Facial expressions of emotion: a cognitive neuroscience perspective

Facial expressions are one example of emotional behavior that illustrate the importance of emotions to both basic survival and social interaction. Basic facial responses to stimuli such as sweet and bitter taste are important for species fitness and governed by simple rules. Even at this basic level, facial responses have communicative value to other species members. During evolution simple facial responses were extended for use in more complex nonverbal communications; the responses are labile. The perception and production of facial expressions are cognitive processes and numerous subcortical and cortical areas contribute to these operations. We suggest that no specific emotion center exists over and above cognitive systems in the brain, and that emotion should not be divorced from cognition.     

On disenthralling ourselves from the enchantment of psychology

Pastors who assume that the insights of psychology have superseded those of the Scriptures, the great philosophers, or classic literary works are shortchanging themselves and their parishioners. These insights may be true and useful on many occasions, but they do not represent the full truth about the human condition. Examples from the novels of Jane Austen illustrate the larger truth of ill that human choices may be willed for the sake of human good or ill and that the human community provides the context for understanding and evaluating those choices.     

Social skill in third and sixth grade children: A moderator of lifetime stressful life events and behavior problems?

We investigated relationships among stressful lifetime life events, social skill, and behavior problems in children. Participants were 159 third graders, 138 sixth graders, and their mothers. Mothers reported on their children's life events, social skill, and behavior problems. Children self-reported on their social skill and behavior problems. Increased numbers of stressful life events significantly predicted increased behavior problems in third and sixth graders. Increased social skill significantly predicted decreased behavior problems in third and sixth graders. Social skill served a stress-protective role for third but not sixth graders; third graders with increased life events and better social skill had fewer behavior problems than their less socially skilled peers. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future resilience research are presented.     

Covenant making and pastoral counseling

The biblical concept of convenant refers to realities that place God beyond the gods of the philosophers. It also suggests the kinds of relationships the people of God should seek to establish with others. Helping establish such relationships constitutes one important goal of pastoral counseling, incorporating and transcending the more usual counseling goals. The biblical concept of convenant making also integrates counseling with larger pastoral and theological concerns.Richard C. Erickson, an ordained Presbyterian minister, is staff psychologist on the inpatient unit at Portland VA Medical Center and an associate professor of Medical Psychology at the Oregon Health Sciences University. His address is: Portland VA Medical Center (116 B), 3710 SW U.S. Veterans Hospital Road, Portland OR 97201.     

A probability-based formula for calculating interobserver agreement

Estimates of observer agreement are necessary to assess the acceptability of interval data. A common method for assessing observer agreement, per cent agreement, includes several major weaknesses and varies as a function of the frequency of behavior recorded and the inclusion or exclusion of agreements on nonoccurrences. Also, agreements that might be expected to occur by chance are not taken into account. An alternative method for assessing observer agreement that determines the exact probability that the obtained number of agreements or better would have occurred by chance is presented and explained. Agreements on both occurrences and nonoccurrences of behavior are considered in the calculation of this probability.     

A reexamination of stimulus-frequency effects in recognition: two mirrors for low- and high-frequency pseudowords

The word-frequency mirror effect (more hits and fewer false alarms for low-frequency than for high-frequency words) has intrigued memory researchers, and multiple accounts have been offered to explain the result. In this study, participants were differentially familiarized to various pseudowords in a familiarization phase that spanned multiple weeks. Recognition tests given during the first week of familiarization replicated a result of W. T. Maddox and W. K. Estes (1997) that failed to show the classic word-frequency mirror effect for pseudowords; however, recognition tests given toward the end of training showed the classic mirror pattern. In addition, a stimulus-frequency mirror effect for "remember" vs. "know" judgments was obtained. These data are consistent with an account of the mirror effect that posits the involvement of dual processes for episodic recognition.     

Honoring and Privileging Personal Experience and Knowledge: Ideas for a Narrative Therapy Approach to the Training and Supervision of New Therapists

This article discusses an approach for the training and supervision of new therapists built around social constructionist and poststructuralist ideas from a narrative therapy perspective. We briefly discuss some of the pitfalls of current training/supervision in marriage and family therapy (MFT) that are deficit based and/or that disproportionately grant privilege to expert knowledge. We articulate this emerging training approach which utilizes the rite of passage metaphor, centers relationalism, and incorporates the honoring and privileging of new therapists' lived experience, knowledges, skills, talents, ideas, morals, personal ethics, values, beliefs. Concrete practices of experience privileging, re-membering, and creating communities of concern are detailed, and illustrative examples from our supervision work are given.     

Systems change as an outcome and a process in the work of community collaboratives for health

The widespread development of comprehensive community initiatives that aim to improve community health is driven by the need to change the systems charged with delivering the services and creating the policies related to a variety of health outcomes. Georgia's Family Connection initiative is the nation's largest statewide network of community collaboratives for health, with collaboratives operating in 159 counties. Data on community context, collaborative processes, engagement in systems change, and changes in programs and activities implemented, gathered consistently at the collaborative level over 3 years, will be used to answer the following questions. How do community contexts and the structure and processes of collaboratives affect implementation of systems change? How do systems changes affect intermediate outcomes such as the type of programs offered in a community? Longitudinal change in systems change and program implementation is described and significant predictors of between‐collaborative variation in longitudinal change for each outcome are identified.