Mosque-Based Emotional Support Among Young Muslim Americans

Despite a growing literature on social support networks in religious settings (i.e., church-based social support), little is known about mosque-based support among Muslims. This study investigates the demographic and religious behavior correlates of mosque-based social support among a multi-racial and ethnic sample of 231 young Muslims from southeast Michigan. Several dimensions of mosque-based support are examined including receiving emotional support, giving emotional support, anticipated emotional support and negative interactions with members of one’s mosque. Results indicated that women both received and anticipated receiving greater support than did men. Higher educational attainment was associated with receiving and giving less support compared to those with the lowest level of educational attainment. Moreover, highly educated members reported fewer negative interactions than less educated members. Mosque attendance and level of congregational involvement positively predicted receiving, giving, and anticipated emotional support from congregants, but was unrelated to negative interactions. Overall, the study results converge with previously established correlates of church-based emotional support.     

Multimodal Rehabilitation: A Mind-Body Family-Based Intervention for Children and Adolescents Impaired by Medically Unexplained Symptoms. Part 2: Case Studies and Outcomes

In Part 2, we describe three cases implementing our mind-body, family-based, multimodal rehabilitation approach for treating children and adolescents presenting with medically unexplained symptoms. For each child and family, treatment interventions were selected and implemented, simultaneously or sequentially. In a cohort of 100 consecutively referred children, 56 suffered from, and were treated for, significant physical or chronic school absenteeism. Thirty-five of these children (63%) recovered fully, 10 (18%) had a relapsing course, 7 (12.5%) had chronic symptoms, and 4 (7%) were lost to follow-up. These outcomes suggest that mind-body multimodal rehabilitation is a successful, cost-effective model of treatment.     

IDENTITIES IN HARMONY: GENDER–WORK IDENTITY INTEGRATION MODERATES FRAME SWITCHING IN COGNITIVE PROCESSING

Professional women's identity integration—the perceived compatibility between work and gender identities—plays a role in how task or relationship information is processed. Seventy female business school students were primed with either their professional or their gender identity. Business women with higher identity integration showed an assimilation effect to the primed cue. Specifically, they showed higher task orientation than relationship orientation in a recognition task when primed with their professional identity, but less so when primed with their gender identity. Business women with lower identity integration showed a contrast effect to the primed cue: Their recognition reflected a task-relationship orientation opposite to the primed cue. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding women's performance at work.     

Self-defining memories in complicated grief

There is increasing attention to the mechanisms underpinning maladaptive responses to bereavement. This study indexed self-defining memories in bereaved individuals with and without complicated grief (CG). Participants with and without complicated grief (N = 40) were asked to describe three self-defining memories. Results showed that CG participants provided more self-defining memories involving the deceased. Both groups were equally likely to report their loved one's death as a self-defining moment, however, the no-CG group showed more evidence of benefit finding in their memory narratives and experienced less negative emotion on recall. The findings suggest that CG is associated with distinctive patterns of autobiographical memory that are linked to self-identity. The pattern is consistent with self-memory system models of autobiographical remembering, and suggests that grieving individuals who experience ongoing yearning for their loved one view their self-identity as more closely linked to the deceased are more distressed by memories involving the loss.     

I still think it was a banana: memorable 'lies' and forgettable 'truths'

Interpersonal influences on cognition can distort memory judgements. Two experiments examined the nature of these 'social' influences, and whether their persistence is independent of their accuracy. Experiment 1 found that a confederate's social proximity, as well as the content and the confidence of their utterances, interactively modulates participants' immediate conformity. Notably, errant confederate statements that 'lied' about encoded material had a particularly strong immediate distorting influence on memory judgements. Experiment 2 revealed that these 'lies' were also memorable, continuing a day later to impair memory accuracy, while accurate confederate statements failed to produce a corresponding and lasting beneficial effect on memory. These findings suggest that an individual's 'informational' social influence can be selectively heightened when they express misinformation to someone who suspects no deceptive intent. The methods newly introduced here thus allow multiple social and cognitive factors impinging on memory accuracy to be manipulated and examined during realistic, precisely controlled dyadic social interactions.     

Behavioral evidence for task-dependent "what" versus "where" processing within and across modalities

Task-dependent information processing for the purpose of recognition or spatial perception is considered a principle common to all the main sensory modalities. Using a dual-task interference paradigm, we investigated the behavioral effects of independent information processing for shape identificationand localization ofobject features within and across vision and touch. In Experiment 1, we established that color and texture processing (i.e., a "what" task) interfered with both visual and haptic shape-matching tasks and that mirror image and rotation matching (i.e., a "where" task) interfered with a feature-location-matching task in both modalities. In contrast, interference was reduced when a "where" interference task was embedded in a "what" primary task and vice versa. In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding within each modality, using the same interference and primary tasks throughout. In Experiment 3, the interference tasks were always conducted in a modality other than the primary task modality. Here, we found that resources for identification and spatial localization are independent of modality. Our findings further suggest that multisensory resources for shape recognition also involve resources for spatial localization. These results extend recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings and have important implications for our understanding of high-level information processing across the human sensory systems.     

Disrupted Face Processing in Frontotemporal Dementia: A Review of the Clinical and Neuroanatomical Evidence

Faces play an integral role in day-to-day functioning, particularly for social interactions where dynamic and rapid processing of information is vital. Analysis of faces allows an individual to ascertain a wide range of information including deciphering mood and identity, with these assessments directing an individual’s subsequent response and behaviours. The prominent social and emotional deficits observed in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a younger-onset dementia syndrome, may in part reflect a breakdown of the face processing network. Different subtypes of FTD present with divergent patterns of atrophy, although damage is predominantly confined to the frontal and temporal lobes. Specific predictions regarding the role of frontal and temporal regions in face processing have been proposed in the model outlined by Haxby et al. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(6), 223–233 (2000). This model presents a parsimonious method by which to understand face processing in FTD while concurrently allowing assessment of the predictive value and applicability of such a model. By applying the Haxby model to the existing FTD literature, this review presents both direct and indirect evidence of a breakdown in key elements of the face processing network. The type and degree of breakdown appears to differ as a function of FTD subtype and associated brain atrophy. The evidence presented in this review and its relationship with predictions of the Haxby model provides impetus and direction for future research investigating face processing in FTD.