The knowledge and use of quantitative research by pastoral counselors

This study investigated the degree of training, experience and interest in quantitative research among pastoral counselors. It was found that a little over half of the subjects had had at least one statistics course and thought that research was valuable. However, less than 6% had ever published research and only one subject (less than 1%) had published more than two quantitative articles. This suggests there is a research vacuum in the field of pastoral counseling. There is no scientific core of scholars publishing a systematic program of research. Recommendations for ways to involve pastoral counselors more actively in research are made.New Perspectives, Owings Mills, MD.     

Anxiety and error monitoring: Increased error sensitivity or altered expectations?

This study tested the prediction that the error-related negativity (ERN), a physiological measure of error monitoring, would be enhanced in anxious individuals, particularly in conditions with threatening cues. Participants made gender judgments about faces whose expressions were either happy, angry, or neutral. Replicating prior studies, midline scalp negativities were greater following errors than following correct responses. In addition, state anxiety interacted with facial expression to predict ERN amplitudes. Counter to predictions, participants high in state anxiety displayed smaller ERNs for angry-face blocks and larger ERNs for happy-face blocks, compared to less anxious participants. These results are inconsistent with the simple notion that anxiety enhances error sensitivity globally. Rather, we interpret the findings within an expectancy violation framework, in which anxious participants have altered expectations for success and failure in the context of happy and angry facial cues, with greater ERN amplitudes when expectations are violated.     

How does discourse among like-minded individuals affect their thinking about a complex issue?

Is there reason to be concerned about what has been seen as an increasing trend for discourse on complex issues to be confined to an “echo chamber” of like-minded individuals? To investigate how thinking regarding an issue changes in form following concentrated discourse with like-minded peers, we undertook a qualitative examination of changes in the reasoning that 34 older adults used to justify their positions prior to and following such discourse. They showed a divergence of patterns. A minority abandoned mention of previously expressed ideas at odds with their own positions or otherwise narrowed the reasoning used to justify their positions. Consistent with findings from previous studies, only a minority showed increased certainty and/or extremity (polarisation) on quantitative scales. Countering this minority were a larger proportion whose thinking appeared to benefit from such engagement in several respects that we describe. A follow-up study compares results for a sample of young adults.     

Interaction of reinforcement conditions and developmental level in a two-choice discrimination task with children

A total of 540 first, fourth, and eighth graders, equally divided by sex, were run on a two-choice discrimination task under one of three reinforcement conditions: reward (R) for correct responses, punishment (P) for incorrect responses, or reward and punishment (RP) for correct and incorrect responses. Half the Ss were tested by a male E; half, by a female E. Across all developmental levels, learning was superior in the P group. Complex interactions involving sex of S and E underline the importance of organismic variables in discrimination learning and in specifying parameters of reinforcer effectiveness.