Training-specific adaptations of H- and stretch reflexes in human soleus muscle

The authors investigated the effect of physical exercise on reflex excitability in a controlled intervention study. Healthy participants (N = 21) performed 4 weeks of either power training (ballistic strength training) or balance training (sensorimotor training [SMT]). Both training regimens enhanced balance control and rate of force development, whereas reductions in peak-to-peak amplitudes of stretch reflexes and in the ratio of the maximum Hoffman reflex to the maximum efferent motor response (Hmax:Mmax) measured at rest were limited to SMT. The differences in reflex excitability between the training regimens indicated different underlying neural mechanisms of adaptation. The reduced reflex excitability following SMT was most likely induced by supraspinal influence. The authors discuss an overall increase in presynaptic inhibition of Ia afferent fibers as a possible mechanism.     

Flow at work: An experience sampling approach

One of the core constructs of the positive psychology movement is that of ‘flow’, or optimal experience. The current study investigated the relationship between ‘flow’, the core job dimensions, and subjective well‐being (SWB), as well as distinguishing between the state and trait components of flow. Experience sampling methodology (ESM) was used to track 40 architectural students over a 15 week semester while they engaged in studio work. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) indicated that 74% of the variance in flow was attributable to situational characteristics compared to dispositional factors. Results also indicated that academic work that was high in skill variety and autonomy was associated with flow. Flow was found to be correlated with positive mood. Cross‐lagged regression analysis showed that momentary flow was predictive of momentary mood and not vice versa. The strengths and limitations of using ESM to study subjective work experiences and well‐being are discussed, as well as the implications of the study of flow or optimal experience for industrial/organizational psychology.     

Understanding the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma cognitions: The impact of thought control strategies

Several models of PTSD suggest that dysfunctional beliefs play an important role in the maintenance of PTSD. This study examined whether thought control strategies intermediated in the relationship between PTSD and dysfunctional cognitions. It was hypothesized that PTSD would be positively associated with dysfunctional cognitions and that negative thought control strategies (worry and self-punishment) would partially account for this relationship. These maladaptive strategies were predicted to be associated with increased levels of PTSD and more trauma-related beliefs. Additionally, it was predicted that positive thought control strategies (social control and reappraisal) would be associated with decreased levels of PTSD and fewer trauma-related beliefs. Finally, because the literature supports distraction as both an adaptive and a maladaptive thought control strategy, no a priori hypothesis was made. Results support worry and self-punishment as maladaptive intervening variables in the association between PTSD and dysfunctional cognitions, resulting in greater levels of PTSD and trauma cognitions. Social control and distraction emerged as adaptive strategies, resulting in lower levels of PTSD and trauma cognitions, while reappraisal showed no relationship with PTSD severity. Although the results are cross-sectional, continued focus on the effects of thought control strategies as meditational maintenance variables over time appears warranted.     

The development and robustness of young children’s understanding of aspectuality

We investigated whether 6-year-olds’ understanding of perceptual aspectuality was sufficiently robust to deal with the presence of irrelevant information. A total of 32 children chose whether to look or feel to locate a specific object (identifiable by sight or touch) from four objects that were hidden. In half of the trials, the objects were different on only one modality (e.g., four objects that felt different but were the same color). In the remainder of the trials, the objects also differed (partially) on one irrelevant modality (e.g., four objects that felt different, two red and two blue, where the goal was to locate the soft object). Performance was worse on the latter trials. We discuss children’s difficulty in dealing with irrelevant information.     

Becoming human,becoming sober

Two themes run through Kierkegaard’s authorship. The first defines existential requirements for “becoming human”—reflective honesty and earnest humor. The second demarcates the religious phenomena of sobriety when human becoming suffers insurmountable collisions. Living with existential pathos teaches the difference between the either/or logic of collisions and the both/and logic of development and transitions. There is a difference between self-transformation and a progressive individual and social development. In the developmental mode self experiences gradual progression or adaptive evolution; in the self-transformative mode self undergoes qualitative upsurges, leaps, gestalt switches, musical key transpositions of becoming in individual and social evolutions. Each individual in every epoch begins at the beginning. The author traces the movements of becoming in their parallel dimensions, drawing a fork through Kierkegaard’s writing. The first leads through the existence spheres of his pseudonymous authorship. The second intensifies the movement on the spot and in the moment.

'The Haemorrhage of Faith?' Opinion Polls as Sources for Religious Practices,Beliefs and Attitudes in Scotland since the 1970s

Scotland has traditionally been seen as a religious country which, according to Callum Brown, has latterly succumbed to the same secularising tendencies which have affected many Western civilisations. Brown has described the Scottish process as so severe as to be tantamount to 'the haemorrhage of faith'. Commercial opinion poll data for representative samples of the Scottish population, a source not greatly used by Brown, are reviewed here for evidence of religious practices, beliefs and attitudes in contemporary Scotland. Considering these data in isolation, and more briefly in relation to equivalent British and world poll data, it is concluded that there has undoubtedly been religious decline since the 1970s, especially during the 1990s. While Scotland is far from being a post-Christian nation, according to the polls, it is no longer-outwardly or inwardly-significantly more religious than Britain as a whole and much of Western Europe.     

Living in a Post-Punk Papacy: Religion and education in a modernist world

This article examines the constraints on discourse in a modernist context and the means by which these constraints are imposed. It explores the deconstructive possibilities and opportunities offered in applying a postmodern critique of the same within this context. It primarily advocates a re-reading of the construct of knowledge such that it does not depend on epistemological theorising but performative activity, related to the observations of a number of postmodern and pre-postmodern writers. It suggests a dislocation between what we regard as knowledge and what might be experienced as empowerment through involvement in more democratic political processes. It also takes account of what is understood as the changing of an environment from the modern to postmodern, altering the situation of the subject, and applies this critically to religious and educational ideologies.     

Interviewing Witnesses: Forced Confabulation and Confirmatory Feedback Increase False Memories

In two experiments, adults who witnessed a videotaped event subsequently engaged in face-to-face interviews during which they were forced to confabulate information about the events they had seen. The interviewer selectively reinforced some of the participants' confabulated responses by providing confirmatory feedback (e.g., "Yes, _is the correct answer") and provided neutral (uninformative) feedback for the remaining confabulated responses (e.g., "O.K. _"). One week later, participants developed false memories for the events they had earlier confabulated knowingly. However, confirmatory feedback increased false memory for forcibly confabulated events, increased confidence in those false memories, and increased the likelihood that participants would freely report the confabulated events 1 to 2 months later. The results illustrate the powerful role of social-motivational factors in promoting the development of false memories.