Speaking of persons,human and divine

Christians commonly speak of and to God as ‘a person’. The propriety of such talk depends on how the concept of a person is being used and understood, and that concept is much contested in contemporary analytic philosophy. In this article, I note the presuppositions of one current debate about what it is to be a human person, and then propose an alternative approach to persons—both human and divine—that draws upon the Thomistic philosophical and theological tradition. In this tradition, ‘person’ is neither an essence-determining kind term, nor a merely nominal or functional kind term, but is applicable analogously to entities of various ‘kinds’ (e.g. humans, angels and God). The origins of this account in Aquinas’ theology of the Trinity will be examined, and I will conclude by noting a recent development of Thomas’ thought in relation to what it is to be a human person.     

The contribution to immediate serial recall of rehearsal,search speed,access to lexical memory,and phonological coding: An investigation at the construct level

Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individual differences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as the participant population, have suggested other contributors to span performance. In the present research, we used structural equation modeling to explore, at the construct level, individual differences in immediate serial recall with respect to rehearsal, search, phonological coding, and speed of access to lexical memory. We replicated standard short-term phenomena; we showed that the variables that influence children's span performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we showed that speed of access to lexical memory and facility with phonological codes appear to be more potent sources of individual differences in immediate memory than is either rehearsal speed or search factors.     

Subjective Screening of Stuttering severity, locus of control and avoidance: research edition

This article describes the Subjective Screening of Stuttering (SSS): research edition that is designed to quantify the selected self-reports of people who stutter (PWS) prior to, during, and following their treatment. The three areas screened by the SSS are perceived stuttering severity, the level of internal or external locus of control, and reported word or situation avoidance. Each of the areas has two or three items rated for three audiences on a one to nine rating scale. Other available measures were reviewed and the need for a single instrument that provides quantified screening of each of the areas was recognized. Results of a research project using the SSS with 16 PWS indicated that percent of syllables stuttered correlated with stuttering severity (r=0.75) and with locus of control (r=0.43) but did not correlate with avoidance. These results were interpreted to indicate a need for other types of therapy following the experimental treatment studied. Reliability and validity of the SSS were judged adequate for research and clinical screening. The possible role of screening self-reports of PWS in combination with more extensive self-report instruments and with objective measures of stuttering is discussed. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to (1) assess the perception of stuttering severity, avoidance and locus of control of people who stutter (PWS), and (2) determine from the PWS the self-reported outcome of treatment.     

Determining essential content for applied behavior analyst practitioners

This article reports the procedures and findings of a job-analysis study recently conducted by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc. (BACB) and considers some implications of the survey data collected during this process. The job analysis focused on the applied sector of the field of behavior analysis and limited its inquiry into matters of professional competencies and training. The results represent a unique sample of demographic information and valuable collection of opinions regarding the competencies and training required of applied behavior analyst practitioners. Because these opinions have a direct effect on certification task standards and content of the BACB credentialing examinations, which in turn drive the curricula of undergraduate and graduate programs in applied behavior analysis, it is important to consider what these views might mean for the continuing evolution of the field of behavior analysis.     

Risk of false positives when identifying malingered profiles using the trauma symptom inventory

The Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995) is a 100-item self-report measure of posttraumatic symptomatology that includes an Atypical Response (ATR) validity scale designed to differentiate honest from malingered profiles. In this study, using an analogue design to experimentally manipulate honest and malingered responses on the TSI, we found that proposed ATR cut scores produce a significant risk of false positives. Furthermore, the functioning of proposed cut scores worsened when we used posttraumatic stress disorder relevant samples and low estimates of malingering base rates. In light of these findings, the TSI should be used with caution when assessing claims of posttraumatic stress in forensic or disability settings.     

Thinking about memories for everyday and shocking events: Do people use ease-of-retrieval cues in memory judgments?

Extant research shows that people use retrieval ease, a feeling-based cue, to judge how well they remember life periods. Extending this approach, we investigated the role of retrieval ease in memory judgments for single events. In Experiment 1, participants who were asked to recall many memories of an everyday event (New Year's Eve) rated retrieval as more difficult and judged their memory as worse than did participants asked to recall only a few memories. In Experiment 2, this ease-of-retrieval effect was found to interact with the shocking character of the remembered event: There was no effect when the event was highly shocking (i.e., learning about the attacks of September 11, 2001), whereas an effect was found when the event was experienced as less shocking (due either to increased distance to "9/11" or to the nonshocking nature of the event itself). Memory vividness accounted for additional variance in memory judgments, indicating an independent contribution of content-based cues in judgments of event memories.     

Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, Depression, and Self- and Other-Assessments of Social Competence: A Developmental Study

This study examined whether others (i.e., teachers and parents) and self-appraisals of social competence mediated the relationship between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and depression. To determine whether age moderated the effects of the mediation, the total sample was divided into younger (under 9) and older (at or above 9 years) age levels. The total sample (age range 6.6 to 11.7 years) was primarily male (194 boys and 52 females) and consisted of 148 children diagnosed with ADHD and 98 community controls. Three central findings were derived from this study. First, there was a strong relationship between ADHD (with and without comorbid ODD/CD) and depression in both younger and older aged children. Among younger children with ADHD, there was no differential influence on the level of depression depending on whether or not ADHD was comorbid with ODD/CD; in contrast, with older children, comorbid ODD/CD had higher levels of depression than was the case for children with ADHD that did not display such comorbidity. Second, with younger children approximately half of the relationship between ADHD (with and without comorbid ODD/CD) and depression was exclusively mediated by others appraisal of social competence. Third, a more complex relationship between ADHD and depression emerged during the later part of the childhood years. As such, the relationship between ADHD, others appraisals of social competence, and depression was further mediated by self-appraisals of social competence. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental theory and theoretical models of childhood depression.Rick Ostrander and David S. Crystal contributed equally to this article, and the order of authorship was determined by a coin toss.     

Reducing hopelessness: the interation of enhancing and depressogenic attributional styles for positive and negative life events among youth psychiatric inpatients

A recovery model of depression (Needles & Abramson, 1990 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 156-165) proposes that depressed individuals who exhibit an enhancing attributional style for positive events (i.e. make stable, global attributions) will be more likely to regain hopefulness and, thereby, recover from depression when positive events occur. While only a few studies have directly tested this model among clinical and nonclinical adult samples, none have tested a clinical sample of children and adolescents. Furthermore, prior studies testing this model have failed to examine the interactive role of an 'enhancing attributional style' for positive events with a 'depressogenic attributional style' for negative events, as prescribed by the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989 Psychological Review, 96, 358-372). The current study presents data demonstrating that depressogenic and enhancing attributional styles interact to predict differential decreases in hopelessness. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research also are presented.