God, Tragedy, and the Near-Death Experience: Evaluating Kushner's Perspectives on Theodicy

This article evaluates Harold Kushner's original and reconstructed perspectives on God and the theodicic problem on the basis of research on the near-death experience (NDE) and related phenomena. In response to a personal tragedy, Kushner reconstructed his thinking about God and tragedy from his original Causation-Power perspective to an Inspiration-Love perspective. The Causation-Power perspective posits that God causes human events and that tragic events do not actually contradict God's purpose or will, although tragic events may result from the human freedom to disobey God and suffer punitive consequences. In the Inspiration-Love perspective, human freedom expands to mean that God does not cause all events: God does not cause tragedy, suffers with the sufferer, and can intervene against tragic events only by inspiring people to cope with tragedy and care for others. Although the research findings are consistent with Kushner's emphasis on love and inspiration, the theme of divine power and purpose is also evident. Hence, Kushner should not have rejected entirely his early (Causation-Power) perspective. Identified in the research are forms of inspiration that Kushner did not take into account in his reconstructed (Inspiration-Love) view. The Causation-Power and Inspiration-Love perspectives seem incompatible and neither alone solves the theodicic problem. Nonetheless, they do complement one another; a resolution would permit an integrative understanding of God and tragedy.     

Cholecystokinin elicits the complete behavioral sequence of satiety in rats.

The behavior of intact rats and rats with chronic gastric fistulas was observed and scored during a 60-min test period when they were offered liquid diet after 17 hr of food deprivation. Intact rats and rats with closed fistulas displayed a specific behavioral sequence at the end of each meal: They stopped eating, engaged in grooming and exploration for a short time, and then rested or slept. Thus, a fixed behavioral sequence characterizes satiety in the rat. Although the behavioral sequence of satiety was fixed, the cessation of feeding was not a sufficient condition for the appearance of the rest of the sequence: Quinine adulteration of the liquid diet stopped sham feeding but did not elicit the complete sequence. Intraperitoneal injection of the intestinal hormone cholecystokinin during sham feeding, however, elicited the complete sequence of satiety. The observation that cholecystokinin not only stops feeding but elicits the complete sequence of satiety supports our hypothesis that endogenous cholecystokinin is a satiety signal for the rat.     

The effect of romantic and nonromantic films on perception of female friendly and seductive behavior

Two experiments investigating gender differences in perception of nonverbal seductive and friendly cues were conducted using standardized videotaped interactions. Results of the first experiment indicated no gender differences in perceptions, contradicting previous results obtained by Abbey (“Sex Differences in Attributions for Friendly Behavior: Do Males Misperceive Females' Friendliness?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982, 42, 830–838), who used a nonstandardized interaction. Results of the second experiment indicated that exposure to romantic and nonromantic scenarios in the media may produce contrast effects primarily affecting male interpretation of female nonverbal cues.     

Personality and Religion a study among 8‐11 year olds

A sample of 166 year four, year five and year six pupils completed the Francis scale of attitude toward Christianity together with the short‐form Revised Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data extend the findings of previous research by demonstrating that psychoticism is the dimension of personality fundamental to individual differences in religiosity among a sample of children as young as 9‐11 years of age.     

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Examination of Attachment,Separation-Individuation,and College Student Adjustment

This article examined stability and change in late adolescent attachment relations and the interrelationship among attachment, separation-individuation, and college adjustment variables. Two studies are reported. In the first cross-sectional study, freshman and upperclassmen college students completed self-report measures of attachment, separation, and adjustment. In the second study, students completed measures of attachment in their freshman year and 2 years later as juniors. In junior year, students also completed several measures of separation and adjustment to college. The results of both studies suggested stability in attachment to parents, over time, for both men and women. Security of attachment proved to be inversely related to independence from parents in cross-sectional and prospective/longitudinal analyses. Security of attachment to parents was positively and pervasively associated with a variety of concurrent indexes of college student adjustment. Secure attachment assessed in freshman year also was positively associated with academic and emotional adjustment in junior year, although the longitudinal results were not as pervasive as the cross-sectional findings. The results supported the importance of current and past perceptions of attachment for understanding late adolescent development and adjustment.     

Walking the Walk While Thinking About the Talk: Embodied Interpretation of Metaphorical Narratives

Two sets of experiments examined people’s embodied understanding of metaphorical narratives. Participants heard one of two stories about a romantic relationship; either one that was successful or one that was not, that initially described it in metaphorical terms as “Your relationship was moving along in a good direction” or nonmetaphorical terms as “Your relationship was very important to you.” Participants were then blindfolded and attempted to accurately walk, or imagine walking, to a marker 40 feet away while they thought about the story they just heard. People who heard about the successful metaphorical story walked longer and further than those presented with the unsuccessful relationship story. But these walking and imagining differences disappeared when the critical metaphorical statement “moving along in a good direction” was replaced by a nonmetaphorical expression. These findings, and those from another set of experiments, suggest that people’s understanding of metaphorical narratives is partly based on their embodied simulations of the metaphorical actions referred to in these stories.     

A Heideggerian Phenomenology Approach to Higher Education as Workplace: A Consideration of Academic Professionalism

Heidegger’s early works provide his most important contribution to our understanding of being, while his discussion of the effects of technology on that being in his later works is one of his best known contributions. I use his phenomenological approach to understanding the workplace and then, from a range of potential applications, choose to describe the functioning of higher education as a workplace for academic professionals. Heidegger seemingly fails to offer a subtle approach to what is labouring, or to whether there is a substantive difference between labouring and working. To find such approaches I draw upon work of both Marcuse and Arendt which specifically relates to these distinctions.     

Violent Attitudes and Antisocial Behavior: Examining the Code of the Street’s Generalizability among a College Sample

Drawing on Elijah Anderson’s (1999) Code of the Street thesis, this study assesses the generalizability of street code attitudes. Using a sample of college students from a large Midwest university, the current study contributes to the literature by examining: (1) the generalizability of street code attitudes; (2) the correlates of street code attitudes, including various forms of strain; and (3) the predictive power of street code attitudes on criminal and non-criminal behavior. Our results reveal that street code attitudes are generalizable to college students, strain constructs are important correlates of street code attitudes, and street code attitudes are associated with criminal behavior. However, the effect of street code attitudes on criminal behavior becomes non-significant once measures of strain are included. Further, street code attitudes do not predict non-criminal behavior.