Is IQ in Childhood Associated with Suicidal Thoughts and Attempts? Findings from The Mater University Study of Pregnancy and Its Outcomes

This study explores associations of IQ at age 14 with adult symptoms of suicidal thoughts and attempts at age 21. Analysis was based on the Mater University Study of Pregnancy and its outcomes, an Australian prospective birth cohort study started in Brisbane Australia in 1981. We assessed associations with suicide thoughts, plans, and attempts. We used two measures of IQ: the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and the Wide Range Achievement Test. In multivariable analyses, there was an inverse association between Raven's IQ and suicide thoughts, plans, and attempts, but no strong evidence of an association between the WRAT3 and the three suicidal items. Specific aspects of intelligence may be associated with suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts.     

Killing, wrongness, and equality

This paper examines accounts of the moral wrongness of killing persons in addition to determining what conclusions, if any, can be drawn from the morality of killing persons about the (in)equality of persons, and vice versa. I will argue that a plausible way of thinking about the moral wrongness of killing implies that the permissibility of killing innocent, nonthreatening persons depends on a person’s age. I address objections to this conclusion and discuss some potential implications of the view.     

Religion,Statelessness, and Belonging

Before 1948, and stretching back more than 1800 years, the Jewish people suffered all the problems of statelessness. The Zionist movement, 1897–1948, strove to end the condition of Jewish exile and statelessness. The great historical irony and tragedy is that the establishment of the State of Israel brought about the Nakba, the catastrophe, of the Palestinian people. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians see themselves as the victims of the conflict. They seem to be competitors in what I call a “suffering sweepstakes.” One of the problems with victimhood is that it prevents victims from assuming responsibility for their actions, including the victimization of others. In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, both sides are victims and both sides are victimizers. The least helpful thing people can do – and regrettably many well‐meaning people do this – is to portray the situation in terms of a zero‐sum game, in which, if you’re pro‐Palestinian, you must be anti‐Israeli, and vice versa. We must be both pro‐Palestinian and pro‐Israeli, because we are pro‐people and, therefore, pro‐peace. The achievement of peace necessitates a two‐state solution based on some recognition of the two narratives. The best fulfilment of Zionism will come when there is a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.     

Features enhance the encoding of geometry

Successful navigation within an environment requires that the traveler establish the correct heading—a process referred to as orienting. Many studies have now shown that humans and non-human animals can use the geometric properties of an enclosure to orient. In the present study, two groups of Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) were trained, in a reference memory task, to find food hidden in one of four containers arranged to form a rectangular array. One group had unique objects placed next to each of the containers, whereas the second group had identical objects placed next to each of the containers. Here, I show for the first time that for the Clark’s nutcracker, the distinctive properties of these objects enhanced the encoding of the array’s geometry compared to the learning of geometric properties from an array of identical objects, which remained at chance after substantial amounts of training. Subsequent transformation tests showed that an object not associated with reward, but sharing the same geometric properties as the correct object, may have had inhibitory qualities. Furthermore, by systematically removing objects from the array, I show that although nutcrackers encoded the geometry of the array, they did not encode a complete featural representation of the objects within the array.     

The developmental psychometrics of big five self-reports: acquiescence, factor structure, coherence, and differentiation from ages 10 to 20

How do youths' personality reports differ from those of adults? To identify the year-by-year timing of developmental trends from late childhood (age 10) to early adulthood (age 20), the authors examined Big Five self-report data from a large and diverse Internet sample. At younger ages within this range, there were large individual differences in acquiescent responding, and acquiescence variability had pronounced effects on psychometric characteristics. Beyond the effects of acquiescence, self-reports generally became more coherent within domains, and better differentiated across domains, at older ages. Importantly, however, different Big Five domains showed different developmental trends. Extraversion showed especially pronounced age gains in coherence but no gains in differentiation. In contrast, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness showed large age gains in differentiation but only trivial gains in coherence. Neuroticism and Openness showed moderate gains in both coherence and differentiation. Comparisons of items that were relatively easy versus difficult to comprehend indicated that these patterns were not simply due to verbal comprehension. These findings have important implications for the study of personality characteristics and other psychological attributes in childhood and adolescence.