When cognitive scientists become religious, science is in trouble: On neurotheology from a philosophy of science perspective

Since the 1990s medical technology has afforded exciting possibilities for studying the brain. Together with knowledge accrued through psychology and psychiatry, it has set the stage for pioneering research and stimulated disciplines such as Social Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science of Religion, Cognitive Anthropology, and Cognitive Archaeology. Another discipline has arisen, Neurotheology, which is interested in the brain and religious experience. Early proponents such as d'Aquili and Newberg had a religious agenda in their work. Others, such as members of Transcendental Meditation, have used experimental and brain studies to legitimate religious agendas. Experiential shamanists have embarked on a similar legitimation process. The differences between science and therapy and spirituality have been blurred or denied. Neurotheological attempts to discover areas of the brain responsible for religious experiences have led to untenable results. The fact that such research has passed the peer review process of leading psychological, psychiatric, and neurological journals is perhaps more indicative of the pervasiveness of religiosity throughout American society than of objective brain science. This essay argues that neurotheology is an example of the struggle between confessional and critical approaches to the study of religion. The main difference is that the battlefield of this struggle is the brain.     

The association between life events and suicide intent in self-poisoners with and without a history of deliberate self-harm: a preliminary study

The associations between life events in the 12 months preceding an episode of self-poisoning resulting in hospital attendance (the index episode), and the suicide intent of this episode were compared in individuals for whom the index episode was their first, episode and in individuals in whom it was a recurrence of DSH. Results indicated a significant interaction between independent life events, repetition status, and gender in the prediction of suicide intent, the association between life events and intent being moderated by repetition status in women only. The results provide preliminary evidence to suggest the presence of a suicidal process in women, in which the impact of negative life events on suicide intent diminishes across episodes.     

Criticizing groups from the inside and the outside: an identity perspective on the intergroup sensitivity effect

Research on group criticism has demonstrated that criticisms are received less defensively when made by an ingroup member than when made by an outsider (the intergroup sensitivity effect). Three experiments tested the extent to which this effect is driven by social identity concerns or by judgments of how experienced the source of the criticism is. In Experiments 1 and 2, Australians who criticized Australia (ingroup critics) were met with less defensiveness than were foreigners who criticized Australia (outgroup critics), regardless of the amount of experience the foreigner had with Australia. Furthermore, the effects of speaker type on evaluations were mediated by perceptions of the extent to which the criticisms were intended to be constructive but not by perceptions of experience. Finally, Experiment 3 indicated that although experience does not help outgroup critics, a lack of experience can hurt ingroup critics. Recommendations are provided as to how people can reduce defensiveness when making group criticisms.     

A short history of ideo-motor action

The ideo-motor theory, which is currently receiving heightened interest in cognitive psychology, looks back on a long history. Essentially two historical roots can be presented. A British one, initiated by Laycock (1845) and Carpenter (1852), which was developed in order to explain ideo-motor phenomena by means of cerebral reflex actions. A second and older root is the German one by Herbart (1816, 1825), Lotze (1852), and Harless (1861), which considered the ideo-motor principle a fundamental mechanism of all intentional human behaviour. Both roots converged in James' (1890) Principles of Psychology before they fell into oblivion due to the dominance of behaviorism in the first half of the 20th century. The few empirical ideo-motor studies of the early 20th century are briefly described. Finally, similarities and differences in the history of the ideo-motor theory are delineated and a perspective is given covering research questions that could be examined in the future.     

Why people engage in parasuicide: a cross-cultural study of intentions

Information obtained at interview from 1,646 parasuicide patients in 14 regions in 13 European countries participating in the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Suicidal Behaviour was used to study self-reported intentions involved in parasuicide. Comparisons were made across cultures, genders, and age groups. Although some statistically significant differences were found, the effect sizes were very small. The main finding from this study is thus that parasuicide patients in different countries tend to indicate that similar types of intentions are involved in their acts of parasuicide, and that the intentions do not vary greatly with gender or age. The hypothesis that rates of suicide and parasuicide vary between regions with the frequency with which suicidal intention is indicated by the patients was also tested, but was supported only for women and in relation to national suicide rates. The findings from this study are likely to be generalizable to other settings and have implications for clinical practice.     

On the role of item similarity in retrieval-induced forgetting

We report on two experiments designed to examine how the similarity of retrieval-practised and not-retrieval-practised items influences the amount of retrieval-induced forgetting. Participants studied categorised item lists with each category consisting of exemplars from two different semantic subcategories. Using both the retrieval practice paradigm (Experiment 1) and the output interference paradigm (Experiment 2) we found that the retrieval of a subset of the studied items impaired the subsequent recall of the nonpractised items if the two types of items were fairly dissimilar to each other (same category but different subcategory) but did not induce impairment if the two types of items were highly similar (same category and subcategory). These results indicate that a high degree of similarity of practised and nonpractised items can eliminate retrieval-induced forgetting. They also suggest that forgetting in the retrieval practice paradigm and forgetting in the output interference paradigm are mediated by the same mechanisms. The relation of the present results to other very recent findings about the role of item similarity in retrieval-induced forgetting in discussed.     

13 Perspective: Suicide in Europe

In many European countries, suicidal behavior constitutes a major public and mental health problem. In most countries, the number of suicides is significantly higher than the number of deaths due to traffic accidents. According to official figures, the suicide rates among European countries differ widely; for example, Hungary has the highest rates. Suicide attempt rates, based on data from the WHO/Euro Multicentre project on Parasuicide, equally show variation; for example, the highest average rate of suicide attempts is for Helsinki, Finland. This paper outlines the epidemiological findings and then presents some hypotheses (e.g., age, ethnic difference) to explain the differences.