Religion, Spirituality, and Health Service Use by Older Hospitalized Patients

Background: Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices are common among medical inpatients, and may impact length of hospital stay (LOS) and other health services (HSU) during hospitalization. Methods: 812 consecutively admitted patients age 50 or over to Duke University Medical Center were assessed. Measures of religiousness and spirituality included religious TV/radio (RTV), self-rated religiousness (SRR), observer-rated spirituality (ORS), and daily spiritual experiences (DSE). The primary outcome was LOS. Results: RTV and SRR predicted longer LOS, whereas ORS and DSE predicted shorter LOS (p 0.05). Effects of RTV onLOS were stronger among women, but explained by worse health status. The effects of DSE on LOS were stronger among non-whites. Among those reporting high DSE, diagnostic tests and total procedures also tended to be less common. Conclusions: Religious activities, attitudes, and spiritual experiences are weak predictors of LOS and HSU during hospitalization. Whether the prediction is positive or negative depends on the religious or spiritual characteristic.     

Parceling Component Effects of a Multifaceted Prevention Program for Disruptive Elementary School Children

This study examined predictors and outcomes of attendance in two standard components of a multifaceted preventive intervention aimed at children with early-onset disruptive behavior after 3 years of intervention. Mean rate of attendance in the Family Program, but not the Summer School Program, differed by level of child disruptiveness (grouping variable). Although predictors of attendance (SES, single-parent status, child IQ) did not differ across high- and low-disruptive groups, predictors of outcome were moderated by level of child disruptiveness for academic achievement and aggression outcomes, but not for social competence. Higher attendance in the Summer Program was associated with higher child social competence at Year 3 for all children. For academic achievement, higher attendance in the Summer Program was associated with higher scores for mild/moderately disruptive children and lower scores for highly disruptive children in Year 3. Higher attendance in the Family Program was associated with lower aggression scores for mild/moderately disruptive children. Findings highlight the importance of matching intervention components to the assessed or expressed needs of client subgroups.     

Nancey Murphy's Work

Nancey Murphy has been influential in the religion-and-science field through her espousal of the work of Imre Lakatos, more recently developed into a three-tier approach to the joint epistemology of scientific and religious thought incorporating also the ideas of Hempel and MacIntyre. She has proposed a substantial influence of the radical reformed tradition on science and has demonstrated the nature of social influences on the form of Darwinism. She has developed important links between ethics and the science-theology debate and has examined in depth ideas associated with hierarchical structuring, supervenience, and the nature of the soul. Together these form a unique and sharply focused contribution to the understanding of the relation between science and religion.     

Three Assistants on Boltzmann

The three demi-articles presented here would give a brief biographical account of Ludwig Boltzmann’s life plus some details about his Vienna laboratories first in the 1860’s in the Erdberg and second in Türkenstrasse from 1894. Josef Nabl’s account discusses J. J. Thomson’s Laboratory in Cambridge, which allows a provisional comparison between two different largely contemporary institutes. Nabl’s second letter also mentions Lord Kelvin’s late rejection of the kinetic gas theory of Maxwell and Boltzmann, rejection which on top of the negative attitude of Mach, Zermelo, and Poincaré probably did not benefit Boltzmann’s state of mind and may have contributed to the extreme character of Boltzmann’s anti-philosophical counterattack starting in 1903. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Promoting Novelty in Vision: Inhibition of Return Modulates Perceptual-Level Processing

To facilitate visual search of complex scenes, information arising from recently attended locations is subject to a selective inhibition in processing known as inhibition of return (IOR). Although the mechanisms of IOR remain unresolved, both motor and perceptual influences have been proposed based on reaction time (RT) studies. Here we report the results of two reflexive cuing studies in which signal detection methodology was employed to directly examine the effects of IOR on perception. IOR was found to be associated with a significant reduction in the accuracy of target discriminations at recently attended locations. Further, these effects of IOR on response accuracy were independent of whether emphasis was placed on the speed of responding. These results provide the first direct evidence that IOR can affect the perceptual quality of visual processing.     

Empathy, Expectations, and Situational Preferences: Personality Influences on the Decision to Participate in Volunteer Helping Behaviors

Although considerable evidence indicates that dispositional empathy is associated with the degree of help that observers will offer needy targets, little is known about the effect of empathy on one's initial willingness to enter situations in which such needy targets might be found. Three studies were conducted to evaluate two related propositions: (1) that dispositional empathy influences such situational preferences, and (2) that this influence is mediated by the expectancies one holds regarding the emotions likely to occur in those situations. Using hypothetical judgments, Study 1 found support for both propositions. Study 2, in which participants believed that their responses actually committed them to encountering needy targets, provided further support for the model, as did Study 3, which examined the experiences of actual community volunteers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Core Emotion Themes of Conjugal Loss

Previous studies have associated emotion and appraisal with long-term bereavement outcome. The present study extended this research by coding conjugal bereavement narratives for core relational themes (CRT) that served as emotional summaries of unique combinations of appraisal features. A range of CRTs was evidenced at 6 months after loss, with positive CRTs, such as love/affection and pride, occurring most frequently. As a way to examine competing models of coping with loss, CRTs were grouped by goal-congruence (positive/negative) and appraisal features (self/interpersonal) into four thematic categories, and they were compared with 6-, 14-, and 25-month outcome. Results contradicted the traditional grief work perspective, but they were consistent with the alternative view that recovery is fostered by identity continuity and a continued emotional bond with the deceased. With initial symptoms and Dyadic Adjustment Scale scores controlled, enhanced self themes (e.g., self-pride) and interpersonal affirmation themes (e.g., pride in the deceased) were each associated with improved functioning over time, whereas interpersonal discord themes (e.g., anger at the deceased) were associated with chronic grief.     

The discrimination of heading from optic flow is not retinally invariant

Three experiments were conducted to determine whether the discrimination of heading from optic flow is retinally invariant and to determine the importance of acuity in accounting for heading eccentricity effects. In the first experiment, observers were presented with radial flow fields simulating forward translation through a three-dimensional volume of dots. The flow fields subtended 10° of visual angle and were presented at 0°, 10°, 20°, and 40° of retinal eccentricity. The observers were asked to indicate whether the simulated movement was to the right or the left of a target that appeared at the end of the display sequence. Eye movements were monitored with an electrooculogram apparatus. In a second experiment, static acuity thresholds were derived for each of the observers at the same retinal eccentricities. There was a significant increase in heading detection thresholds with retinal eccentricity (from 0.92° at 0° retinal eccentricity to 3.47° at 40°). An analysis of covariance indicated that the variation in sensitivity to radial flow, as a function of retinal eccentricity, is independent of acuity. Similar results were obtained when the Vernier acuity of observers was measured. These results suggest that the discrimination of heading from radial flow is not retinally invariant.