Depression and Religion: Realities,Perspectives, and Directions

The debate between psychologists hostile and friendly to religion regarding whether religion promotes or deters depression is reviewed from a historical perspective. Two modes of religion can be seen as forming a continuum with one pole as a life-celebrating, self-affirming religion that deters depression and the other pole as a life-constricting, self-derogating religion that promotes depression. Counselors are advised to help lead religious clients out of depression by procedures aimed at moving them from unhealthy toward healthy religious modes     

Dedicate Your Life to the Company! A Terror Management Perspective on Organizations

Terror management research has examined many institutions and beliefs, which provide people with a sense of psychological security against death awareness. However, one important area has yet to receive attention: the workplace. For many employees, corporate culture is not only connected to earning a salary, but also to a sense of security and even personal transcendence. We present evidence that pro‐company judgments can serve as psychological defenses under existential threat. In Study 1, following mortality salience, employees gave a more favorable evaluation of the company‐praising essay and a more negative evaluation of the critical one. In Study 2, employees and students at a German university were more likely to endorse aspects of organizational culture under mortality salience.     

Shining Lights or Lone Wolves? Creativity and Self‐image in Primary School Children

The relationship between self‐image and creativity was studied in primary school children. Earlier research points in two directions. Some researchers describe the creative child as well adjusted. Others provide a more nuanced picture in which less well‐behaved children can also be creative. Three different measures of creativity were used in this study: the Unusual Uses Test, an activity questionnaire and a perceptual test (the Creative Functioning Test). A self‐image inventory was used to measure participants' perceptions of their own skills, physical self, psychological health and relationships to others. The results showed no self‐image differences between children with high and low creativity. The creativity measures were significantly related, with the exception of the flexibility dimension of CFT. One possible explanation is that CFT measured another aspect of creativity. This was illustrated in a cluster analysis in relation to self‐image.     

Mood change and marathon running: A pilot study using a Swedish version of the POMS test

Regular exercise is said to have positive effects on mood, especially if the exercise intensity is low to moderate. However, the acute effects resulting from participation in a strenuous competition, such as a marathon race, have been studied less. The present investigation used the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test to measure mood, before and after the 1989 Stockholm Marathon. A total of 106 male runners (mean age 40.0 years), with finishing times between 3h and 3h 45 min participated as subjects. Results showed great changes between pre- and post-marathon scores, most of them significant at the p less than 0.001 level. Furthermore, differences between a faster and a slower group of runners were demonstrated with regard to mood states, even though plasma glucose levels were comparable. It is concluded that participation in a marathon race greatly effects mood, mainly in a more negative way than low to moderately intense exercise does.     

The experience of worry in parent–adult child relationships

This study examined the experience of worry in the parent–adult child relationship. A mother, father, and adult son or daughter from 213 families participated (N= 639). Parents and adult children commonly worried about one another and their worry reflected individual characteristics (e.g., neuroticism) and relationship characteristics (e.g., importance of the relationship and ambivalence). In addition, how much adults and their parents worried about one another influenced the other party’s perceptions of relationship quality. Specifically, adults and parents rated their relationships more positively and more negatively when the other party reported worrying about them more and communicating their worries to them more frequently. Findings underscore the importance of including experiences such as worry in research on emotional complexities in the parent–adult child relationship.     

Opinions of typical female and male sex-role behavior in Swedish children

The purpose of the study was to measure the opinions of typical female and male sex-role behavior in Swedish children. Sixty-two adults aged 20–30 years participated in a study designed to develop a method for the measuring of these opinions. In the main study, 515 children between the ages of three and twelve participated. The results showed that from the age of three, Swedish children share opinions about typical female and male sex-role behavior with adults to a large extent, and this became more pronounced with increasing age. The study also showed that the reliability of the method used was satisfactory. Factor analyses gave two orthogonal factors identified as a femininity factory and a masculinity factor, indicating that the validity also could be considered satisfactory.     

INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUMPTIONS IN LIGHT OF COGNITIVE DISABILITY

Abstract: This Introduction to the collection of essays surveys the philosophical literature to date with respect to five central questions: justice, care, agency, metaphilosophical issues regarding the language and representation of cognitive disability, and personhood. These themes are discussed in relation to three specific conditions: intellectual and developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's disease, and autism, though the issues raised are relevant to a broad range of cognitive disabilities. The Introduction offers a brief historical overview of the treatment cognitive disability has received from philosophers, and explains the specific challenges that cognitive disability poses to philosophy. In briefly summarizing the essays in the collection, it highlights the distinctive contributions the collection makes to ethics, political philosophy, bioethics, and the philosophy of disability. We hope that the richness of the topics explored by these essays will be a spur to further investigation.     

THE PERSONAL IS PHILOSOPHICAL IS POLITICAL: A PHILOSOPHER AND MOTHER OF A COGNITIVELY DISABLED PERSON SENDS NOTES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD

Abstract: Having encountered landmines in offering a critique of philosophy based on my experience as the mother of a cognitively disabled daughter, I ask, "Should I continue?" I defend the idea that pursuing this project is of a piece with the invisible care labor that is done by people with disabilities and their families. The value of attempting to influence philosophical conceptions of cognitive disability by virtue of this experience is justified by an inextricable relationship between the personal, the political, and the philosophical. If one grants that the "special relationship" between mother and child requires moral recognition, then I need first to make vivid the case that this relationship in the case of a child who lacks some "normal capacities" is indistinguishable from any mother-child relationship. If this is so, then I believe I can make a case that has as its conclusion that the moral personhood of even the severely cognitively disabled must be granted. Moreover, such recognition, I argue, necessitates the recognition of others who bear no special relationships to the child.