The potential impact of the neurosciences on religious and spiritual education: ramifying from the impact on values education

This article will argue that neuroscientific insights can inform religious and spiritual education’s capacity for strengthening student understanding, promoting transformation and ultimately wisdom. Among other findings, it will show that current neuroscientific research supports a holistic approach to pedagogy which emphasises the cognitive, affective, moral and other dimensions of student learning and the corresponding need to facilitate development in all of these dimensions in order for authentic learning to take place. As such, the article adopts a cross-disciplinary reference point, referring to research that has demonstrated the usefulness of neuroscientific findings in application to education through a specific focus on values education. Values education is held up as a discipline with complementary interests to a holistic religious and spiritual education, these interests being in its capacity to inculcate in students the character dispositions which orientate them towards moral excellence, so allowing them to navigate complex ethical terrain, contribute constructively to society, and ultimately achieve human flourishing (Porter 2001 Porter, J. 2001. “Virtue Ethics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, edited by R. Gill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Becker 2004 Becker, M. 2004. “Virtue Ethics, Applied Ethics and Rationality Twenty-three Years after ‘After Virtue’.” South African Journal of Philosophy 23 (3): 267–281.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Narvaez 2007; Rachels 2007). Drawing on what has been demonstrated above, we will argue that neuroscientific insights can help in understanding and facilitating religious and spiritual education as holistic and able to respond to contemporary issues of personal identity and social friction and, furthermore, as uniquely poised to contribute to contemporary educational research, including around the intersections between neuroscience and education.     

Thinking ethically about inclusive recreational sport: A narrative of lost dignity

Through narrative reflections of Jack’s story of inclusive recreational sport, the meaning of dignity in professional practice is explored. Jack’s story is one of respect, strong humiliation and embarrassment, and vulnerability. Through the lens of relational ethics, the aggression of a stranger illustrates how the lack of mutual respect, compassion and knowledge creates experiences of indignity. Jack’s story highlights how relationships can shape, constrain and enable lives. Understanding that which constitutes a dignified recreational sport context for instructors and participants opens opportunities for authentic social relationships based upon respect of oneself, as well as others to emerge. Jack’s narrative further reinforces the need to create pedagogical spaces for discussions of various forms of dignity and ethical professional practice in inclusive recreational sport contexts.     

Influencing light versus heavy engagers of harmful behavior to curb their habits through positive and negative ad imagery

Mass media advertising has increasingly been seen as an important vehicle to influence attitudes and behaviors on issues designed to enhance the well‐being of society overall. However, prior research shows mixed results on the ability of advertising to encourage substantial or long‐term changes in self‐destructive behavior. The current research provides a framework to reconcile previous findings and demonstrates that different psychological processes are occurring when trying to convince light versus heavy engagers to curb their potentially harmful behaviors. Validated across two contexts (texting while driving and excessive gambling), the present study demonstrates that ads containing positive imagery (as opposed to negative imagery) are more effective at influencing heavy engagers to limit their harmful behaviors. Heavy engagers in the harmful behavior seem to resist ads containing negative imagery and do not find them to be more credible or involving. Instead, they are more influenced to curb their harmful behaviors after seeing positive imagery containing characters and situations to which they can relate. On the other hand, light engagers of harmful behavior are more likely to be persuaded to limit their behaviors after exposure to advertising containing negative imagery. The negative imagery evokes perceptions of ad credibility and encourages individuals to think about the advertised problem and consequences. Both credibility and ad involvement are shown to be important mediators of ad effectiveness for light engagers, whereas relatability was not a significant mediator for this group. Implications for the design of effective public service announcements targeted toward these separate groups are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of ethanol treatment on social behavior in male rats

The effect of 0.50 g/kg of EtOH in male rats interacting with a stimulus male juvenile in a newly developed test of social interaction was examined. The adult male rats were treated with EtOH (8.0 to 12.0 g/kg/day) or equicaloric dextrin maltose for 2 weeks (studies 1 and 2) or 8 weeks (study 3) and social interaction was assessed both before and after chronic drug treatment was ended in study 1 and after chronic drug treatment was ended in studies 2 and 3. It was found that prior to chronic drug treatment, in study 1, 0.50 g/kg of EtOH increased both aggressive behavior and time spent interacting with the stimulus juvenile male from the first presentation of the juvenile to the second presentation (20 min apart) while saline injection decreased it. After chronic drug treatment was ended, in study 1 animals treated chronically with EtOH were more aggressive when they were not intoxicated than when they had been treated with 0.50 g/kg of EtOH. In studies 2 and 3, after chronic drug treatment was ended, aggressive behavior and time spent interacting with the juvenile were greater in the animals treated chronically with EtOH, regardless of whether they were injected with saline or 0.50 g/kg of EtOH. The results of these studies showed that chronic EtOH treatment can produce long-lasting changes in social behavior after drug treatment is over and can alter the animal's normal response to EtOH in a social setting.     

Faith as a Cultural Variable: Implications for Counselor Training

Counselors are faced with a unique challenge when faith is a prominent clinical variable. Although faith is deemed relevant, counselors may not feel comfortable approaching the subject of faith with clients. Participants in this study were practicing counselors licensed in their respective states; each was also a current doctoral candidate in counselor education and supervision. A scenario involving a complex interaction of faith; family systems; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues in clinical practice was provided. Participants were found to be more likely to value the importance of addressing faith in sessions than they were to actually use faith as an intervention.     

Juror Decision‐making in Death Penalty Sentencing when Presented with Defendant's History of Child Abuse or Neglect

Previous studies have found aggravating, mitigating, and null effects of defendant histories of abuse and neglect on punishment preferences in capital sentencing. Perceiving these defendants as more dangerous, jurors may be more likely to favor the death penalty when such evidence is presented. This is counter to the intuition that abuse or neglect reduces culpability, and therefore mitigates the severity of punishment. We investigated the effect of defendant childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect on the probability of a prospective juror preferring the death penalty in an between‐subject experimental design. Using vignettes and two large samples (students and jurors), defendant histories were found to mitigate the probability that the hypothetical defendant received the death penalty, with sexual abuse having the most salient effect. Further, the effects were conditioned by preference for the death penalty – larger mitigating effects were observed among individuals who favor the death penalty. These findings suggest that initial judgments of abuse and neglect are related to juror leniency, and further research on the interaction of jury instructions and defendant histories is needed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Divergent thinking and constructing episodic simulations

Divergent thinking likely plays an important role in simulating autobiographical events. We investigated whether divergent thinking is differentially associated with the ability to construct detailed imagined future and imagined past events as opposed to recalling past events. We also examined whether age differences in divergent thinking might underlie the reduced episodic detail generated by older adults. The richness of episodic detail comprising autobiographical events in young and older adults was assessed using the Autobiographical Interview. Divergent thinking abilities were measured using the Alternative Uses Task. Divergent thinking was significantly associated with the amount of episodic detail for imagined future events. Moreover, while age was significantly associated with imagined episodic detail, this effect was strongly related to age-related changes in episodic retrieval rather than divergent thinking.     

Erratum to: Reducing the Floor Effect in the SF-6D: A Feasibility Study

Applied Research in Quality of Life -     

PARENTAL CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY,DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS,AND PARENTING QUALITY: EFFECTS ON TODDLER SELF‐REGULATION IN CHILD WELFARE SERVICES INVOLVED FAMILIES

Parents who are involved with child welfare services (CWSI) often have a history of childhood adversity and depressive symptoms. Both affect parenting quality, which in turn influences child adaptive functioning. We tested a model of the relations between parental depression and child regulatory outcomes first proposed by K. Lyons‐Ruth, R. Wolfe, A. Lyubchik, and R. Steingard (2002). We hypothesized that both parental depression and parenting quality mediate the effects of parental early adversity on offspring regulatory outcomes. Participants were 123 CWSI parents and their toddlers assessed three times over a period of 6 months. At Time 1, parents reported on their childhood adversity and current depressive symptoms. At Time 2, parents’ sensitivity to their child's distress and nondistress cues was rated from a videotaped teaching task. At Time 3, observers rated children's emotional regulation, orientation/engagement, and secure base behavior. The results of a path model partly supported the hypotheses. Parent childhood adversity was associated with current depressive symptoms, which in turn related to parent sensitivity to child distress, but not nondistress. Sensitivity to distress also predicted secure base behavior. Depression directly predicted orientation/engagement, also predicted by sensitivity to nondistress. Sensitivity to distress predicted emotion regulation and orientation/engagement. Results are discussed in terms of intervention approaches for CWSI families.