Daniel Dubuisson, The Western Construction of Religion

In The Western Construction of Religion Daniel Dubuisson argues that the concept of ‘religion’ is too historically and culturally contingent to serve as the basis for a comparative discipline. The concept is indigenous to Western culture and is inherently theological and phenomenological. He argues for a constructionist view of the discipline and proposes the concept ‘cosmographic formations’ as a replacement for ‘religion’. Religious phenomena should be taken as discursive constructions that link embodied individuals to the social, cultural and cosmic orders. The following reviews evaluate Dubuisson's arguments, relating them to broader currents in the theory of religion. Daniel Dubuisson responds to each of the reviews.¹     

Methods and mechanisms in the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy

Comments on the original article, "The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy," by J. Shedler (see record 2010-02208-012). Shedler summarized a large body of research that shows psychodynamic therapy to have a substantial effect size, comparable to that for many empirically supported treatments. This is an important finding, in part refuting the concerns raised by Bornstein (2001, 2002) regarding the future of psychodynamic approaches had there been no substantial changes in how practitioners and researchers approached the science to demonstrate efficacy. Further, Shedler showed that the efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is due to therapeutic methods commonly employed in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), one of the most frequently cited empirically supported approaches for a wide range of psychological conditions. From a methodological perspective, there are some important limitations to the claim of psychodynamic psychotherapy's comparable efficacy to other empirically supported approaches.     

Gratitude: prompting behaviours that build relationships

The emotion gratitude is argued to play a pivotal role in building and maintaining social relationships. Evidence is accumulating that links gratitude to increases in relationship satisfaction. Yet, there is currently little evidence for how gratitude does this. The present paper provides experimental evidence of gratitude facilitating relationship-building behaviours. Study 1 provides evidence that gratitude promotes social affiliation, leading one to choose to spend time with a benefactor. Study 2 offers further evidence of gratitude's ability to strengthen relationships by showing that gratitude facilitates socially inclusive behaviours, preferentially towards one's benefactor, even when those actions come at a cost to oneself.     

Local dependence latent structure models

A local independence latent structure model, which assumesm latent classes, requires a minimum of 2m-1 items for the solution of the 2m ² latent parameters. If one adds 3 items to the test and if one assumes local dependence between pairs of items, thereby adding additional latent parameters, _ij , representing the association between itemsi andj, then it is possible to obtain estimates for all of the latent parameters: latent class frequencies latent probabilities, and measures of association between pairs of items. The solution consists of (1) forming (m + 1) × (m + 1) matrices of manifest data, which are singular, (2) solving for the _ij in equations that result from the singularity of the data matrices, (3) correcting the manifest data by removing the contamination due to local dependence, and (4) estimating the remaining latent parameters from the corrected data, using methods outlined in earlier literature.     

Train the child and teach the adult: Developing intervention strategies for increasing seafood consumption

Despite increasing levels of per capita seafood consumption globally, consumption levels across the population vary with many consumers eating less than recommended weekly intakes. This study investigates the influence of childhood patterns of seafood consumption, consumer confidence in selecting and preparing seafood, adult eating habits, and lifestyle on seafood consumption. Partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis was conducted using a sample of 1,318 Australian adults. The results show that consuming seafood regularly in childhood and developing the confidence to select and prepare seafood as an adult contribute to the development of seafood eating habits. Subsequently, a habit of consuming seafood leads to a lifestyle involving regular consumption of seafood. The results indicate the need to develop and implement intervention strategies for encouraging childhood seafood consumption (“train the child”) and increasing adults' confidence in selecting and preparing seafood (“teach the adult”). Intervention strategies proposed include educational programmes targeted at both children and adults, combined with the development of seafood products that appeal to children and suit the changing lifestyle needs of today's 21st century consumers.     

Social Interdependence and Orientation Toward Life and Work1

The relationship between social interdependence and orientation toward life and work was investigated in this study. Participants were 135 dyads of Chinese employees from 4 companies. Cooperativeness was significantly related to positive indexes of orientation toward life and work, competitiveness was related to a positive orientation toward life, and a predisposition to act individualistically was related to general measures but very few of the work‐specific measures. Coworkers' ratings indicate that cooperators were perceived as being very positive and productive employees, while competitors and individualists were perceived negatively in terms of work productivity and relationships with others. The discrepancy between self‐perceptions and perceptions of coworkers indicate that competitors especially may have a self‐beneficial delusion about the effectiveness of their behavior.     

Applying the Psychology of Science to the Science of Psychology: Can Psychologists Use Psychological Science to Enhance Psychology as a Science?

ABSTRACT— Added to the already tremendous diversity of subdisciplines of psychological science is the psychology of science. Although research on the psychology of science began in 1874, the field has seen a substantial expansion of activity in recent years. One particular subset of this research literature has special importance: namely, inquiries into the psychology of doing great science. These investigations may be assigned into four groups: cognitive, differential, developmental, and social. Each of these deal with critical questions that can, if answered, contribute directly to the improvement of psychology as a science. Potential applications include (a) the identification of scientific talent in psychology, (b) the education of future investigators in psychological science, and (c) the evaluation of psychology's progress as a scientific endeavor.     

"Lost in a shopping mall" -- a breach of professional ethics

The "lost in a shopping mall" study has been cited to support claims that psychotherapists can implant memories of false autobiographical information of childhood trauma in their patients. The mall study originated in 1991 as 5 pilot experiments involving 3 children and 2 adult participants. The University of Washington Human Subjects Committee granted approval for the mall study on August 10, 1992. The preliminary results with the 5 pilot subjects were announced 4 days laters. An analysis of the mall study shows that beyond the external misrepresentions, internal scientific methodological errors cast doubt on the validity of the claims that have been attributed to the mall study within scholarly and legal arenas. The minimal involvement -- or, in some cases, negative impact -- of collegial consultation, acadmic supervision, and peer review throughout the evolution of the mall study are reviewed.     

Aging and memory for faces versus single views of faces

Differences in the ability of young adults and elderly to recognize faces were examined under two conditions. In a standard single-view condition, in which each input face was shown as one photograph, we confirmed prior findings that young adults perform better than the elderly at distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of new faces. We also found that the elderly had more trouble distinguishing photographs seen before from photographs of(l) old faces changed in facial expression and (2) old faces changed in expression and pose. Yet there were no reliable age differences in distinguishing old-but-changed faces from entirely new faces. In a more naturalistic multi-view condition, in which each input face was shown in four poses and with two expressions, no age differences were found. A second experiment ruled out the possibility that varied repetition, by itself, removes age differences in recognizing faces. These data supported age differences in remembering facial expressions and possibly other details of photographs of faces, but not in remembering faces perse.