Mothers' Psychological Adjustment Following Disaster Affecting Their Children

The authors investigated the psychological adjustment of 37 British women whose adolescent children survived the cruise ship Jupiter's sinking in 1988, about 6 years previously. They compared these women with a group of widows (N = 18) and a group of women who had suffered no major negative life event (N = 15). Psychological adjustment of the 37 women was assessed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia Lifetime Version (SADS-L; R. L. Spitzer & J. Endicott, 1975) and various standard questionnaires. The women whose children had been involved in the disaster were found to have suffered a greater number of incidents of psychological distress in the period since the disaster than the women who had suffered no major negative life events but fewer incidents of psychological distress than the widows. The significance of these findings and clinical implications are discussed.     

God knows (but does God believe?)

The standard view in epistemology is that propositional knowledge entails belief. Positive arguments are seldom given for this entailment thesis, however; instead, its truth is typically assumed. Against the entailment thesis, Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (Noûs, forthcoming) report that a non-trivial percentage of people think that there can be propositional knowledge without belief. In this paper, we add further fuel to the fire, presenting the results of four new studies. Based on our results, we argue that the entailment thesis does not deserve the default status that it is typically granted. We conclude by considering the alternative account of knowledge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel propose to explain their results, arguing that it does not explain ours. In its place we offer a different explanation of both sets of findings—the conviction account, according to which belief, but not knowledge, requires mental assent.     

Severe Social Withdrawal: Cultural Variation in Past Hikikomori Experiences of University Students in Nigeria,Singapore, and the United States

Hikikomori (social withdrawal that lasts six months or longer) is a growing problem among Japanese adolescents and young adults, with recent estimates that approximately 1% of Japanese youths will suffer from an episode of hikikomori in their lifetimes. What remains unclear is whether hikikomori is a culture-bound syndrome or a condition impacting youths around the globe. Hence, the self-reported prevalence and psychosocial correlates of past experiences with hikikomori were examined in cross-sectional samples of university students from Singapore (n?=?147), Nigeria (n?=?151), and the United States (n?=?301). Following tests of measurement invariance, comparisons showed that past experiences with hikikomori were related to elevated levels of current loneliness and depressive symptoms in each sample. However, analyses also revealed evidence of cultural variation in both the prevalence and the psychosocial correlates associated with past experiences of hikikomori, which taken together, provide preliminary evidence that the culture-bound characterization of hikikomori may not be appropriate.     

The Speaking that Silence Is: Prayer as Openness to God

Prayer exists as the dialectic between speaking and falling silent that presupposes, assumes and furthers the openness of the whole self to God. Prayer as speaking comprises thanksgiving, confession, petition, and instruction. Instruction includes a Torah‐like understanding of God's word as law, following Martin Luther. Prayer as silence includes the silence of confusion, the silence of expectation, and the silence of submission, following Søren Kierkegaard.     

Metaphysics of quantity and the limit of phenomenal concepts

Quantities like mass and temperature are properties that come in degrees. And those degrees (e.g. 5 kg) are properties that are called the magnitudes of the quantities. Some philosophers talk about magnitudes of phenomenal qualities as if some of our phenomenal qualities are quantities. The goal of this essay is to explore the anti-physicalist implication of this apparently innocent way of conceptualizing phenomenal quantities. I will first argue for a metaphysical thesis about the nature of magnitudes based on Yablo’s proportionality requirement of causation. Then, I will show that, if some phenomenal qualities are indeed quantities, there can be no demonstrative concepts about some of our phenomenal feelings. That presents a significant restriction on the way physicalists can account for the epistemic gap between the phenomenal and the physical. I’ll illustrate the restriction by showing how that rules out a popular physicalist response to the Knowledge Argument.     

Predictors of fear of crime: general fear versus perceived risk

Much of the literature on fear of crime (FOC) has focused on the role of risk perceptions in understanding FOC, with little consideration given to psychological factors not directly related to crime, but that can impact the levels of FOC. This study introduces general fear (GF) as an explanatory factor in understanding FOC. A proportional random sample of 1,197 respondents was obtained from 406 enumeration districts across Trinidad. The results revealed GF as the strongest predictor of FOC across ethnicity, sex, age, area of residence, and victim status. Explanations and areas for further investigation are offered.     

Scheduling Scaffolding: The Extent and Arrangement of Assistance During Training Impacts Test Performance

Various kinds of assistance, including prompts, worked examples, direct instruction, and modeling, are widely provided to learners across educational and training programs. Yet, the effectiveness of assistance during training on long-term learning is widely debated. The authors examined how the extent and schedule of assistance during training on a novel mouse movement task impacted unassisted test performance. Learners received different schedules of assistance during training, including constant assistance, no assistance, probabilistic assistance, alternating assistance, and faded assistance. Constant assistance led to better performance during training than no assistance. However, constant assistance during training resulted in the worst unassisted test performance. Faded assistance during training resulted in the best test performance. This suggests that fading may allow learners to create an internal model of the assistance without depending on the assistance in a manner that impedes successful transfer to unassisted circumstances.     

Measuring Postural Sway in Sitting: A New Segmental Approach

Global measures of trunk sway are traditionally used even though the trunk comprises a multiple number of segments. The authors’ aim was to measure the seated sway of typically developing children using a multisegment approach. Twenty typically developing children divided into 2 groups, older and younger than 10 years old, participated in this study. The children sat unsupported for 30 s while their posture and sway were quantified using stereophotogrammetry. The tendency in both age groups was to sit with a backward tilted pelvis and a kyphotic trunk. The sitting position was most varied in the younger group. Marker sway amplitude and velocity in sitting were age dependent, with reduced sway amplitude and velocity with increased age for all segments. Anteroposterior intersegmental angular sway was not age dependent. The difference in marker sway in the anteroposterior direction for the younger group appeared to result from an equally stable trunk supported on a less stable pelvis. Mediolateral marker sway and intersegmental angular sway showed a clearer age dependency. Trunk postural control does not appear to differ between children older and younger than 10 years old, but sagittal plane pelvic stability can explain the increased sway reported in younger children.     

Feed My Sheep: An Analysis of the Black–White Biblical Academic Achievement Gap

Secular academic achievement gap analyses consistently hold that Blacks perform worse than their White counterparts. Although gaps are closing, significant variances remain; sadly, poor performance isn’t limited to secular academics. Analysis of Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s 2010 U.S. Religious Knowledge survey holds that although African-American Christians are more likely to attend church more frequently than other ethnicities, they are significantly more likely to know the least about the Bible. Unfortunately, the literature does not address the biblical racial achievement gap; we seek to correct this deficiency. We explored the extent of the Black–White biblical academic achievement gap and identified variables which exacerbate it. Linear regression analysis reveals that Blacks actualize a negative impact to biblical literacy engendered by their race: regardless of attendance frequency, the total number of questions answered correctly (μ = 4.337 out of 8) is reduced by 0.705. This impact is (a) not experienced by Whites and (b) larger than the church attendance benefit (0.228).