Not well known, used little and needed: Canadian chaplains' experiences of published spiritual assessment tools

What are Canadian chaplains' experiences of published assessment tools? Utilizing a quantitative and qualitative methodology with multiple investigators and theoretical triangulation, this article reports the results of a survey of chaplains in the Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE) and interview results of 15 chaplains in three focus groups. Findings indicated that published spiritual assessment tools are not well know, used little, criticized for being reductionistic and not fitting the clinical situation. Participants noted, however, that spiritual assessment is needed for spiritual care. Thirty percent reported the development of their own tools (not published) and three published tools were mentioned by 50% and more. Discussion, limitations of the research, and suggestions for education, practice, and future research are offered.     

Analog number representations in mongoose lemurs (Eulemur mongoz): evidence from a search task

A wealth of data demonstrating that monkeys and apes represent number have been interpreted as suggesting that sensitivity to number emerged early in primate evolution, if not before. Here we examine the numerical capacities of the mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz), a member of the prosimian suborder of primates that split from the common ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans approximately 47–54 million years ago. Subjects observed as an experimenter sequentially placed grapes into an opaque bucket. On half of the trials the experimenter placed a subset of the grapes into a false bottom such that they were inaccessible to the lemur. The critical question was whether lemurs would spend more time searching the bucket when food should have remained in the bucket, compared to when they had retrieved all of the food. We found that the amount of time lemurs spent searching was indicative of whether grapes should have remained in the bucket, and furthermore that lemur search time reliably differentiated numerosities that differed by a 1:2 ratio, but not those that differed by a 2:3 or 3:4 ratio. Finally, two control conditions determined that lemurs represented the number of food items, and neither the odor of the grapes, nor the amount of grape (e.g., area) in the bucket. These results suggest that mongoose lemurs have numerical representations that are modulated by Webers Law.     

From sensory to long-term memory: evidence from auditory memory reactivation studies

Everyday experience tells us that some types of auditory sensory information are retained for long periods of time. For example, we are able to recognize friends by their voice alone or identify the source of familiar noises even years after we last heard the sounds. It is thus somewhat surprising that the results of most studies of auditory sensory memory show that acoustic details, such as the pitch of a tone, fade from memory in ca. 10-15 s. One should, therefore, ask (1) what types of acoustic information can be retained for a longer term, (2) what circumstances allow or help the formation of durable memory records for acoustic details, and (3) how such memory records can be accessed. The present review discusses the results of experiments that used a model of auditory recognition, the auditory memory reactivation paradigm. Results obtained with this paradigm suggest that the brain stores features of individual sounds embedded within representations of acoustic regularities that have been detected for the sound patterns and sequences in which the sounds appeared. Thus, sounds closely linked with their auditory context are more likely to be remembered. The representations of acoustic regularities are automatically activated by matching sounds, enabling object recognition.     

Autonomy and Relatedness in Family Interactions with Depressed Adolescents

This study investigated family interaction patterns associated with adolescent depression. Twenty adolescent–mother dyads with clinically depressed adolescents participated in the study. Twenty dyads with externalizing youths and 20 nonclinic dyads were included as controls. Dimensions of autonomy and relatedness were rated during a videotaped mother–adolescent problem-solving task. Adolescent perceptions of parent attachment were also evaluated. Results indicated that depressed adolescents and their mothers did not differ in their behavior compared with nonclinic adolescents. Dyads with externalizing adolescents showed the highest impairment in autonomy and relatedness. Depressed adolescents perceived the quality of their relationships with their parents to be impaired relative to nonclinic dyads, as did externalizing adolescents.     

The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: the importance of working memory capacity

Wood and Cowan (1995) replicated and extended Moray’s (1959) investigation of thecocktail party phenomenon, which refers to a situation in which one can attend to only part of a noisy environment, yet highly pertinent stimuli such as one’s own name can suddenly capture attention. Both of these previous investigations have shown that approximately 33% of subjects report hearing their own name in an unattended, irrelevant message. Here we show that subjects who detect their name in the irrelevant message have relatively low working-memory capacities, suggesting that they have difficulty blocking out, or inhibiting, distracting information.     

Parents Explain More Often to Boys than to Girls During Shared Scientific Thinking

Young children's everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits. The findings suggest that parents engaged in informal science activities with their children may be unintentionally contributing to a gender gap in children's scientific literacy well before children encounter formal science instruction in grade school.     

Why Don't Moral People Act Morally? Motivational Considerations

Failure of moral people to act morally is usually attributed to either learning deficits or situational pressures. We believe that it is also important to consider the nature of moral motivation. Is the goal actually to be moral (moral integrity) or only to appear moral while, if possible, avoiding the cost of being moral (moral hypocrisy)? Do people initially intend to be moral, only to surrender this goal when the costs of being moral become clear (overpowered integrity)? We have found evidence of both moral hypocrisy and overpowered integrity. Each can lead ostensibly moral people to act immorally. These findings raise important questions for future research on the role of moral principles as guides to behavior.     

Invidious Comparisons: Imagining a Psychology of Race and Gender Beyond Differences

Within psychology there is a longstanding debate concerning whether large, fundamental differences between races and genders exist. Much of this research involves comparisons that are invidious (offensively discriminating) and supports a political ideology in which members of different groups are held to be fundamentally different, alien, and therefore destined to different spheres. In this paper, specific factors are identified that make research on group differences more likely to produce distorted and partial findings. In addition, studies are cited whose methodological strategies offer insight into the processes that create and maintain group differences. Such research may illuminate not only the differences between groups, but also the very meaning of group categories. The process of scholarly peer review should become sensitive to the features that make comparisons invidious, so as to incorporate them into the criteria used to evaluate research.     

The Use of Communication Technology in Private Practice: Ethical Implications and Boundary Dilemmas in Therapy

This study investigates the use of communication technology (CT) by therapists in private practice. CT has exploded in the last decade and therapists have begun to implement this technology in their work. It is important to understand better the types of technology therapists are using and how they decide which devices are most useful for clinical practice. Additionally, the availability of the therapist has long been debated and CT provides media to make therapists readily available. Results show that therapists have boundary concerns and ethical dilemmas regarding CT and often feel unprepared to handle inappropriate out-of-session contacts when they occur.     

Social influences on reality-monitoring decisions

A modified Asch (1951) conformity paradigm was used to study the impact of social influence on reality-monitoring decisions about new items. Subjects studied pictures of some objects and imagined others. In a later test phase, they judged whether items had been perceived in the study phase, had been imagined, or were new. Critically, for some items, the subjects were informed of a confederate's response before rendering a judgment. Although the confederate was always correct when they responded to old items, for new items, the confederate responded perceived, imagined, or new, or did not respond (baseline). In two experiments, we show that memory for new items was influenced by an erroneous response of the confederate. Social conformity was reduced by undermining the credibility of the confederate (Experiments 1A and 1B), and the confederate's influence was evident even after there was only a 20-min delay between study and test (Experiment 2), when the subjects were 87% accurate on new baseline items. These experiments reveal the power of social influence on reality-monitoring accuracy and confidence.