Acts of Contrition,Forgiveness by God,and Death Anxiety Among Older Mexican Americans

The purpose of this study is to see if performing acts of contrition in order to be forgiven by God is associated with lower levels of death anxiety among older Mexican Americans. A conceptual model containing the following relationships was developed to evaluate this and other hypotheses: (a) It is hypothesized that older Mexican Americans who attend church more often will have a stronger sense of God-mediated control (i.e., the belief that God works together with people to attain desired goals and eliminate unwanted stressors), (b) individuals with a stronger sense of God-mediated control will be more likely to perform acts of contrition in order to earn God's forgiveness, (c) performing acts of contrition will enhance feelings of self-worth, and (d) a stronger sense of self-esteem will be associated with lower levels of death anxiety. Data from a nationwide sample of older Mexican Americans provide support for each of these relationships.     

The interplay of received social support and self-regulatory factors in smoking cessation

Objective: In smoking cessation, individual self-regulation and social support have both proven to be useful. However, the roles of self-regulatory processes and social support are mostly examined separately. The present study aims at examining the unique and joint interactive effects of self-regulation as specified in the health action process approach (HAPA) and social support on smoking cessation. The study tested whether social support can compensate for low levels of self-regulation or whether synergistic effects emerge.

Design & Measures: Around a self-set quit date, 99 smokers completed baseline questionnaires on HAPA-variables, smoking-specific received social support and smoking cessation (continuous abstinence and point prevalence), with a follow-up Cpproximately 29?days after the quitdate.

Results: Social support moderated the association between volitional self-efficacy and smoking, as well as coping planning and smoking but not between action planning and smoking. No compensatory effect of social support for lower levels of individual regulation emerged but the combination of high levels of the individual variables and social support was related to successful smoking cessation, indicating a synergistic effect.

Conclusions: The results confirm the importance of examining both self-regulation and social factors in smoking cessation. This should be considered when developing future interventions for smoking cessation.     

Trajectories of change in dimensions of forgiveness among older adults and their association with religious commitment

Forgiveness is a complex construct with an important role in religious traditions worldwide, and is associated with mental and physical health outcomes. This seven-year longitudinal study examined changes within individuals during, and differences based on birth cohort, in forgiveness during late life. Growth curve analysis was used to analyse the general pattern of change across the course of older adulthood in eight dimensions related to forgiveness. Increases over time were observed in forgiveness of others, conditionality of forgiveness of others, forgiveness of self, feelings of being forgiven by God, and feelings of being forgiven by others. Decreases over time were observed in difficulty forgiving oneself, and perceptions of conditionality in God's forgiveness. Religious commitment was related to reporting more a more forgiving attitude on seven of these dimensions, but also to more perceived conditionality in God's forgiveness. Finally, differences in mean levels of forgiveness emerged between birth cohorts.     

Religious involvement,helping others,and psychological well-being

This study has two goals. The first goal is to see if involvement in religion is associated with providing tangible support to family members and strangers. The second goal is to see if providing tangible support to family members and strangers is associated with well-being. A conceptual model, which was developed to address these issues, contains the following core relationships: (1) individuals who go to church more often will receive more spiritual support from coreligionists; (2) those who receive more spiritual support will provide more tangible assistance to family members and strangers; and (3) people who help family members and strangers will report greater life satisfaction and higher self-esteem. Findings from a nationwide survey support all but one of these relationships. More specifically, the results suggest that providing tangible support to family members is associated with greater well-being, but providing tangible support to strangers is not associated with well-being.     

Coaching

Coaching ist in Wirtschaftsunternehmen weit verbreitet. Angesichts der stetig steigenden Ver?nderungsgeschwindigkeit der Arbeits- und pers?nlichen Lebenswelten suchten zun?chst Führungskr?fte professionelle Coaches, die ihnen als vertraute Gespr?chspartner zur Seite standen. Coachingma?nahmen werden aber auch zunehmend von Politikern, Medienvertretern, Künstlern und Freiberuflern nachgefragt. Die derzeitigen Coachingkonzepte enthalten zumeist eine Kombination von allgemein-psychologischen, kognitiv-verhaltensorientierten, psychodynamischen und systemischen Techniken, modifiziert durch die Lebenserfahrung und Weltanschauung der Coaches. Es existiert eine Vielzahl eklektischer Praktiken, die theoretisch nicht koh?rent begründet und wissenschaftlich nicht verl?sslich evaluiert sind. Da Coaching in der Praxis h?ufig eine Form von Psychohygiene und Psychotherapie für Gesunde darstellt, ist es nahe liegend die Ergebnisse psychotherapeutischer Theoriebildung, Praxiserfahrung und Forschung als Grundlage des Coaching zu nutzen. Drei wissenschaftlich fundierte Aspekte des Coaching lassen sich herausstellen: Die hilfreiche Beziehung, kognitiv-verhaltensorientiertes Training und psychodynamisches Verstehen. Darüber hinaus ist es viel versprechend die Methoden der Psychotherapieforschung zur Untersuchung von Ergebnis und Prozess von Coachingma?nahmen anzuwenden.     

Coaching

Zusammenfassung Coaching ist in Wirtschaftsunternehmen weit verbreitet. Angesichts der stetig steigenden Ver?nderungsgeschwindigkeit der Arbeits- und pers?nlichen Lebenswelten suchten zun?chst Führungskr?fte professionelle Coaches, die ihnen als vertraute Gespr?chspartner zur Seite standen. Coachingma?nahmen werden aber auch zunehmend von Politikern, Medienvertretern, Künstlern und Freiberuflern nachgefragt. Die derzeitigen Coachingkonzepte enthalten zumeist eine Kombination von allgemein-psychologischen, kognitiv-verhaltensorientierten, psychodynamischen und systemischen Techniken, modifiziert durch die Lebenserfahrung und Weltanschauung der Coaches. Es existiert eine Vielzahl eklektischer Praktiken, die theoretisch nicht koh?rent begründet und wissenschaftlich nicht verl?sslich evaluiert sind. Da Coaching in der Praxis h?ufig eine Form von Psychohygiene und Psychotherapie für Gesunde darstellt, ist es nahe liegend die Ergebnisse psychotherapeutischer Theoriebildung, Praxiserfahrung und Forschung als Grundlage des Coaching zu nutzen. Drei wissenschaftlich fundierte Aspekte des Coaching lassen sich herausstellen: Die hilfreiche Beziehung, kognitiv-verhaltensorientiertes Training und psychodynamisches Verstehen. Darüber hinaus ist es viel versprechend die Methoden der Psychotherapieforschung zur Untersuchung von Ergebnis und Prozess von Coachingma?nahmen anzuwenden.      

Forgiveness by God, Forgiveness of Others, and Psychological Well-Being in Late Life

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among forgiveness by God, forgiveness of others, and psychological well–being with data provided by a nationwide survey of older adults. Three main findings emerge from the analyses. First, the data suggest that forgiving others tends to enhance psychological well–being, and these salubrious effects are greater than those associated with forgiveness by God. Second, the findings indicate that how older people go about forgiving others is important: older adults who require transgressors to perform acts of contrition experience more psychological distress than those who forgive unconditionally. Third, the results reveal that forgiveness by God may be involved in this process because older people who feel they are forgiven by God are less likely to expect transgressors to perform acts of contrition.     

Isomorphism and Equational Equivalence of Continuous λ-Models

We will present several results on two types of continuous models of -calculus, namely graph models and extensional models. By introducing a variant of Engeler's model construction, we are able to generalize the results of [7] and to give invariants that determine a large family of graph models up to applicative isomorphism. This covers all graph models considered in the litterature so far. We indicate briefly how these invariants may be modified in order to determine extensional models as well.Furthermore, we use our construction to exhibit graph models that are not equationally equivalent. We indicate once again how the construction passes on to extensional models.