Republic, flourishing new religions were harnessed to usher in the cultural revolution from the right that was soon dominated by the Nazis. J. William Hauer's Deutsche Glaubensbewegung, an umbrella group for numerous new religions whose teachings ranged from versions of Hinduism to Nordic Neo‐Paganism, all collaborated, at some point, with Hitler and his party. This paper shows the continuity of core ideas from Mathilde Ludendorff's Gotterkenntnis to Hauer's Glaubensbewegung and, importantly, Sigrid Hunke's Unitarier. It shows, further, the close connections between these forms of neo‐paganism and the present‐day European New Right. The paradoxical co‐occurrence in fascism of a religious populism and a meta‐political elitism, philosophical vitalism, and dreams of national or European rebirth has its roots in these French and German forms of neo‐paganism.     

Does humor facilitate coping with physical discomfort?

The mediation of superior coping with physical discomfort after humorous stimulation was explored through respondents' exposure to materials varying markedly in their capacity to evoke amusement and joviality. Both male and female respondents were exposed to (a) stand-up comedy, (b) situation comedy, (c) serious drama, (d) instructional material, or (e) tragedy. Discomfort threshold for cuff pressure at the upper arm was ascertained prior to and following exposure. Cognitive and affective responses to the materials were recorded after the postexposure threshold measurement. Compared against exposure to instructional material in the control condition, and compared against pre-exposure threshold measures, exposure to either type of comedy and, unexpectedly, to tragedy significantly elevated the threshold for physical discomfort in both male and female respondents. Serious drama had no such effect. Taken together, the exposure effects on the discomfort threshold could not be attributed to amusement reactions. Nor could they be considered mediated by responses of positive hedonic quality during and after exposure. There was some indication, however, that the capacity of stimuli to evoke humorous reactions (material being deemed funny) and the absorption potential of stimuli (material being deemed captivating) were positively involved in the mediation of postexposure tolerance of physical discomfort.The authors would like to thank Charles Aust, Rahul Biswas, Ted Jones, and John Owens for their assistance in the data collection and in the planning of this investigation.     

A COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING ACROSS THREE TOPOGRAPHIES OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

We evaluated the separate treatment components of a functional communication training program for 3 severely handicapped persons who each displayed different topographies of aberrant behavior. Following a functional analysis of maintaining conditions for inappropriate behavior (self-injury, stereotypy, aggression), each participant was trained to emit a communicative response that functioned to solicit reinforcement. For 2 participants, consequences (time-out or graduated guidance) for inappropriate behavior were also included. Treatment continued until the participants emitted the communicative response independently and no occurrences of inappropriate behavior were observed for at least two sessions. Following treatment, the separate contributions of the treatment components for communicative responding and for inappropriate behavior were evaluated with a reversal design. The results indicated that both sets of treatment components were necessary for maximal control over aberrant behavior. These results are discussed in relation to the efficiency, history, and control over reinforcement of both appropriate and inappropriate responses.     

Total number of MMPI-2 clinical scale elevations predicts premature termination after controlling for intake symptom severity and personality disorder diagnosis

Premature termination of therapy by patients is a common phenomenon that can be deleterious to treatment outcome for patients and also negatively affect therapists, treatment centers, and research programs. Therefore, a method of identifying patients at risk for premature termination could have widespread benefits. This study investigated whether patients’ MMPI-2 profiles, including clinical scale elevations and Negative Treatment Indicator (TRT) scores, could predict premature termination in an outpatient sample, controlling for personality disorder diagnosis and symptom severity at intake. Results indicated that while TRT scores were not incrementally predictive of premature termination, the total number of clinical scale elevations was significantly incrementally predictive of dropout. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Depressed mothers’ infants show less negative affect during non-contingent interactions

Infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers were videotaped interacting with their mothers in the [Nadel, J., Carchon, I., Kervella, C., Marcelli, D., & Reserbat-Plantey, D. (1999). Report: Expectancies for social contingency in 2-month-olds. Developmental Science, 2, 164–173] paradigm which consists of three segments including: (1) a free play, contingent interaction, (2) a non-contingent replay of the mothers’ behavior that had been videotaped during the first segment, and (3) a return to a free play, contingent interaction. As compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, infants of depressed mothers showed less negative change (less increase in frowning) in their behavior during the non-contingent replay segment. This finding was interpreted as the infants of depressed mothers being more accustomed to non-contingent behavior in their mothers, thus experiencing less violation of expectancy in this situation.     

The Role of Parenthood and College Education in the Self-Concept of College Students: Explicit and Implicit Assessments of Gendered Aspirations

This research examined the extent to which parenthood and college education are incorporated into the self-concept of college students. A US sample of undergraduates (90 men, 87 women) attending a large and ethnically diverse university completed explicit and implicit measures of identification with “parenthood” and “college education,” associations between these concepts and gender categories, and gender identification. Explicitly, men and women identified strongly with college education. Implicitly, women identified equally with parenthood and college education, whereas men identified more strongly with college education. In addition, implicit measures revealed that traditional gender roles accounted for a stronger identification with parenthood for participants who displayed a female identity and a stronger identification with college education for participants who displayed a male identity.     

Five types of personality continuity in childhood and adolescence

This study examines 5 types of personality continuity--structural, mean-level, individual-level, differential, and ipsative--in a representative population (N=498) and a twin and sibling sample (N=548) of children and adolescents. Parents described their children on 2 successive occasions with a 36-month interval using the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (I. Mervielde & F. De Fruyt, 1999). There was evidence for structural continuity in the 2 samples, and personality was shown to be largely differentially stable. A large percentage had a stable trait profile indicative of ipsative stability, and mean-level personality changes were generally small in magnitude. Continuity findings were explained mainly by genetic and nonshared environmental factors.     

How reading acquisition changes children’s spoken language network

To examine the influence of age and reading proficiency on the development of the spoken language network, we tested 6- and 9-years-old children listening to native and foreign sentences in a slow event-related fMRI paradigm. We observed a stable organization of the peri-sylvian areas during this time period with a left dominance in the superior temporal sulcus and inferior frontal region. A year of reading instruction was nevertheless sufficient to increase activation in regions involved in phonological representations (posterior superior temporal region) and sentence integration (temporal pole and pars orbitalis). A top-down activation of the left inferior temporal cortex surrounding the visual word form area, was also observed but only in 9 year-olds (3 years of reading practice) listening to their native language. These results emphasize how a successful cultural practice, reading, slots in the biological constraints of the innate spoken language network.