Occupational choices of daughters of practicing rabbis

This paper examines the psychological impact that rabbis, as character types, have on their daughters. It describes how the father's impact psychologically predisposes these women to enter the helping professions in disporportionate numbers, and it shows how these job choices are often a means of coping with psychological issues connected to their upbringing.She is a candidate to become a psychoanalyst at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalytic Psychology.     

The final portrait of Christ

Artistic presentations of Jesus are as numerous and varied as the artists who created them. Whether on canvas or in music, Jesus has been portrayed as a redeemer, revolutionary, teacher, and clown. While some people are inspired by a particular presentation of Jesus, others are angered and incensed at what they perceive to be blasphemous. An example of the latter is Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Temptation of Christ. This article examines why people responded so negatively to this and other artistic presentations of Jesus. It suggests they have failed to recognize how the portrayal reflects a personal experience of the artist and is not meant to be a final portrait of Christ. And on a more unconscious level, these works of art evoke feelings within people which they fear to acknowledge and which they escape by condemning the work.     

A sermon from hell: Toward a theology of loneliness

Loneliness as part of the human condition is first explored from an experiential-philosophical perspective. A biblical survey suggests loneliness is normative to the faith experience and may portray a more realistic religiosity. Desert imagery in Scripture indicates a strong association among solitude, spiritual development, and potential dangers of spiritual deception. God's not yet-ness-itself a cause of existential loneliness—is paradoxically the way in which communion with God functions in the here and now. The creative use of solitude may enhance social, psychological, and spiritual well-being, and provide a way to theologize about personal isolation and disorientation.He is also editor of theHarding Journal of Religion and Psychiatry.     

An exploratory study of planning, attention, simultaneous, and successive cognitive processes

Although there has been a considerable amount of research on simultaneous and successive processing (Luria's second functional unit) by Das and others, there have been relatively few investigations into the measurement of attention and planning (the first and third functional units, respectively). The purpose of this investigation was to examine the factorial validity of tasks designed to measure cognitive processing in each of Luria's three functional units. A sample of 112 normal fourth- and fifth-grade students were administered nine experimental tasks chosen or developed according to the theoretical components of planning, attention, simultaneous, and successive processes. Principal factor analyses (orthogonal and oblique) with rotation of four factors resulted in solutions that closely matched the anticipated groupings based on a structural analysis of the tasks. General support for the feasibility of measurement of Luria's cognitive processing model, and the need to further develop and refine these and other experimental tasks, was obtained.     

Sex differences in the psychological well-being of Chinese adolescents

This study assessed sex differences affecting the psychological well-being of Chinese adolescents. Various instruments were used to measure psychiatric symptoms and positive mental health. The results showed that female adolescents displayed significantly more psychiatric as well as somatic symptoms and scored lower on scales reflecting positive mental health. The findings are generally consistent with those found in the Western literature, but suggest that, in the Chinese culture, sex differences in mental health begin to appear in adolescents.     

Religious celibacy from the celibate's point of view

What do celibates consider the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of their celibate religious lifestyle? What role has celibacy played in understanding the differences between those who persevere and those who choose to resign from celibate religious life and/or ordained ministry? Using data from extensive interviews, this exploratory study begins to focus some of the perceived effects of celibacy upon personal development for both those who persevere in celibate religious life and those who resign.     

Dependency, self-criticism, and depressive attributional style

Dependency and self-criticism have been proposed as independent factors in depression. Investigated whether depressive individuals characterized by dependency and self-criticism, respectively, differ with regard to internality of causal attributions for negative events. Sixty psychiatric outpatients completed the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, the semantic differential, and the Attributional Style Questionnaire. Dependency and self-criticism correlated positively with internality and with each other (p less than .0001). Findings did not support the specificity of dependency and self-criticism as subtypes of depression.     

Interhemispheric transfer in schizophrenics, depressives, and normals with schizoid tendencies

Although several studies suggest that schizophrenics suffer from an impairment in the interhemispheric transfer (IHT) of information, methodological weaknesses in these studies preclude clear interpretation of their results. This study addresses these criticisms in order to provide a clearer test of the IHT theory. Schizophrenics, depressives, normal controls, and normals with schizoid tendencies were assessed on five measures of IHT (verbal and nonverbal dichotic listening, intermanual transfer, bimanual block design, finger sequence repetition) and two measures of unilateral hemispheric processing (lateral eye movements, auditory thresholds). Results consistently failed to support an IHT deficit interpretation of schizophrenia. Schizoid normals had a significantly greater right-ear advantage on verbal dichotic listening than both psychiatric groups, a result suggesting enhanced left-hemisphere activation in schizoid normals. It is concluded that the IHT theory requires stronger empirical substantiation than has been obtained to date to warrant further consideration as a central theory of schizophrenia.     

Hypnotic blindness, awareness, and attribution

Examined whether performance on a spelling task would be influenced by visual information in the reported absence of hypnotized subjects' awareness of that information. Experiment 1 visually presented uncommon spellings of homophones to subjects before and during a suggestion for hypnotic blindness, and subsequently tested subjects' spelling of the homophones. Words presented during hypnotic blindness influenced subjects' spelling performance. Subjects' attributions of their performance did not involve awareness of the homophones. Experiment 2 used the nonexperiment methodology to examine the impact of demand characteristics and indicated that the performance attributions of subjects of Experiment 1 could not be explained in these terms. The discussion focuses on implicit perception in hypnotic blindness and on the relevance of attributions about behavioral performance on hypnotic phenomena.     

A TEST OF SHAVELSON'S HIERARCHICAL MULTIFACETED SELF-CONCEPT MODEL IN A FILIPINO COLLEGE SAMPLE

Shavelson's hierarchical, multifaceted self-concept model (HMFM) has proven useful to educational and psychological researchers. The reliability and factorial validity of a well-known HMFM instrument - the Fleming-Courtney Self-Rating Scales (SRS) - were examined for a sample of 198 Filipino college students. Confirmatory factor analysis compared six structural models. A six-factor, oblique model that included two social factors (Social Acceptance and Social Anxiety) fit the data best, and a second-order factor analysis supported the hierarchical structure of the SRS. The men were significantly higher than the women on three self-concept scales, but the only large effect was for Physical Abilities, consistent with findings in a U.S. college sample. Results provided some support for the utility of both the SRS and HMFM for Filipinos.