Social anxiety and post-event processing among African-American individuals

Background: Social anxiety is among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, yet little attention has been paid to whether putative cognitive vulnerability factors related to social anxiety in predominantly White samples are related to social anxiety among historically underrepresented groups.

Design: We tested whether one such vulnerability factor, post-event processing (PEP; detailed review of social event that can increase state social anxiety) was related to social anxiety among African-American (AA; n?=?127) persons, who comprise one of the largest underrepresented racial groups in the U.S. Secondarily, we tested whether AA participants differed from non-Hispanic White participants (n?=?127) on PEP and social anxiety and whether race moderated the relation between PEP and social anxiety.

Method: Data were collected online among undergraduates.

Results: PEP was positively correlated with social anxiety among AA participants, even after controlling for depression and income, pr?=?.30, p?=?.001. AA and White participants did not differ on social anxiety or PEP, β?=??1.57, 95% CI: ?5.11, 1.96. The relation of PEP to social anxiety did not vary as a function of race, β?=?0.00, 95% CI: ?0.02, 0.02.

Conclusions: PEP may be an important cognitive vulnerability factor related to social anxiety among AA persons suffering from social anxiety.     

Orientalism and the Invention of Kashmiri Religion(s)

The sordid research process behind the Lallā-Vākyāni, the first major English translation of poetry attributed to the fourteenth-century saint Lal Ded, reveals strategies employed by George Grierson, Lionel Barnett, and Mukund Ram Shastri to recast Lal Ded and the cultural heritage of Kashmir as exclusively Hindu. Contradicting the earliest depictions of Lal Ded in sixteenth-century Persian hagiographies, the Lallā-Vākyāni was instrumental to the modern invention of Kashmiri ?aiva Hinduism as the true religion and culture of Kashmir completely devoid of any connection—religious, historical, or social—with Islam, simultaneously serving Orientalist agendas and politics of the ?ogrā court.     

Nonmonotone backward masking functions and brightness reversals

Increasing the target-field luminance aids detection for a simultaneously presented black target disc and a black masking annulus. At an intermediate interval separating the onset of the target from the mask, increasing the target-field luminance reduces target detection. This decrease in performance occurs with both temporal and spatial forced choice tasks. With a spatial forced choice, an observer's performance can fall below chance. We associate below-chance performance with a brightness reversal of the black target disc, such that the target disc appears brighter than its surround. The occurrence of brightness reversals follows from our model of the Broca-Sulzer effect, and nonmonotone masking functions result from a generalization of luminance summation.     

Is obsessive-compulsive disorder a disturbance of security motivation? Comment on Szechtman and Woody (2004)

H. Szechtman and E. Woody (2004) proposed that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is caused by a malfunctioning brain security motivation system. In the current article, the authors' review of the model suggests that it is limited in the following ways: (a) It is built on a selective review of the empirical literature, (b) it offers no explanation for many important OCD phenomena, (c) it fails to distinguish OCD from generalized anxiety disorder, (d) some of the model's predictions are ambiguous or unfalsifiable, and (e) other predictions are refuted by previously published research. Models proposing that OCD is caused by a single dysfunctional mechanism, such as the security motivation model, have difficulty explaining the complexity and heterogeneity of OCD.     

Testing for Guidance and Counseling in Junior Colleges

This paper presents some of the results from a survey of the use of standardized tests in junior colleges. Testing practices and problems related to the use of tests for guidance purposes are emphasized. The findings suggest that junior colleges are making substantial use of a variety of standardized tests primarily for guidance purposes. Problems in using the tests are being experienced, however, because of the inappropriateness of many tests, the scarcity of research evidence indicating how best to use the test results, the unavailability of tests designed to meet the specialized needs of junior colleges, and the lack of personnel with sufficient measurement training or experience.     

An apparatus for the automatic presentation of object discriminations to monkeys

Object discriminations have traditionally been presented to monkeys by hand in the Wisconsin General Test Apparatus. This method is time-consuming and prone to various kinds of experimenter error. It has proved possible to administer object discriminations automatically by using a modification of the Gloster Saro VM 51 vending machine. This machine, which has space for up to 371 objects, moves them on trays by two electric motors, and the control circuits of these are adapted for external operation by relays and modular programming equipment. A series of simple object discriminations or a concurrent (serial) discrimination task can then be given by remote control. The objects are so treated that by touching either of them the animal completes a circuit, enabling the response to be recorded and appropriately reinforced. Learning in the apparatus seems to be about as efficient as in the Wisconsin General Test Apparatus.