A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF INFORMATION PROCESSING1

Recherche interculturell sur le traitement de l'information. — Cette expérience fait partie d'une série d'études sur les processus cognitifs des membres de la tribu des Kpelles du Liberia : elle porte plus particulièrement sur Pestimation des quantités. A 240 sujets (120 Kpelles et 120 Américains) on a présenté, à l'aide d'un tachistoscope, des plages de points avec des durées variées d'exposition. Les plages diffèrent par le nombre (de 3 à 10) et la disposition, structurée ou aléatoire, des points. La performance des sujets américains est en général supérieure à celle des Kpelles. l'analyse montre que l'avantage global des américains est dû à : — 1) leur plus grande exactitude pour les plages qui comportent plus de points; — 2) leur plus grande exactitude relative pour des durées brèves de présentation; — 3) l'utilisation plus grande de la redondance inhérente aux plages structurées. Les AA, pensent pouvoir mettre ces résultats en relation avec les apprentissages différentiels dont chaque groupe culturel a pu faire l'expérience dans son milieu propre. Ils proposent une stratégic générale pour mener des recherches expérimentales interculturelles.     

Parent and peer attachment in early adolescent depression

Insecure attachment relations have been theorized to play a significant role in the development of depressogenic modes of adaptation and to thus form a vulnerability factor for the emergence of depressive disorder in children. This study examined security of parent and peer attachment among four groups of early adolescents: clinically depressed, nondepressed psychiatric controls, nonpsychiatric controls, and adolescents with resolved depression. Depressed adolescents reported significantly less secure parent attachment than either of the control groups, and less secure peer attachment than the nonpsychiatric control group. Attachment security of adolescents with resolved depression was on a par with the nonpsychiatric control group. Among all psychiatric patients, security of attachment to parents was negatively correlated with severity of depression according to interview and self-report ratings. Less secure attachment to parents, but generally not to peers, was also related to more maladaptive attributional styles, presence of separation anxiety disorder, and history of suicidal ideation.     

Further validation of the gratitude, resentment, and appreciation test (GRAT)

The authors conducted this study to further validate the revised short form of the Gratitude, Resentment, and Appreciation Test by investigating the relationship between GRAT-measured gratitude and two other constructs: (a) spiritual transcendence and (b) materialism. As predicted, both the GRAT and its subscales correlated positively with a measure of spiritual transcendence and negatively with a measure of materialism.     

Race,Ethnicity, and the Bible: Pedagogical Challenges and Curricular Opportunities

Theological educators are now fostering dialogues, projects, and practices that are designed to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities resulting from the shifting racial and ethnic demographic climate in the U.S. and Canada. As well‐intentioned as these efforts are, most of the scholarship focuses on the contemporary experiences of underrepresented minorities, current institutional concerns, or practical classroom scenarios, leaving Scripture courses, which have long been the backbone of theological education, beyond the scope of critical engagement. In this article I argue that the existing scholarship on teaching and learning in general, and among biblical scholars in particular, does not adequately address the specific challenges that arise when questions about race and ethnicity are exposed in Scripture courses. Therefore, based on my own classroom experiences, I develop a pedagogy of (Emb)Racing the Bible that seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical readings and practical applications of ancient and contemporary discourses about race and ethnicity.     

My body or my mind: The impact of state and trait objectification on women's cognitive resources

Objectification theory posits that as a result of pervasive sexual objectification of the female body in American culture, women are socialized to take an observers' perspective towards the self, resulting in self‐objectification. This tendency, combined with an objectifying context, is hypothesized to increase cognitive load, thereby impairing performance. Two experiments tested this hypothesis by investigating the joint impact of trait and state objectification on cognitive load among women. Results of the first experiment showed longer response latencies on a Letter Number Sequencing task, specifically among women high in trait self‐objectification (TSO), in a highly objectifying condition. The second experiment replicated results from the first while also exploring possible correlates of the effects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Thought Control Ability Questionnaire (TCAQ) and the Prediction of Cognitive Control

Study 1 evaluated the psychometric properties of the English version of the Thought Control Ability Questionnaire (TCAQ; Luciano et al. 2005), an index of perceived control over intrusive cognitions. Confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 720 University students revealed a clear uni-dimensional structure (after removal of items 5, 7, 8, 14, and 25) with high internal consistency (α = .87, 95% CI = [.86, .88]) and test-retest reliability after a six month interval (r = .68). Correlational analyses supported an inverse relationship with measures of depression, anxiety, maladaptive cognitive control strategies, and obsessive–compulsive symptomatology. Study 2 tested the ability of the TCAQ to predict successful cognitive control during an experimental suppression protocol. Results demonstrated that weak thought control ability was predictive of the frequency and associated levels of distress of a target thought while under instruction to suppress. Additionally, weak perceived thought control ability was predictive of increased efforts to suppress the target material. Collectively, results suggest that thought control ability is a measurable individual difference variable and that the TCAQ is a reliable index of perceived cognitive control.     

Variations in Expected Affect in Young and Middle-Aged Adults

Expected positive and negative affects were measured in three samples of college students and in three samples of middle-aged adults. For each of the samples, negative affect decreased with age. The pattern of the effect was the same for the three samples and for the Expected Balance Scale (Staats, 1987, 1989) and the PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The higher negative affect in college students, in comparison to that in their middle-aged friends or parents, is contrary to popular stereotypes. This specific and differential decrease in negative affect is not consistent with theories proposing only a general decrement in emotionality with increasing age. An explanation in terms of stress appraisal, coping, and management is suggested.     

Moral boundaries and deviant music: public attitudes toward heavy metal and rap

Since the mid-1980s, collective efforts to define deviant music have focused increasingly on two genres-heavy metal and rap music. Most of these claims assert that heavy metal and rap music represent a type of audio pornography that endorses sexist, violent, and anti-religious behaviors. While scholarly research has addressed a number of issues related to this controversy, few, if any, have examined negative attitudes toward heavy metal and rap music within the general public. Our research uses data from the 1993 General Social Survey to examine the determinants of public attitudes against heavy metal and rap music. Along with selected control variables, we include a number of measures that reflect the claims-making rhetoric of social movement organizations and other moral entrepreneurs. Our analysis focuses on evaluating the degree to which these claims are related to shared attitudes within the general population.