Book reviews

The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Rodney Stark, 1996 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press xiv + 247 pp., US$24.95, £16.95 ISBN 0–691–02749–8

Church Watch: Christianity in the Countryside. Leslie J. Francis, 1996 London: SPCK 248 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04951–3

Strategic Church Leadership. Robin Gill & Derek Burke, 1996 London: SPCK vii + 96 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04901–7

’Nice When They Are Young’: Contemporary Christianity in Families and Schools. Mairi Levitt, 1996 Aldershot: Avebury viii +171 pp., £32.50 ISBN 1–85972–388–8

Die Sekten‐Kinder. Kurt‐Helmuth Eimuth, 1996 Freiburg: Herder Verlag 239 pp., DM 19.80 (pb) ISBN 3–451–04397–1

The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama Explores the Heart of Christianity—and of Humanity. H.H. The Dalai Lama, 1997. London: Rider xiv + 207pp., £9.99 (pb) ISBN 0–7126–7275–3

Scientists as Theologians: A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke & John Polkinghome. John Polkinghorne, 1996 London: SPCK 95 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04945–9

Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Dinesh Bhugra, ed., 1996 London, New York: Routledge 236 pp., £50.00, US$65.00 ISBN 0–415–08955–7 (hb)

Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions. Peggy Morgan & Clive Lawton, eds, 1996 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 278 pp., £14.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7486–0709–9

Religious Institutions and Women's Leadership: New Roles Inside the Mainstream. Catherine Wessinger, ed., 1996 Columbia: University of South Carolina Press x +434 pp., US$24.95 ISBN 1–57003–073–1

Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. June Campbell, 1996 London: Athlone Press 225 pp., £17.95 ISBN 0–485–11494–1

Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin America, Catholicism in Eastern Europe. David Martin, 1996 London: SPCK 96 pp., £7.99 ISBN 0–281–04999–8

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Soviet State (1939–1950) Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, 1996 Edmonton, Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press 310 pp., Ca$39.95(hb) ISBN 1–895571–12‐X

Qur'an, Liberation & Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression. Farid Esack, 1997 Oxford: Oneworld Publications xii + 288 pp., 3 Appendices + Glossary + Bibliography; £14.99, US$22.95 ISBN 1–85168–121–3

A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: The Silent Revolution Studies in Religion and Society Volume 34 Pink Dandelion, 1996 Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press xxxiv +417 pp., £59.95 ISBN 0–7734–8807–3

Counting the Days to Armageddon: The Jehovah's Witnesses and The Second Presence of Christ Robert Crompton, 1996 Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 160 pp., £22.50 ISBN 0–2276–7939

Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft. James R. Lewis, ed., 1996 Albany, NY: State of New York University Press vi + 423 pp., US$19.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7914–2890–7

The Divine Versus The Asurian: An Interpretation of Indo‐European Cult and Myth. Michael York, 1995 Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications 635 pp., US$94.95 ISBN 1–57309–029–8     

The family of origin scale: A construct validation study

Data from 69 women and 63 men along with ratings from a panel of expert judges were used to assess the construct validity of the Family Of Origin Scale as a measure of family health. Loevinger's conception of construct validity, focusing on the substantive, structural, and external components of validity, was employed to organize the research procedures followed and the data analytic techniques used. Results showed that the instrument appears to be a useful measure of a warmth-coldness affect dimension in the family of origin, but the multi-dimensional structure of the test, as a measure of family-of-origin health, could not be validated. Suggestions for use, score interpretation, and further development are discussed.     

Equity,equality, and need: Three principles of justice or one? An analysis of “equity as desert”

Contemporary reviews of the psychology of distributive justice have tended to emphasize three main allocation principles, equity, equality, and need, and to propose that each operates within a specific sphere of influence. However, results in this area are not entirely consistent, and do not tie in readily with work on attributions of responsibility. This article reviews research into this issue and attempts to encorporate the three principles, together with the notion of causal responsibility, with a single compound equity principle, labelled “equity as desert” (EAD), based on traditional historical and philosophical conceptions of proportional desert. Two empirical studies are reported in support of this idea. The author argues that a compound equity principle of the kind proposed here may be able to provide a unifying theme in an otherwise fragmented area.     

Visual recognition memory of severely head-injured patients

14 severely head-injured adults were compared with 14 normals on a recognition procedure, Kimura's Recurring Figures Test, which requires identification of eight recurring shapes among a series of 160. The head-injured patients showed, by far, more incorrect responses than the control group.     

Perceived Similarity in Interracial Attitudes and Behaviors: The Effects of Belief and Dialect Style1

The present study investigated the role of two types of similarity (attitude similarity and dialect style) on interpersonal attitudes and behaviors in a face-to-face interaction. Sixty subjects interacted with an experimental confederate who was either black or white, spoke either standard white English or a black dialect, and whom the subject perceived as agreeing or disagreeing on an attitude questionnaire. Subjects' nonverbal behavior during the interaction was coded using Mehrabian's scheme of immediacy cues, and attitudes toward the confederate were measured via questionnaire following the interaction. Subjects showed more favorable attitudes toward the white than black confederate and had more positive attitudes toward the black confederate when she spoke white English. Contrary to previous findings, no significant main effect was found for belief similarity. While no significant mean differences were obtained between conditions for the nonverbal measures, correlations between these measures and a measure of likinglfriendship indicated that this relationship differed depending on the race of the confederate and the dialect used. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the role of perceived similarity in interracial interaction.     

Avoidance of heat by rats: Effects of thermal context on rapidity of extinction

Rats were trained to avoid radiant heat in a one-way, jump-up apparatus. The animals that could avoid heat responded more frequently and more rapidly than did yoked controls that received heat, but for whom no avoidance contingency was deliberately arranged. Control animals trained with light, rather than heat, did not learn to avoid. Using this jump-up avoidance, rats were trained to avoid heat in a room maintained at 27°C. They were then given a series of extinction trials, with no heat presentations, with the temperature maintained at either 27 or 7°C. Placing the rats in a cold environment facilitated extinction of heat avoidance behavior, but only in animals that had previously experienced heat while they were in the cold. Prior heat experience administered in a warm, rather than cold, context was not sufficient to potentiate the effect of ambient temperature on avoidance extinction. Implications of these results for theories of avoidance learning are discussed.     

Family therapy and communion

There has been a shift of healing authority in our culture from priestly practitioners to scientific and medical practitioners. As part of this change the care and healing of stressed or broken families is now seen as the responsibility of the family therapist. A consequence of this has been some role confusion on the part of the clergy and therapists. A comparison of the symbolic complex of belief and value systems used in MacGregor's team-family method of family therapy and Joseph Haroutunian's theology of the church shows four striking similarities. The implications of these similarities for the continued confusion or clarity of the roles of priest and therapist are noted.Rev. Fitchett is Chaplain-Supervisor and Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Health, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1753 West Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612.     

Perceptions of the magnitude and diversity of social support

Three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses that subjects would overestimate the proportion of their peers who shared their opinion on an issue and that they would perceive their own opinion group as consisting of people with a wider and more diverse range of values and outlooks than those holding different opinions. The first study was conducted following a period of intense debate about sixism on a college campus. Subjects estimated student opinion on issues related to sexism and indicated how diverse or similar they perceived supporters and nonsupporters of the women's movement to be. In a second study subjects estimated the proportion of students who evaluated President Carter's performance as good, fair, or poor and then indicated how diverse or similar the three groups of students were who held these various opinions. A third study closely replicated the second, using the issue of divestiture of college-owned stock in South Africa. In all three studies, subjects were divided into groups on the basis of their own attitudes. Results consistently supported the hypotheses.     

Selective self-disclosure with and without correspondent performance

If people are motivated to elicit attributions from others, are they capable of using attribution theory as a means to this end? To explore this question, subjects were asked to select information to disclose to hypothetical target persons in order to have those target persons make specific attributions about the subjects' traits and abilities. The disclosures conformed well to a model sensitive to the principles of augmentation and discounting. The model considers the causal relevance and value of personal information and whether the self-presenter is given the opportunity to engage in behavior that accomplishes some specific self-presentational objective. The results, in line with the model, showed that subjects having the opportunity to engage in such “correspondent” behavior, are subsequently eager to disclose impediments that highlight the likely presence of highly valued behavioral causes. Subjects without such an opportunity seek to disclose facilitating causal factors that would make an effective performance appear to be more likely should the opportunity later arise.