The conversion of Paul

This essay extrapolates from recent psychological data on the phenomena of guilt and splitting to possible implications for the understanding of the experience of the Apostle Paul.     

Estimating the polyserial correlation coefficient

We develop simple noniterative estimators of the polyserial correlation coefficient. A general relationship between the polyserial correlation and the point polyserial correlation is exploited to give extensions of Pearson's, Brogden's, and Lord's biserial estimators to the multicategory setting. The small sample and asmptotic properties of these estimators are studied in some detail. A comparison with maximum likelihood estimates shows that Lord's polyserial estimator is fairly efficient across three probability models.The authors would like to thank the referees for suggestions that improved the presentation of the paper.     

An Attributional Perspective on African American Adults' Exercise Behavior1

The present study examined attributional patterns for successful and unsuccessful exercise behavior change in a sample of African American adults. Subjects typically reported the primary causes of successful exercise change to be of a motivational and personal nature, whereas attributions for unsuccessful change were primarily concerned with time management. Multivariate analyses indicated successes being attributed to internal, stable, and personally controllable causes, and failures to internal, unstable, and personally controllable causes. Stable attributions in the successful group were significantly correlated with expectations for continued maintenance, and unstable attributions were significantly related with expectations for future behavior change in the unsuccessful group. The findings are discussed with respect to attributional approaches to improving exercise and health behavior change.     

Diagnosing posttraumatic stress disorder with the MMPI clinical scales: A review of the literature

A review of the literature resulted in 21 published studies that reported mean MMPI profile patterns for PTSD patients. Of these, six (29%) reported that the mean 8-2 profile pattern significantly differentiated PTSD patients from non-PTSD patients. The majority of studies found additional PTSD profile patterns reflecting nearly all of the MMPI clinical scales. The data indicate some common group profile patterns for inpatient veterans, prisoner's of war, and inpatient veteran substance abusers. The results also support the hypothesis that there is a continuum from inpatient to outpatient and veteran to civilian populations that corresponds with both symptom and stressor severity. It is concluded that although there is some typicality in similar populations, clinicians should expect heterogeneous MMPI profiles from PTSD patients representing a diversity of clinical symptoms and styles.     

Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.     

Prepulse effects on magnitude estimation of startle-eliciting stimuli and startle responses

The present studies investigated the relationship between prepulse effects on the modification of the brainstem startle reflex and magnitude estimates of startle-eliciting stimuli. In Experiment 1, startle eyeblink responses were elicited in 24 students, half of whom were instructed to estimate the loudness of the startle stimulus (actual intensities of 80, 90, and 100 dB) and half of whom were instructed to estimate the magnitude of their eyeblink. When weak acoustic prepulses preceded the startle-eliciting stimulus, eyeblink amplitude was inhibited, and estimates of response magnitude decreased, but estimates of startle stimulus magnitude decreased only when 100-dB startle stimuli were presented. In Experiment 2, the same startle stimuli were preceded on some trials by a vibrotactile prepulse to the hand. In conditions in which startle amplitude was inhibited, startle stimulus magnitude estimates were not affected. This suggests that the effect of acoustic prepulses on 100-dB startle stimuli in Experiment 1 may have been due to loudness assimilation, an effect independent of the prepulse inhibition of startle responding.